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Napoléon

Original title: Napoléon vu par Abel Gance · Turkish title: Napolyon
1927 · 5 h 30 min
Directed by Abel Gance
BiographyDramaHistory

Cast

Albert Dieudonné Vladimir Roudenko Gina Manès Antonin Artaud

Credits

Written by: Abel Gance

Plot

Abel Gance's vast silent epic follows the young Napoleon Bonaparte from his boyhood at the military school of Brienne, where he leads a famous snowball fight, through the French Revolution, the siege of Toulon and the Italian campaign. The film is known for its restless camera, which is strapped to horses, swung on pendulums and carried at a run, and for its closing triptych, shown across three screens in the Polyvision process. Restored many times since its 1927 release, it is one of the most ambitious experiments in the history of silent cinema.

Sinekatalog’s take

Abel Gance's monumental silent epic follows the young Bonaparte with astonishing technique, including a triple-screen finale. Dazzling and overwhelming, it is a wild marvel of early cinema.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 8.2 / 10 (9,933 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% (68 critic reviews)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset; Rotten Tomatoes snapshot from October 2026. Scores change over time.

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