First trailer for Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’ starring Joaquin Phoenix

Apple Original Films and Sony Pictures have released the first trailer for Ridley Scott’s latest historical epic, Napoleon, detailing the rise and fall of French commander Napoleon Bonaparte.

Academy Award winner Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) stars as Bonaparte in Scott’s look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine, and capturing Napoleon’s famous battles, including the seizure of Egypt, his relentless ambition and strategic mind as an extraordinary military leader and war visionary.

Alongside Phoenix, Napoleon stars Vanessa Kirby as Empress Joséphine, Tahar Rahim as Paul Barras, Ben Miles as Caulaincourt, Ludivine Sagnier as Theresa Cabarrus, Matthew Needham as Lucien Bonaparte, Youssef Kerkour as Marshal Davout, Phil Cornwell as Sanson ‘The Bourreau,’ Edouard Philipponnat as Tsar Alexander, Paul Rhys as Talleyrand, John Hollingworth as Marshall Ney, Gavin Spokes as Moulins and Mark Bonnar as Jean-Andoche Junot.

The film reunites Scott with All the Money in the World writer David Scarpa and is produced by Scott, Kevin Walsh, Mark Huffam and Phoenix, with Michael Pruss and Aidan Elliott serving as executive producers.

Apple Original Films and Sony Pictures will release Napoleon exclusively in theaters on November 22 and then stream on AppleTV+ at a later date. Scott is currently shooting a sequel to his 2000 Best Picture Oscar winner Gladiator, starring Paul Mescal and Pedro Pescal, set for release next year.

Here is the first trailer for Napoleon, set to a cover of Radiohead’s “The National Anthem.”

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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