It is, and no mistake, one of surely not more than six filmgoing experiences of a whole lifetime, not to be missed for the sheer joy of it. Napoleon is a film against which all the others have to be measured, now and forever.

| May 14, 2024

[Abel Gance] is a little too determined to exploit the kinema's possibilities. He is a florid director, so that as the spiritual falls emphasis on technique rises. This is unfortunate because the technique, though grandiose, is extraordinarily haphazard.

| May 14, 2024

Smacks too much of battle scenes, badly photographed, and too little of personal activities of the little general to please us greatly.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 14, 2024

An extremely valuable addition to the list of worthwhile photoplays brought to this country from abroad. Distinctly foreign in its treatment... Napoleon should appeal to those lovers of the European cinema.

| May 14, 2024

A remarkable picture in many ways, but not one calculated to catch American attention, save as a novelty.

| May 14, 2024

[Napoleon] has been pictured by Abel Gance in a manner commensurate with its inspiring sweep and scope. In Albert Dieudonné he has found an artist who impersonates the Man of Destiny to perfection.

| May 14, 2024

One can get so tired of symbols. His mysticism is exaggerated, and the patriotic note sometimes descends to bathos... [But] Napoleon, in spite of these defects, is a wonderful spectacle.

| May 14, 2024

The scale of conception and presentation, the coherence of action in drawing room or on battlefield, the handling of great historical figures, and the detailed observation of marginal people reflected the genius and powerful imagination of [Abel Gance].

| May 14, 2024

A time-travel excursion back into the era when Cinema was spelled with a capital C.

| May 14, 2024

Here is an artist who not only dared to do the impossible -- cameras or horseback or swinging on a pendulum -- but knew how to assemble his material with rapid and multi-superimpositions to create cinematic poetry.

| May 14, 2024

Napoleon is a triumph of pure cinematic style over conventional expectations. There is no "characterization" in the usual sense, though in the title role Albert Dieudonné gives a great silent performance of looks, gestures and poses.

| May 14, 2024

If you are one of those people who have been complaining that movies aren't like they used to be, you owe it to yourself to see Napoleon and see just how right you are.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 14, 2024

Napoleon is a razzle-dazzle show of sight and sound, but it is also a marvelously told, good-humored biography of one of history's men of destiny.

| May 14, 2024

Napoleon is a masterwork of cinema at once brilliant and disturbing. It is supremely romantic hero-worship, gung-ho chauvinistic filmmaking.

| May 14, 2024

I think Gance always meant to be a prophet showing mankind the Way, but he’s a prophet only in terms of movie techniques. As a thinker, he is essentially a fantasist, a mythmaker enslaved by his own schoolboy gush.

| Sep 18, 2023

The result is a film to be enjoyed for its elaborate spectacles rather than for its interest as a dramatic summary of Napoleon's early life.

| Aug 5, 2020

Abel Gance's Napoleon is an incomparable theatrical experience. It is spectacle as only the cinema can convey it.

| Apr 27, 2018

Inspires that wonderfully satisfying theatrical experience of whole-heartedly cheering a hero and hissing villains, while also providing the uplift that comes from a real work of art.

| May 9, 2017

This magnificent piece of cinema history should be seen on the biggest screen possible.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 13, 2016

Seen on the big screen in its new digitally cleaned up version with its Carl Davis score, Abel Gance's 1927 masterpiece Napoleon is a truly startling experience.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 10, 2016