Napoleon is in theaters November 22.
Photo: Apple Original Films/Columbia Pictures
Recreating Napoleon’s Biggest, Baddest Trap
In Ridley Scott’s blockbuster about the French sovereign, no battle is too crazy to pull off.
November 21, 2021
Napoleon Bonaparte became the ruler of France at age 30, conquered most of Europe before he was 40, and died in exile at 51. It’s the sort of life that seems like it would make a pretty good movie — yet every modern attempt has either stunk (1954’s Désirée, 1970’s Waterloo) or fallen apart before cameras rolled (Stanley Kubrick’s unmade biopic). That makes Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, a $200 million, 157-minute epic starring Joaquin Phoenix, by default the definitive film about the French emperor.