ONE TO WATCH
Epoch-defining leader
Napoleon / In cinemas now and streaming later via Apple TV+
At the time of the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire, which brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power as first consul of France in 1799, the future emperor was just 30 years old. He would not live far past his 50th birthday, dying in exile on the Britishcontrolled Saint Helena, a remote Atlantic island off the coast of West Africa, in 1821.
In between these dates, Napoleon was twice emperor and, despite catastrophic failures such as the invasion of Russia in 1812 and ultimate defeat at the hands of a coalition of European powers at Waterloo in 1815, forged an enduring reputation as a brilliant, if authoritarian, politician and an innovative military leader. If that weren’t enough in itself, the story of Napoleon’s
