Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film set during the Vietnam War, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, and Robert Duvall. The film follows the central character, U.S. Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Sheen), of MACV-SOG, on a mission to kill the renegade and presumed insane U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Brando).
The screenplay by John Milius and Coppola came from Milius's idea of changing Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness into the Vietnam War era. It also draws from Michael Herr's Dispatches, the film version of Conrad's Lord Jim which shares the same character of Marlow with Heart of Darkness, and Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).
The film has been noted for the problems encountered while making it. These problems were chronicled in the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, which recounted the stories of Brando arriving on the set overweight and completely unprepared; costly sets being destroyed by severe weather; and its lead actor (Sheen) suffering a heart attack while on location. Problems continued after production as the release was postponed several times while Coppola edited millions of feet of footage.
Upon release, Apocalypse Now earned widespread critical acclaim and its cultural impact and philosophical themes have been extensively discussed since. It is now widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. Honored with the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, the film was also deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2000. In the Sight and Sound Greatest Films poll, the film was ranked #14.
| Directed by | Francis Ford Coppola |
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| Produced by | Francis Ford Coppola |
| Written by |
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| Based on | Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad(uncredited) |
| Starring |
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| Music by |
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| Cinematography | Vittorio Storaro |
| Edited by |
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| Production company |
Zoetrope Studios
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| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release dates |
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| Running time |
153 minutes (Theatrical)
202 minutes (Redux) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $31.5 million |
| Box office | $150 million[ |
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