The last time Abel Gance’s nearly six-hour 1927 silent film “Napoleon” screened in New York City, it was in a truncated version — only four hours. In 1981, Francis Ford Coppola rented out Radio City Music Hall for a three-night run, but union rules that prevented staff from working late made showing a fuller version impossible.

Film scholar Kevin Brownlow was reluctant to cut it down. He’d spent decades restoring the lost classic frame by frame, after stumbling across an old reel at a local shop as a boy and becoming obsessed. But the chance to finally screen any version at all, with the star power of Coppola and Radio City behind it, was irresistible. The showing sold out eight nights at the 6,000-seat venue. VIPs from Lillian Gish to John Travolta attended.

Film Forum has fewer seats

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