The 30 Best Napoleonic War Movies

The Napoleonic Wars are exactly what you’d expect them to be: a series of conflicts fought while Napoleon Bonaparte reigned as the Emperor of the French. This period is recognized as lasting between 1803 and 1815, and given the battles fought as part of the conflict all occurred before photography existed, it falls on things like artwork and cinema to recreate and depict such a time in history.

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30 Adieu Bonaparte, 1985

A story during the French Occupation of Egypt (1797-1803), depicting the conflict between tradition and modernization in the context of fighting the French invaders.

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29 The Terror, 1963

Separated from from his regiment during the Napoleonic wars, Lt. Andre Duvalier briefly comes across a beautiful young woman, Helene. An old woman who seems to live in the forest alone and gives him shelter tells him he is imagining things but the young woman intrigues him and he eventually follows her to Baron Victor Frederick Von Leppe’s castle. There he learns that the girl he’s seen is identical to the Baron’s late wife, Ilsa, who has been dead for 20 years. The Baron admits to having killed her when he returned unexpectedly only to find her in the arms of another man. Duvalier is convinced that the girl is real however and sets out to uncover the truth.

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28 Lines of Wellington (Linhas de Wellington), 2012

On September 27, 1810, the French troops commanded by Marshal Massena, were defeated in the Serra do Buçaco by the Anglo-Portuguese army of general Wellington. Despite the victory, Portuguese and British are forced to retreat from the enemy, numerically superior, in order to attract them to Torres Vedras, where Wellington had built fortified lines hardly surmountable. Simultaneously, the Anglo-Portuguese command organizes the evacuation of the entire territory between the battlefield and the lines of Torres Vedras, a gigantic burned land operation, which prevents the French from collecting supplies. This is the setting for the adventures of a multitude of characters from all social backgrounds – soldiers and civilians, men, women and children, young and old – to the daily routine torn by war and dragged through hills and valleys, between ruined villages, charred forests and devastated crops.Highly persecuted by the French, already tormented by an unmerciful weather, the mass of fugitives continues to move forward clenching the teeth, just to save their skin, loaded with tenacious will to resist the invaders and retreat them from their country. Or even hoping to take advantage of the disarray to satisfy their basic instincts. All of them, whatever nature or motivations – the idealistic young lieutenant Pedro De Alencar, Clarissa Warren, the malicious little English girl, the shady dealer Penabranca, the vindictive Sergeant Francisco Xavier or the lusty prostitute Martírio, all gather by different paths to the lines of Torres, where the final battle will decide the fate of each one of them.

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27 Napoleon (Napoléon), 1954

Napoléon Bonaparte’s life, loves and exceptional destiny from 1769 to 1821, but as seen through the eyes of Talleyrand, the cynical and ironic politician who once was the Emperor of France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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26 St. Ives, 1998

In 1813, Capitaine Jacques St. Ives, a Hussar in the Napoleonic wars, is captured and sent to a Scottish prison camp. He’s a swashbuckler, so the prison’s commander, Major Farquar Bolingbroke Chevening, asks for lessons in communicating with women. Both men have their eyes on the lovely Flora, who resides with her aunt, the iconoclastic and well-traveled Miss Susan Emily Gilcrist. By chance, living close to the camp is Jacques’s grandfather and brother, whom Jacques believes died years before. Jacques decides to escape, find his relatives, and win the hand of Flora; Major Chevening and an unforeseen enemy stand in his way. Can Miss Gilcrist contrive to make everything work out?

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25 Le souper, 1992

France, 1815. After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon heads for exile. Royalists occupy Paris and attempt to restore the monarchy. However, the battle doesn’t seem to be over. On July 6, Talleyrand, a shrewd politician of flexible convictions, invites chief of police and zealous revolutionary Fouché to supper and tries to convince him to serve the king. Over the meal they insult each other, accuse each other, and, at first sight, look like mortal enemies. But they definitely have one thing in common: they are both power-hungry.

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24 Union of Salvation (Союз Спасения), 2019

A group of officers of the Russian Imperial Guard prepare a revolt in December 1825, when about 3,000 officers and soldiers refused to swear allegiance to the new tsar.

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23 The Emperor of Paris (L’Empereur de Paris), 2018

Under the reign of Napoleon, François Vidocq, the only man who escaped from the greatest penal colony of the country, is a legend of the low-Parisian world. Left for dead after his last spectacular escape, the ex-penal colony prisoner tries to make a new life under the guise of a single trader.

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22 War and Peace, 1956

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

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21 Pan Tadeusz, 1999

In the early 1810s, Poles, part of Russia’s client state of Lithuania, think independence will come if they join forces with Napoleon when he invades Russia. This unity of purpose, in one district, is undermined by two families, feuding since the head of one shot the head of the other twenty years before. There are hopes of a reconciliation through a marriage of Pan Tadeusz, a Soplica, whose father, the murderer, is in hiding somewhere, and Zosia, a teen-aged girl, a Horeszko who lives in the household of Pan’s uncle. Other cross-currents – of love, family, politics, village traditions, land reform, and what it means to be Polish – give the film texture. It’s an exile’s story.

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20 Désirée, 1954

In Marseilles, France in 1794, Desiree Clary, a young millinery clerk, becomes infatuated with Napoleon Bonaparte but winds up wedding General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, an aid to Napoleon who later joins the forces that bring about the Emperor’s downfall. Joséphine de 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.

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19 The Battle of Austerlitz (Austerlitz), 1960

Another of Napoleon’s adventures in this epic reconstruction of the battle of Austerlitz, where he had the greatest victory of his career, over the Russians.

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18 Napoleon, 2023

An epic that details the chequered 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.

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17 General Suvorov (Суворов), 1940

Primarily a biographical documentary about the military career of Alexander Vasilvich Suvorov, who was Field Marshal of the armies of Catherine the Great and Czar Paul I. After many military successes during the reign of Catherine, General Suvorov broke with her successor, Paul I, the Mad Emperor, over questions regarding army policy. He went into retirement and wrote “The Science of Victory,” containing maxims such as “Swiftness of movement accompanies victory,” and “the real general is he who defeats the enemy before reaching him.” The czar recalled Suvorov to become the leader of the joint armies of Rissia and Austria against Napoleon.

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16 The Emperor’s New Clothes, 2001

In this re-imagining of the final years of Napoleon, loyalists hire a look-a-like to swap places with the deposed Emperor during his exile. While the impostor wallows in luxury on the island of St. Helena, the real Napoleon returns to Paris.

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15 Damn the Defiant! (H.M.S. Defiant), 1962

On the H.M.S. Defiant, during the French Revolutionary War, fair Captain Crawford is locked in a battle of wills against his cruel second-in-command Lieutenant Scott-Padget, whose heavy-handed command style pushes the crew to mutiny.

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14 Persuasion, 1995

Eight years ago, Anne Elliot rejected Frederick Wentworth, the man she loved, out of a sense of duty and obedience. Now an ignored and faded spinster, she follows her financially stricken family from their home, only to be reintroduced to the now successful and wealthy Captain Frederick Wentworth. With their roles reversed and Captain Wentworth the eligible and wealthy bachelor, Anne navigates the scheming society that still tries to keep them apart.

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13 Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N., 1951

In 1807, unflappable Capt. Hornblower of the British Navy is sent on a secret mission to divert Napoleon’s Spanish allies by sponsoring a megalomaniac’s Central American revolution. After a hard voyage, unexpected complications force Hornblower to revise his plans…and play reluctant host to the beautiful sister of the Duke of Wellington. Sea-battles, remarkable adventures, and a star-crossed romantic interlude follow.

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12 Colonel Chabert (Le colonel Chabert), 1994

Colonel Chabert has been severely wounded in the French-Russian Napoleonic war to the point that the medical examiner has signed his death certificate. When he regains his health and memory, he goes back to Paris, where his “widow”, Anne has married the Count Ferraud and is financing his rise to power using Chabert’s money. Chabert hires a lawyer to help him get back his money and his honor.

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11 Eskadron gusar letuchikh (Эскадрон гусар летучих), 1980

About the events of the Patriotic War of 1812, its impact on the worldview, life and work of the hussar and poet, general-lieutenant Denis Davydov.At the beginning of the war, Davydov was a lieutenant colonel in the Akhtyr hussar regiment and was in the vanguard troops of General I.V. Vasilchikov. On August 21, 1812, in the sight of the village of Borodino, where he grew up and where his parental house was hurriedly dismantled for fortifications, five days before the great battle, Denis Vasilievich offered Kutuzov the idea of his own partisan detachment, which became a model of courage and courage in battles with an insidious invader.

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10 The Ashes (Popioly), 1965

Set in the time of Napoleon wars, shows how the wars swept over the unfortunate Polish country at the beginning of the 19th century. Story revolves around the Polish legion under command of General Dabrowski, who then fought on Napoleon’s side with the hopes of Poland’s revival.

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9 Love and Death, 1975

When Napoleon threatens to invade the Russian Empire, the coward Boris Grushenko is forced to enlist to save his country. He actually captures a group of enemy officers, but the French Army is too strong and soon Napoleon reaches Moscow. Boris thinks that this should put an end to the war, but his young wife wants to murder Napoleon…

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8 The Saragossa Manuscript (Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie), 1964

Upon finding a book that relates his grandfather’s story, an officer ventures through Spain meeting a wide array of characters, most of whom have a story of their own to tell.

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7 Napoleon (Napoléon vu par Abel Gance), 1927

Director Abel Gance’s epic biopic of the life of Napoleon from his days as a schoolboy to his invasion of Italy soon after his appointment as commander-in-chief of the French army in March 1796 and the subsequent invasion of Italy. As a young lad, his talent for tactics were shown when playing a war game in the snow – with snowballs as their primary weapons. As as adult, Napoleon is deeply affected by the revolution and the chaos that results in everyday life. On his return to France from Corsica, we follow his life through his military career and his rise to power.

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6 Waterloo, 1970

June 1815. French emperor Napoleon has escaped from his exile on the island of Elba and is on the French mainland. With his former soldiers rallying around him, he now has a substantial army. From Paris he heads north to Belgium with the aim of defeating in turn the British and Prussian armies there. By knocking out these armies he can buy himself enough time to bolster his army and potentially defeat his other enemies. The French and British armies are fated to clash near a small town in Belgium, Waterloo.

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5 Gusarskaya ballada (Гусарская баллада), 1962

A young girl decides to join a Husar squadron and fight against Napoleon. Dressed as a man she has a hard time adjusting to the rude Husar life styles.

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4 Napoleon (Napoléon), 2002

A masterful soldier, tactician, and statesmen, Napoleon Bonaparte, with courage and love for his country, rises from an unpaid general consumed with ambition to the most powerful man in Europe. But his life ends with a fall and exile.

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3 The Duellists, 1977

France, 1801. Due to a minor perceived slight, mild-mannered Lieutenant d’Hubert is forced into a duel with hot-headed irrational Lieutenant Feraud. The disagreement ultimately results in scores of duels spanning several years.

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2 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, 2003

April 1805, the British Admiralty orders brilliant sailor captain ‘Lucky’ Jack Aubrey’s frigate, HMS Surprise, to hunt down the French privateer Acheron sailing to South America. Although it proves a worthy adversary, he outsmarts the Napoleonic foe, who also resorts to a last hide and deceit trick. So his able lessons to young officers and midshipmen are combined with the Royal navy’s school of hard knocks. One lieutenant struggling to assert authority causes a impudent sailor to be flogged on captain’s orders but incurs the jinx status of ‘Jonah’ with fatal result. Cultivated Aubrey’s best friend aboard is ship surgeon Stephen Maturin, whose true passion biology is hard to accommodate as the needs or war keep taking precedence, despite two passages at the mysterious Galapagos archipelago and the best efforts of their common favorite, bright and able midshipman Blakeney.

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1 War and Peace (Война и мир), 1965

Eight-hour epic based on the book of the same name by Lev Tolstoy. Two main story-lines are complex and intertwined. One is the love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov, who is unhappy in his marriage. Another is the “Great Patriotic War” of 1812 against the invading Napoleon’s Armies. The people of Russia from all classes of society stand up united against the enemy. The 500,000 strong Napoleon’s army moves through Russia and causes much destruction, culminating in the battle of Borodino. The Russian army has to retreat. Moscow is occupied, looted and burned down, but soon Napoleon loses control and has to flee. Both sides suffer tremendous losses in the war, and Russian society is left irrevocably changed.

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