Awesome Moment Of Crowning / Film

• Napoléon Bonaparte's coronation as Emperor of the French on December 2, 1804 where he took the crown from Pope Pius VII's hands to crown himself and Joséphine de Beauharnais has been recreated in 1954's Désirée (with Marlon Brando), 1955's Napoléon (with Raymond Pellegrin) and 2023's Napoleon (with Joaquin Phoenix). 1960's Austerlitz (with Pierre Mondy) is the odd one of the bunch, turning it into an Offscreen Moment of Awesome instead, with several characters gathering around a model of it and one of them narrating while it happens at the same time (the organ of Notre Dame of Paris and Napoleon's voice are heard).
• In film this dates back to 1900 and Joan of Arc, which includes the coronation of Charles VII at Reims. It's pretty awesome, with trumpeters, bishops, and anointing with oil.
• In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, for the King of the Brethren Court, Captain Elizabeth Swan.
• At the end of The Court Jester, the rightful king is finally revealed by his distinctive birthmark.
• Spoofed at the climax of Johnny English. The moment is a Funny Moment of Crowning, where Rowan Atkinson becomes the King of England.
• At the end of The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick becomes the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers when he kills the old one. At the start of the third Riddick, Riddick is crowned as the new Lord Marshal by the Necromongers after he killed Zhylaw. The Necromonger host bows down in the throne room after Riddick is fitted with his new suit of armor.
• In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, James T. Kirk is demoted from Admiral down to Captain; but then he is assigned his old and rightful job as The Captain of the Enterprise.
  • At the end of Star Trek (2009), grounded cadet Kirk's reward for saving the world is to be promoted all the way to Captain and given command of the Enterprise. Definitely Rule of Cool.
  • In a weird mishmash of tropes, this makes Kirk's fate at the end of Star Trek IV a Dethroning Moment Of Awesome and an Awesome Moment of Dethroning.
• At the end of Stardust, Tristan is the last surviving male heir, as the princes — his uncles — have all killed each other.
• Repo! The Genetic Opera has a great one during Epitaph. Rotti Largo publicly renounces all three of his children and offers GeneCo to Shilo. She turns it down. Rotti dies just minutes later. In the ensuing chaos, Rotti's daughter Amber has her brothers—both as embittered as she is by their father's rejection of them—back her as she takes control of GeneCo and becomes at a stroke the most powerful person in the country.
  "GeneCo will live on, under new management... me."
• Hilariously subverted in Ella Enchanted. Char's coronation was a setup by the Evil Chancellor, who then, once exposed, crowned himself, forgetting that he had poisoned the crown with intent to kill Char at the moment of crowning.
• Subverted in The Sword and the Sorcerer. Talon, having returned to his kingdom and slain the evil Titus Cromwell for usurping his rightful crown and killing his parents, gives the crown to the rebel leader, because it's way, way, way more fun to go riding around fighting bad guys and bedding beautiful wenches than it is ruling a kingdom.
• The Return of the King, the last movie in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, was pretty much all about getting to this moment, since Aragorn was the rightful ruler all along. And in the end of the movie, the coronation gets a good five minutes and a reunion for Aragorn and Arwen, which makes it an almost perfect Awesome Moment of Crowning.
• Mia is crowned as Queen of Genovia in the end of The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, surrounded by her subjects and loved ones in a ceremony filled with fanfare.
• At the end of Army of Darkness, Ash, a traveler from the future with pretty much no known noble blood is offered the crown of the Cliched Medieval Kingdom (did it even have a name?). Though he refuses, remember: "Hail to the King, Baby."
• Before the climax of A Knight's Tale, William is Knighted by Prince Edward, saving him from the stocks and allowing him to continue competing as a Knight.
• Inverted in Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (1944). The movie begins with a lavish, 10-minute coronation scene, complete with a New Era Speech.
• The first Star Wars movie ends with Luke and Han being awarded medals from Leia for saving the rebellion.
  • Fans have of course complained that Chewbacca was left out; in 1997, {{MTV corrected this oversight by awarding Chewie their Lifetime Achievement Award, with full fanfare and esented by Carrie Fisher.
    • It was later addressed with the line "Chewbacca would receive a medal also, but later, as few star princesses are that tall."
    • In the Marvel comic, they had to adjourn to the cafeteria, where Leia could stand on a table.
• The Dungeons & Dragons (2000) movie was supposed to end with a solemn knighting scene, but apparently they decided it wasn't terrible enough yet.
  • The same movie averts this in the finished film, as well; when Ridley gets into the treasure-filled room with the Dragon-controlling rod of something-or-other, there's a particularly awesome-looking crown in the background, which our square-jawed protagonist (as well as the movie itself) ignores completely.
• Jehnna is crowned in Conan the Destroyer after the Queen is killed. She offers Conan the chance to "rule with [her]". He declines.
• Elizabeth. Ironically, she is crowned by the man who is about to commit treason against her.
• Happens in both The Chronicles of Narnia films: at the end of the first the four Pevensie children are crowned Kings and Queens of Narnia, while in Prince Caspian Miraz is officially made King about two-thirds of the way through (Caspian's crowning occurs offscreen). The former is also a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming purely for Lucy's expression when Aslan refers to her as "Queen Lucy the Valiant."
• Spaceballs. We find out at the end of the movie that the medallion that Lone Starr has been wearing all this time and couldn't decipher that it says he's of royal blood. Hurry! We gotta crash Princess Vespa's wedding, to announce my love and that I can marry her instead!
• Done comically in The Great Race as Professor Fate, impersonating the prince, is at the coronation. His lackey (who's snuck in under the long cape Fate wears) whispers that the jig is up, so Fate stands up into the crown held over him, and abruptly departs. After a massive pie fight, the real prince finds the crown in a trash can and puts it on, chirping "Ah, there it is!"
• Subverted in Chimes at Midnight, Orson Welles's adaptation of Henry IV. Henry IV dies and Prince Hal picks the crown up, delivering a monologue as he begins to put it on his head — cue Smash Cut to Falstaff engaged in revelling, about to hear the news that the king is dead and that his beloved Prince Hal is now King.
• Maleficent: Stefan in the beginning, Aurora in the end. Maleficent as well. The creatures of the Moors were terrified when she sits on the throne.
• In Godzilla (2014), after Godzilla’s triumph against the Mutos, the American media bestows the well-earned title of "King Of The Monsters" upon him.
  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Ghidorah defeats Godzilla and becomes the new King of the Monsters, with the Titans obeying him. After Godzilla finally defeats Ghidorah in a rematch, all the Titans, Rodan included, bow to him as Godzilla roars in triumph.
  • Ghidorah’s own crowning is an inversion of this: While it looks awesome, it’s the humans’ and heroic Titans’ Darkest Hour. Ghidorah is depicted rearing back and roaring from atop Rodan’s volcano, necks stretching to the sky and bat-like wings spread wide, as the smoke from the eruption below mixes with his hurricane above. A cross from a church steeple in the village below looms in the foreground: A nod to how, historically, crosses would be placed near volcanoes because they were thought to be portals to hell.
  • Godzilla vs. Kong: Kong enters the Hollow Earth and finds a massive throne-like structure used by his ancestors. He sits on it while raising his axe like a royal scepter, as he earns the right to be called King Kong.
• The Knowledge: When Chris passes the legendarily difficult exam faced by London taxi drivers, he muses that there was no fanfare of trumpets, no choir of angels, nothing: just a brusque demand for 15p for his much-coveted Green Badge.
• Pee-wee's Big Adventure opens with him winning the Tour De France. At a ceremony he giddily anticipates being crowned, then finds it's All Just a Dream.
• The Merry Widow ends with the lavish coronation ceremony of Danilo and Sally as king and queen of Monteblanco. Originally, the sequence was shot in Technicolor, but that version has unfortunately been lost.
• The Jurassic Park franchise notably does this for the Tyrannosaurus rex of Isla Nublar:
  • In one of the most iconic scenes of the original film, Rexy — after throwing the last Velociraptor into the T. rex skeleton — turns around and roars in triumph while the "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth'' banner falls down as if it's a crown bestowed upon her.
  • A variant occurs at the end of Jurassic World. After the Big Bad of the film is defeated and the park is once again abandoned, Rexy stands atop the highest heliport and gives a Mighty Roar. This has been unanimously interpreted as the old queen reclaiming her kingdom. The accompanying music helps.
• In Aquaman (2018), Arthur gets the traditional scenario after besting Orm in combat for all of the kingdoms to see, but his true moment of crowning occurred earlier when he first grasped the Trident of Atlan, as being able to wield the weapon makes Arthur King of the Sea by providence.
• Inverted with Thorin in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies as dressing the part of a king only serves how his gold sickness is growing. As Dwalin points out, this "kingly" Thorin is far lower than the common man he once was before he started this quest. It's only when Thorin takes off his crown and returns as the great leader and warrior they knew him as and highly respected as that he is truly a king worth following.
• Subverted in Black Adam (2022). After defeating the villain and making peace with the heroes, Adam sits on the throne of Kahndaq as people on the streets cheer for him. But when asked how it feels, Adam replies "Wrong". Then he destroys the throne, stating that he will be a protector of his people, not their ruler.

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