Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

Capping director Francis Ford Coppola's golden decade (after, amongst others, The Godfather I and II and The Conversation), Apocalypse Now is his hallucinogenic Vietnam War epic following Martin Sheen's mission to terminate Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz. Co-stars Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper. Winner of multiple awards, including the Palme d'Or, the film is also famed for its intense, four-year production in Manila which involved the director nearly losing his mind, a Martin Sheen heart attack, a difficult Brando and wild weather that destroyed expensive sets.

Based on Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, an exploration of humans' capacity for violence and savagery, of racism and colonialism. Screenwriters Coppola and John Milius change the African setting to the U.S.'s invasion of Vietnam in the 1960s/70s. Captain Benjamin Willard (Sheen) is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate and eliminate a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz (Brando) who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.Hide