Joaquin Phoenix Rides the Revolution to the Throne in ‘Napoleon’ Trailer

Joaquin Phoenix’s Napoleon Bonaparte can’t fail in the trailer for Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. The leader’s relentless sequence of wins brought him the highest praise as a military commander, which eventually carried him straight to the throne as the Emperor of the French in 1804. But alongside all those successes, he was also stockpiling the chips on his shoulder. “I’m the first to admit when I make a mistake,” he states in the clip. “I simply never do.”

In theaters Nov. 22, Napoleon captures the ego and arrogance of one of history’s most notable figures both in battle and behind closed doors. At one moment in the clip, his empress Joséphine, portrayed by Vanessa Kirby, spells it out more clearly for him: “You think you’re grand. You are just a tiny little crute that is nothing without me.”

The battle sequences in the preview depict blood and bodies plunging into freezing ice, all-consuming fires blazing, and soldiers riding into battle at the command of a man who believed he was destined for greatness. The film’s tagline reads: “He came from nothing. He conquered everything.”

Napoleon marks Scott’s latest film since 2021′s The Last Duel and House of Gucci. His first film, 1977’s The Duellists, also took place in France during the Napoleonic Wars, but this is his first time taking a shot at the man himself. Phoenix earned his first Oscar nomination for his role in Gladiator, which Scott directed more than 20 years ago.

During the process of creating Napoleon, the 85-year-old director molded the film directly around Phoenix. “Joaquin is about as far from conventional as you can get. Not deliberately but out of intuition. That’s what makes him tick. If something bothers him, he’ll let you know. He made [Napoleon] special by constantly questioning,” Scott told Empire last year. “With Joaquin, we can rewrite the goddamn film because he’s uncomfortable. And that kind of happened with Napoleon. We unpicked the film to help him focus on who Bonaparte was. I had to respect that, because what was being said was incredibly constructive. It made it all grow bigger and better.”