Best movies like Mlle. Desiree

Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia including his disastrous 1812 invasion serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797. Originally intended to be the first of six films, director Abel Gance realized the full project would be nigh impossible, and never raised the money to complete the other five. The film's legendary reputation is due to the astonishing range of techniques that Gance uses to tell his story, culminating in the final twenty-minute triptych sequence, which alternates widescreen panoramas with complex multiple- image montages projected simultaneously on three screens.

The film follows the life of Napoleon from his early life in Corsica to his death at Saint Helena. The film is notable for its use of location shooting for numerous scenes, especially at the French estates of Malmaison and Fontainebleau, the Palace of Versailles, and sites of Napoleonic battles including Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Twenty Four year-old Corsican refugee Napoleon Bonaparte is a lowly artillery captain in the French army at the siege of Toulon. Destitute and relying on his success in the new and dangerous revolutionary society, his mother and siblings become embroiled in Napoleon's struggle. The opponents are the English but the enemy are the revolutionaries authorities who seek to keep him in his place. Using his astonishing tactical mind, his sheer audacity and extraordinary military bravery, Napoleon emerges victorious and sets out on a path that would one day lead him to the throne of France.

A personal look at the French military leader’s origins and swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of Napoleon’s addictive, volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine.

Elba island, 1814. Martino is a young teacher, idealist and strongly anti Napoleon, in love with the beautiful and noble Baroness Emily. The young man finds himself serving as librarian to the Great Emperor in exile, whom he deeply hates, yet soon begins recording Napoleon's memoirs, getting to know and learning to value the man behind the myth. Among seductions and affairs, expectations and fears, he will craft a precise portrait that nevertheless will not manage to hide a final, inevitable, disappointment.

Lavishly told story of George Bryan Brummel, a commoner born in the era of Napoleon who uses wit, brilliance and sartorial flair to align himself with the future King George IV. Lush settings in authentic locations and Taylor in Regency …

When Colonel Chabert returns from the war, he discovers that he has lost everything.

A polish countess dispatched by her country to become Napoleon Bonaparte's mistress at the urging of Polish leaders, who feel she might influence him to make Poland independent.

After greedy men have Edmound Dantes unjustly imprisoned for 20 years for innocently delivering a letter entrusted to him, he escapes to revenge himself on them.

Edmond Dantés's life and plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes are shattered when his best friend, Fernand, deceives him. After spending 13 miserable years in prison, Dantés escapes with the help of a fellow inmate and plots his revenge, cleverly insinuating himself into the French nobility.

In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.

In Charenton Asylum, the Marquis de Sade directs a play about Jean Paul Marat's death, using the patients as actors. Based on 'The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss.

The story of the rise of the Rothschild financial empire founded by Mayer Rothschild and continued by his five sons. From humble beginnings the business grows and helps to finance the war against Napoleon, but it's not always easy, especially because of the prejudices against Jews.

Catherine Hubscher, who washes the shirts of young Napoleon and other soldiers fighting the Revolution, falls in love with Sergeant Lefebvre. Circumstances bring Lefebvre a noble title and even more -- Napoleon decides to make him the local ruler over a large territorial fiefdom. But trouble brews when Madame Sans-Gene, now elevated to the nobility along with her man -- cannot keep her frank observations under control.

In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.

During the Napoleonic Wars, when the French have occupied Spain, some Spanish guerrilla soldiers are going to move a big cannon across Spain in order to help the British defeat the French. A British officer is there to accompany the Spanish and along the way, he falls in love with the leader's girl.

Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.

In Marseilles, France in 1794, Desiree Clary, a young millinery clerk, becomes infatuated with Napoleon Bonaparte, but winds up wedding Genaral Jean-Baptiste Berandotte, an aid to Napoleon who later joins the forces that bring about the Emperor's downfall. Josephine Beauharnais, a worldly courtesan marries Napoleon and becomes Empress of France, but is then cast aside by her spouse when she proves unable to produce an heir to the throne.

The film is a 125-minute, black-and-white biography of French priest and diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), who served for 50 years under five different French regimes: the Absolute Monarchy, the Revolution, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Constitutional Monarchy. Its title comes from one of the main historical nicknames for Talleyrand, that he shares with demon king Asmodeus and English poet Lord Byron.

Napoleon, exiled, devises a plan to retake the throne. He'll swap places with commoner Eugene Lenormand, sneak into Paris, then Lenormand will reveal himself and Napoleon will regain his throne. Things don't go at all well; first, the journey proves more difficult than expected, but more disastrously, Lenormand enjoys himself too much to reveal the deception. Napoleon adjusts somewhat uneasily to the life of a commoner while waiting, while Lenormand gorges on rich food.

This film covers the last years of the Emperor's life, imprisoned by the British on St Helena, a remote island off the west coast of Africa. Napoleon retains a loyal entourage of officers who help him plot his escape and evade the attentions of the island's overzealous governor, Sir Hudson Lowe.

The Adventures of Cadet Rousselle that on the French Revolution left his hometown in search of fortune. He thinks he knows love with Violeta, a dancer in a band of comedians but ends up involved in a monarchist plot.

Norfolk, England, 1770. The nephew of an innkeeper and the son of a reverend maintain a very close friendship until, after living a great adventure, they must separate their paths. The former will head his footsteps to London and bound his destiny to Lloyd's, a thriving insurance company; the latter will eventually become one of the greatest heroes in the history of the British Empire.

A French washerwoman becomes a duchess and a friend of Napoleon.

In 1813, Capitaine Jacques St. Ives, a Hussar in the Napoleonic wars, is captured and sent to a Scottish prison camp. He's a swashbuckler, so the prison's commander, Major Farquar Bolingbroke Chevening, asks for lessons in communicating with women. Both men have their eyes on the lovely Flora, who resides with her aunt, the iconoclastic and well-traveled Miss Susan Emily Gilcrist. By chance, living close to the camp is Jacques's grandfather and brother, whom Jacques believes died years before. Jacques decides to escape, find his relatives, and win the hand of Flora; Major Chevening and an unforeseen enemy stand in his way. Can Miss Gilcrist contrive to make everything work out?

France, 1815. After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon heads for exile. Royalists occupy Paris and attempt to restore the monarchy. However, the battle doesn't seem to be over. On July 6, Talleyrand, a shrewd politician of flexible convictions, invites chief of police and zealous revolutionary Fouché to supper and tries to convince him to serve the king. Over the meal they insult each other, accuse each other, and, at first sight, look like mortal enemies. But they definitely have one thing in common: they are both power-hungry.

The story of the seven pearls of the English Crown, from Henry VIII to 1937; three of them missing.

1815. A soldier becomes the governor of St. Helena and jailer of Napoleon

Deals with the ordeals of a crude washerwoman in the chic court of Napoleon the First. Based on the play of the same name.

Hosted by Orson Welles, this documentary utilizes a grab bag of dramatized scenes, stock footage, TV news clips and interviews to ask: Did 16th century French astrologer and physician Nostradamus actually predict such events as the fall of King Louis XVI, the rise of Napoleon, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? And are there prophecies that have yet to come true?

A grand and patriotic tale of Poland's struggle for freedom just before Napoleon's war with Russia. Written in poetic style by Adam Mickiewicz, this story follows two feuding Polish families as they overcome their old conflicts and petty lives. However, they are able to unite as one with their patriotic and rebellious efforts to free the country they deeply love from Russian control.

This big-budget historical epic from acclaimed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine features a crazed turn by Patrice Chereau as Napoleon Bonaparte. The film, an Egyptian-French co-production, deals with Napoleon's occupation of Alexandria and its effect on a typical Egyptian family. Michel Piccoli leads the cast as a general in Napoleon's army who tentatively befriends a local poet.

Nina Maria Azara is the beautiful and alluring singing spy for Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. Her mission is to seduce French Officers, in order for them to reveal Napolean's intentions toward Spain. She is sent to Bayonne, France to gather military secrets. Prior to this, she meets, Don Diego while performing at a club. Unknown to her, Don Diego is actually Captain Andre, who is sent to Spain to spy on her. While in France, Nina discovers Diego's true identity, only after she has fallen in love with him. Nina Maria outwits her potential captors and returns to Spain, and goes into hiding. Napoleon's troops invade Spain, resulting in Nina's capture. In a strange twist of fate, Nina and Captain Andre are reunited, but, the 2 nations are now at war... Written by Kelly

May 5, 1821. Napoleon Bonaparte, deposed emperor exiled on the island of St. Helena, is about to take his last breath. The son of a Corsican family, he has been close to death on many occasions since, as a young captain in the revolutionary army, he seized Toulon from the royalists in 1793.