Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now
Theatrical release poster by Bob Peak
Directed by	Francis Coppola
Written by	John Milius Francis Coppola
Narration by	Michael Herr
Produced by	Francis Coppola
Starring	Marlon Brando Robert Duvall Martin Sheen Frederic Forrest Albert Hall Sam Bottoms Larry Fishburne Dennis Hopper
Cinematography	Vittorio Storaro
Edited by	Richard Marks Walter Murch Gerald B. Greenberg Lisa Fruchtman
Music by	Carmine Coppola Francis Coppola
Production company	Omni Zoetrope
Distributed by	United Artists
Release dates	May 19, 1979 (1979-05-19) (Cannes)[1] August 15, 1979 (1979-08-15) (United States)
Running time	147 minutes (70 mm) 153 minutes (35 mm)[2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$31 million[3]
Box office	$104.8 million[4][5]

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne and Dennis Hopper. Harrison Ford, who at the time of filming was not yet a major star, appears in a minor role.

Milius became interested in adapting Heart of Darkness for a Vietnam War setting in the late 1960s, and initially began developing the film with Coppola as producer and George Lucas as director. After Lucas became unavailable, Coppola took over directorial control, and was influenced by Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) in his approach to the material. Initially set to be a five-month shoot in the Philippines starting in March 1976, a series of problems lengthened it to over a year. These problems included expensive sets being destroyed by severe weather, Brando showing up on set overweight and completely unprepared, and Sheen having a breakdown and suffering a near-fatal heart attack on location. After photography was finally finished in May 1977, the release was postponed several times while Coppola edited over a million feet of film. Many of these difficulties are chronicled in the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991).

Apocalypse Now was honored with the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered unfinished. When it was finally released on August 15, 1979, by United Artists, it performed well at the box office, grossing over $80 million in the United States and Canada and over $100 million worldwide. Initial reviews were polarized; while Vittorio Storaro's cinematography was widely acclaimed, several critics found Coppola's handling of the story's major themes anticlimactic and intellectually disappointing. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Coppola), and Best Supporting Actor (Duvall); it went on to win Best Cinematography and Best Sound.

Apocalypse Now is today considered one of the greatest films ever made; it ranked 14th and 19th in Sight & Sound's greatest films poll in 2012 and 2022 respectively.^[6] Film critic Kyle Smith dubbed it "the greatest war movie ever made",^[7] while The Guardian called it "the best action and war film of all time."^[8] In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".