En 1809, pendant la période du Premier Empire. Le capitaine Charles-Grégoire Neuville, fringant hussard, demande la main de Pauline Beaugrand, une jeune fille de bonne famille habitant un château dans une petite ville de Bourgogne, et reçoit un accord enthousiaste des parents. Mais alors que tout le monde se réjouit, il reçoit soudain l'ordre de partir immédiatement au combat, l'offensive contre les Autrichiens a commencé. Sur le point de partir, du haut de son cheval, il promet à Pauline de lui écrire une lettre tous les jours.
An epic set in the time starting with the Battle of Bussaco till the retreat of French Marshal Masséna from the Lines of Torres Vedras constructed by the order of the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War (1810).
In 1812, on the eve of the decisive battle of Borodino, a French secret agent steals a battle plan of the Russian troops. This fact is known to General Kutuzov, thanks to a young nobleman named Alexey Tarusov. Tarusov joins a regiment of Russian lancers, and finds new friends and together they have many adventures...
The story continues from where Sharpe's Challenge left off. On their way home to England, Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean) and Patrick Harper (Daragh O'Malley) reluctantly agree to escort Marie-Angelique Bonnet (Beatrice Rosen) to the hill fort of Kalimgong, where her fiancé, Major Joubert (Pascal Langdale), is stationed. They encounter a baggage train heading to Madras, made up of soldiers from the King's and the East India Company's armies, commanded by the young Ensign Beauclere (Luke Ward-Wilkinson), engineer Major Tredinnick (David Robb), and Subedar Pillai (Rajesh Khattar). Included in the train is a redcoat prisoner named Barabbas (Amit Behl), an Indian princess (Nandana Sen) and her retinue, and Tredinnick's pregnant wife (Caroline Carver). When the train is attacked by forces of the bandit Chitu, the Subedar is wounded. They are saved by the timely arrival of Colonel Dragomirov (Velibor Topic) and his cavalry squadron. With no one more qualified, Sharpe is forced to take command.
In 1792, Spain reels amid the turmoil and upheaval of the French Revolution. Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgård) is a renowned painter, who, among others, does portraits for the royal family as the Official Court Painter to the King and Queen.
The film starts with a flashback to 1803 in India, where Sergeant Sharpe (Sean Bean) leads a patrol to an East India Company outpost. He arrives shortly before another supposedly friendly group of soldiers led by Major William Dodd (Toby Stephens). In a treacherous surprise attack, Dodd's men kill the entire garrison, leaving no witnesses, and makes off with the payroll. However, Sharpe is only wounded and manages to survive by pretending to be dead.
Wilhelm Grimm (Matt Damon) and Jakob Grimm (Heath Ledger) arrive in French-occupied Germany during the early 1800s. They go to Karlstadt to rid the town of a witch's ghost. After killing the "ghost", it is revealed that the Brothers Grimm have actually set up a fake witch to trick the town. Afterwards, as they are celebrating, Italian torturer Mercurio Cavaldi (Peter Stormare) takes them to the French General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce). Delatombe forces them to solve a mystery: The girls of the small village of Marbaden are disappearing, and the villagers are convinced that supernatural beings are responsible. The Grimms are charged with finding who is responsible, and they soon discover that it is the work of a real supernatural force: a beautiful, yet evil, 500-year-old Thuringian Queen (Monica Bellucci) stealing young girls to restore her own beauty. Will and Jake have a complicated relationship; Jake is the smaller, younger, more sensitive one that Will feels he needs to protect. Will is often very hard on Jake (dating all the way back to their childhood, when Jake spent their money that was to be used for medicine for their dying sister on "magic beans") and orders him around. Will is somewhat of a womanizer and wants to make money, whereas Jake is more interested in fairy tales and adventures. Jake feels that Will doesn't care about or believe in him; but Will is just frustrated about the way Jake acts so spontaneously, making it hard for Will to protect him.
1802, London. The mysterious Lord Steyne (Gabriel Byrne) goes to a painter's studio where he has agreed to buy a painting of a young woman. The young Rebecca "Becky" Sharp (Angelica Mandy), then a girl of ten, insists on having ten guineas, instead of four guineas, as the price of the painting. The painter explains that the model in the painting is Becky's mother, the painter's late wife. Steyne agrees to pay the higher amount and leaves with the painting. The young Becky is seen moving to Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies after her father's death.
Après la défaite de Waterloo, les Anglais exilent Napoléon Bonaparte à Sainte-Hélène, île minuscule perdue au milieu de l'Océan Atlantique. C'est ainsi que l’Empereur déchu, qui a eu l'Europe à ses pieds, se retrouve étouffé dans un lieu au climat hostile, où il devra rester jusqu'à sa mort. C’est là qu’il dicte ses mémoires et se construit son mythe.
The film takes place in May of 1805, during the Napoleonic Wars. Captain "Lucky Jack" Aubrey of HMS Surprise is ordered to pursue the French privateer Acheron, and "Sink, Burn, or take her as a Prize." As the film opens, the British warship is ambushed by Acheron; Surprise is heavily damaged, while its own cannon fire does not penetrate the enemy ship's hull. Using smaller boats, the crew of Surprise tow the ship into a fog bank and evade pursuit. Aubrey learns from a crewman who saw Acheron being built that it is heavier and faster than Surprise, and the senior officers consider the ship out of their class. Aubrey notes that such a ship could tip the balance of power in Napoleon's favour if allowed to plunder the British whaling fleet at will. He orders pursuit of Acheron, rather than returning to port for repairs. Acheron again ambushes Surprise, but Aubrey slips away in the night by using a clever decoy buoy and ships lamps.
In 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte (Holm), after six years in exile on the isle of St. Helena, has a plan to escape. Switching places with lowly French deckhand Eugene Lenormand (Holm again), Napoleon will make his way to Paris, at which time Eugene will announce the switch, allowing Napoleon to reclaim his throne.
Pan Tadeusz is told in flashbacks as the author, Adam Mickiewicz, reads his work to a group of elderly exiles in Paris. The story takes place over the course of five days in 1811 and one day in 1812 in rolling landscapes of Lithuania inhabited by Poles whose homeland has been recently partitioned among Russia, the Austrian Empire and Prussia. Not far off in history looms Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the prospect of which heartens Poles yearning for liberation. But more immediately, the characters in Pan Tadeusz are feuding among themselves.
A dashing French Army officer, capitaine Jacques de Keroual de Saint-Yves, is captured by the British during the Napoleonic Wars and sent to a Scottish prison camp. There he falls for a local girl, befriends the commanding officer, and discovers a surprising secret about his long-lost grandfather.