Napoleon Crosses the Alps: The Road to Marengo (2024)

Napoleon’s James Bond

Charles Louis Schulmeister (1770-1853) was a smuggler and a revolutionary, but also a chief of police and Napoleon Bonaparte's favorite spy. A look back on his adventurous life with the purpose of unraveling the many mysteries of his unique path.

Napoleon's Marshals, Ranked

In 1804 Napoleon created 18 'Marshals of the Empire', to serve as the senior officers of the Grande Armée. He created a further 8 before his abdication in 1814. A few were aristocrats, but others were the sons of shopkeepers or tailors. The most favoured became princes and kings. Among their ranks were legendary figures such as Marshals Lannes, Ney, Soult, Davout and Masséna, but also less well know figures like Pérignon, Brune and Moncey. Our series explores the lives of all 26 Marshals, and ranks them according to our own judgement of their achievements as Marshals.

Napoleon: Destiny and Death

May 5, 1821. Napoleon Bonaparte, deposed emperor exiled on the island of St. Helena, is about to take his last breath. The son of a Corsican family, he has been close to death on many occasions since, as a young captain in the revolutionary army, he seized Toulon from the royalists in 1793.

Napoleon 1812 - The Road to Moscow

It was to be Napoleon Bonaparte's greatest adventure; an invasion of Russia with an army of more than 650,000 men, the largest the world had yet seen. The Emperor's irresistible progress into the vast Russian interior saw many brutal conflicts including the Battle of Borodino, one of the bloodiest day's fighting in military history. Napoleon would not be defeated in battle but by Russian guile and the savages of winter snows. To this day the infamous retreat from Moscow epitomises the suffering of ordinary soldiers. This documentary is a powerful record of one of history's greatest military disasters, and features period imagery, dramatised "eye-witness" accounts, expert analysis, and extensive footage from the Oscar-winning Russian film "War and Peace".

The Arc de Triomphe: A Nation's Passion

The pride of Napoleon's victories, the Arc de Triomphe, whose first stone was laid in 1806 at the top of the Champs-Élysées, is, along with the Eiffel Tower, one of the most visited monuments in the French capital. Wanted by an emperor, inaugurated under the reign of a king (Louis-Philippe) and sanctuarized by the Republic, this patriotic temple polarizes the passions of a whole nation. A historical portrait before "packaging", which teems with anecdotes and unsuspected details.

Napoleon: In the Name of Art

The documentary tells how Bonaparte's passion - sometimes Bonaparte's obsession - for art and knowledge, has changed the face of modern culture: from the birth of schools, libraries and public museums (including Brera and the Louvre) to foundation of Egyptology thanks to the Egyptian campaign, from the extraordinary archaeological discoveries to the looting of works of art, up to the paintings and sculptures dedicated to him. We will enter the mind of Napoleon and his literary predilections, his psychology, his immoderate passion for self-affirmation, which so much inspired men of power, intellectuals, dictators over the following centuries.

Le trésor de guerre de Napoléon

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Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Friedland 1807

Napoleon brings his war against Russia and Prussia to an end with victory at Friedland, leading to the famous Tilsit conference, after which Napoleon stood at the peak of his power.

Napoleon's First Victory: The Siege of Toulon 1793

It was during this siege that young Napoleon Bonaparte first won fame and promotion when his plan, involving the capture of fortifications above the harbour, was credited with forcing the city to capitulate and the Anglo-Spanish fleet to withdraw.

Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Austerlitz 1805

First engagement of the War of the Third Coalition and one of Napoleon’s greatest victories at Austerlitz in 1805.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Edmond Dantés's life and plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes are shattered when his best friend, Fernand, deceives him. After spending 13 miserable years in prison, Dantés escapes with the help of a fellow inmate and plots his revenge, cleverly insinuating himself into the French nobility.

Kolberg

During Napoleon's victorious campaign in Germany, the city of Kolberg gets isolated from the retreating Prussian forces. The population of Kolberg refuses to capitulate and organizes the resistance against the French army, which immediately submits the city to massive bombardments.

Pan Tadeusz

A grand and patriotic tale of Poland's struggle for freedom just before Napoleon's war with Russia. Written in poetic style by Adam Mickiewicz, this story follows two feuding Polish families as they overcome their old conflicts and petty lives. However, they are able to unite as one with their patriotic and rebellious efforts to free the country they deeply love from Russian control.

Goya's Ghosts

Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her family turns to him, hoping that his connection with fanatical Inquisitor Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure her release.

Love and Death

In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.

War and Peace

Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia including his disastrous 1812 invasion serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.

The Pride and the Passion

During the Napoleonic Wars, when the French have occupied Spain, some Spanish guerrilla soldiers are going to move a big cannon across Spain in order to help the British defeat the French. A British officer is there to accompany the Spanish and along the way, he falls in love with the leader's girl.

Napoleon and Me

Elba island, 1814. Martino is a young teacher, idealist and strongly anti Napoleon, in love with the beautiful and noble Baroness Emily. The young man finds himself serving as librarian to the Great Emperor in exile, whom he deeply hates, yet soon begins recording Napoleon's memoirs, getting to know and learning to value the man behind the myth. Among seductions and affairs, expectations and fears, he will craft a precise portrait that nevertheless will not manage to hide a final, inevitable, disappointment.

Napoleon

An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Bill and Ted are high school buddies starting a band. They are also about to fail their history class—which means Ted would be sent to military school—but receive help from Rufus, a traveller from a future where their band is the foundation for a perfect society. With the use of Rufus' time machine, Bill and Ted travel to various points in history, returning with important figures to help them complete their final history presentation.

Conquest

A Polish countess is dispatched by her country to become Napoleon Bonaparte's mistress at the urging of Polish leaders, who feel she might influence him to support Polish independence.

Napoleon

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

Madame Sans-Gêne

A French washerwoman becomes a duchess and a friend of Napoleon.

The Firefly

Nina Maria Azara is the beautiful and alluring singing spy for Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. Her mission is to seduce French officers, in order for them to reveal Napoleon's intentions toward Spain. She is sent to Bayonne, France to gather military secrets. Prior to this, she meets Don Diego while performing at a club. Unknown to her, Don Diego is actually Captain Andre, who is sent to Spain to spy on her. While in France, Nina discovers Diego's true identity, only after she has fallen in love with him. Nina Maria outwits her potential captors, returns to Spain and goes into hiding. Napoleon's troops invade Spain, resulting in Nina's capture. In a strange twist of fate, Nina and Captain Andre are reunited, but the 2 nations are now at war...

Napoleon: The Ticket

Follow Napoleon Bonaparte, everyone’s favorite vertically challenged dictator, as he learns to interact with the modern day world. When his trusty stead gets a parking ticket, Napoleon is forced to come to grips with his new stature in society.

Passion in the Desert

Young French officer Augustin Robert escorts artist Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis to Egypt during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. Napoleon sent de Paradis to record Egypt's great monuments and temples that are destroyed by French soldiers in acts of barbarism. During combat, Augustin and Jean-Michel are separated from their regiment, and they start wandering through the desert fighting for their life. In one of the canyons Augustin meets a leopard he names Simoom and a strange bond between them appears.

Child's Play

A neighborhood boy might have the solution to his problems, though. For two silver candlesticks, he promises to give Conrad a rare, vicious, growling and cunning animal with supernatural abilities, which supposedly was coveted in the past by Egyptian pharaohs, Borneo pirates and even Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Eventually the trade is made, Conrad gets the creature.

Time Bandits

Young history buff Kevin can scarcely believe it when six dwarfs emerge from his closet one night. Former employees of the Supreme Being, they've purloined a map charting all of the holes in the fabric of time and are using it to steal treasures from different historical eras. Taking Kevin with them, they variously drop in on Napoleon, Robin Hood and King Agamemnon before the Supreme Being catches up with them.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Napoleon, exiled, devises a plan to retake the throne. He'll swap places with commoner Eugene Lenormand, sneak into Paris, then Lenormand will reveal himself and Napoleon will regain his throne. Things don't go at all well; first, the journey proves more difficult than expected, but more disastrously, Lenormand enjoys himself too much to reveal the deception. Napoleon adjusts somewhat uneasily to the life of a commoner while waiting, while Lenormand gorges on rich food.

Napoleon

The film follows the life of Napoleon from his early life in Corsica to his death at Saint Helena. The film is notable for its use of location shooting for numerous scenes, especially at the French estates of Malmaison and Fontainebleau, the Palace of Versailles, and sites of Napoleonic battles including Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Désirée

In Marseilles, France in 1794, Desiree Clary, a young millinery clerk, becomes infatuated with Napoleon Bonaparte, but winds up wedding Genaral Jean-Baptiste Berandotte, an aid to Napoleon who later joins the forces that bring about the Emperor's downfall. Josephine Beauharnais, a worldly courtesan marries Napoleon and becomes Empress of France, but is then cast aside by her spouse when she proves unable to produce an heir to the throne.

The Count of Monte Cristo

After greedy men have Edmound Dantes unjustly imprisoned for 20 years for innocently delivering a letter entrusted to him, he escapes to revenge himself on them.

The Battle of Austerlitz

Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.

Monsieur N.

This film covers the last years of the Emperor's life, imprisoned by the British on St Helena, a remote island off the west coast of Africa. Napoleon retains a loyal entourage of officers who help him plot his escape and evade the attentions of the island's overzealous governor, Sir Hudson Lowe.

Hauptmann Florian von der Mühle

This story of the miller Florian, who gave all his money to the war against Napoleon, is loosely based on a true story. After the war, Florian's reimbursement is challenged, and he must also pay taxes on his destroyed mill. He resists the tax collectors and takes off to Vienna, where he intends to defend his rights. On the way, he rescues the Duchess of Guastalla from assault. She also wants to go to Vienna, as His Majesty Franz II is trying to contest an heir in her favor. With cunning, luck, and dagger, Florian fights his way through a slew of nobility and their secret police.

Waterloo

After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.

Interview Between Napoleon and the Pope

This reconstruction refers to a meeting that allegedly took place on 25 November 1804 at Fontainebleau between Pope Pius VII and Napoleon to discuss the coronation.

Lupin the Third: Napoleon's Dictionary

The secret of the Lupin family treasure is out: its location is written inside a dictionary once owned by Napoleon Bonaparte himself! When the dictionary turns up as the prize for a historic motor car race, the notorious Lupin the Third and his criminal cadre race the world's superpowers to win - or steal - the Dictionary and unearth his grandfather's legacy of riches!

De boezemvriend

In 1811, hilarity ensues when a corrupt Dutch colonel mistakes a quack dentist for one of Napoleon's inspectors general.

Waterloo: The Last Battle

This is the thrilling tale of one of the most famous battles in history. Hour by hour and often minute by minute, Waterloo describes the battle's twists and turns. Based on the written testimonies of actual combatants, Waterloo describes, without romanticising, the experience of battle, the hopes, fears, suffering, and death.

Suez

Ferdinand de Lesseps, disappointed in love, is sent as a junior diplomat to the Isthmus of Suez, and realizes it's just the place for a canal.

The Mad Empress

The Mad Empress is a 1939 American historical drama film depicting the 3-year reign of Maximilian I of Mexico and his struggles against Benito Juarez.

Napoléon (Director's cut)

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Adieu Bonaparte

This big-budget historical epic from acclaimed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine features a crazed turn by Patrice Chereau as Napoleon Bonaparte. The film, an Egyptian-French co-production, deals with Napoleon's occupation of Alexandria and its effect on a typical Egyptian family. Michel Piccoli leads the cast as a general in Napoleon's army who tentatively befriends a local poet.

Madame

Catherine Hubscher, who washes the shirts of young Napoleon and other soldiers fighting the Revolution, falls in love with Sergeant Lefebvre. Circumstances bring Lefebvre a noble title and even more -- Napoleon decides to make him the local ruler over a large territorial fiefdom. But trouble brews when Madame Sans-Gene, now elevated to the nobility along with her man -- cannot keep her frank observations under control.

Hearts Divided

Napoleon Bonaparte's younger brother, visiting the United States, falls madly in love with a young woman he meets in Baltimore.

Devil-May-Care

A follower of Napoleon escapes the firing squad, flees to a woman's bedroom and winds up butler.

Napoleon Bunny-Part

Bugs takes a wrong turn off the Hollywood freeway and tunnels into the headquarters of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Killing$ of Tony Blair

The story of Tony Blair's destruction of the Labour Party, his well-remunerated business interests, and the thousands of innocent people who have died following his decision to invade Iraq.

The Lazar Tape

In 1989, Bob Lazar came forward with an incredible story: He had been recruited by the US government to work at the top secret Groom Lake/Area 51 research base better known as "Dreamland" (actually at the S4 site, Papoose Lake which is a few miles to the south of Groom Lake) to reverse engineer alien spacecraft!