Release date: November 22, 2023 (USA)
Director: Ridley Scott
Budget: $130–200 million
Distributed by: Apple TV+, Columbia Pictures
Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski
Music by: Martin Phipps
Ridley Scott returns to the old-world battlefields and feudal intrigue of his Oscar-winning Gladiator with a decades-spanning biopic of the French tactician who conquered half of Europe. As a historical epic, Napoleon is handsome but a little impersonal – you can really feel the absence of texture lost in getting it down under three hours. But between the textbook bullet points, a very funny anti-Great Man biopic peeks through, thanks largely to Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as a Bonaparte who’s more boy than man.
