Napoleon, directed by Gladiator鈥檚 Ridley Scott and starring Joaquin Phoenix, is hitting cinemas on Wednesday 22 November. The new historical biopic chronicles the story of Napoleon Bonaparte, France's famous military general who climbed his way to the top, becoming the nation鈥檚 Emperor in 1804.
Scott鈥檚 latest movie has already received an array of criticism, ranging from pointing out factual inaccuracies to . But the jury鈥檚 still out on how it will perform in ticket sales. With this in mind, the following chart provides some insight into the most successful movies of the genre, at least in terms of worldwide box office revenue.
According to by Box Office Mojo and compiled by Shawn S. Lealos and Stephen Barker of , the movie arguably best received, according to this metric, is Oppenheimer, which came out in cinemas earlier this year. Based on the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is sometimes called the 鈥渇ather of the atomic bomb鈥, the movie brought in just over $950 million in revenue. In second place comes Bohemian Rhapsody, a tale of Queen鈥檚 lead singer Freddie Mercury, having pulled in roughly $911 million. In rank 3 comes American Sniper, a story about U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle who was one of the deadliest snipers in history, with a global box office revenue of around $548 million.
