Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film set during the Vietnam War, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and Martin Sheen. 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 adapting 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[citation needed] (which shares the same character of Marlow with Heart of Darkness), and Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972). The film drew attention for its lengthy and troubled production. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse documented Brando's showing up on the set overweight, Sheen's heart attack, and extreme weather destroying several expensive sets. The film's release was postponed several times while Coppola edited millions of feet of footage.

Apocalypse Now earned widespread critical acclaim. Its cultural impact and philosophical themes have been extensively discussed. 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.

Plot
U.S. Army Captain and special operations veteran Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) has returned from action to Saigon where he drinks heavily and destroys his hotel room. Intelligence officers Lieutenant General Corman (G. D. Spradlin) and Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford) approach him with an assignment: Willard must follow the Nung River into the remote Cambodian jungle, find rogue U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) and kill him. Kurtz apparently went insane and now commands his own Montagnard troops inside neutral Cambodia.

Willard joins a U.S. Navy PBR commanded by Chief Petty Officer George "Chief" Phillips (Albert Hall) and crewmen Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms), Jay "Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest) and Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller (Laurence Fishburne). For escort they rendezvous with reckless Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who commands a squadron of attack helicopters. Initially scoffing at them, Kilgore befriends Johnson as both are keen surfers. When Willard suggests the Viet Cong-filled coastal mouth of the Nung River, Kilgore accepts due to the surfing conditions there. After attacking the village to the sounds of Ride of the Valkyries over the chopper loudspeakers and a napalm strike, the beach is taken and Kilgore orders others to surf it amid enemy fire. While Kilgore nostalgically regales everyone about a previous strike, Willard gathers his men to the PBR, which had been transported by helicopter.

Willard sifts through files of Kurtz, learning he was a model officer and possible future general, a top soldier in the field. Navigating upstream, the crew encounters a tiger and later visit a supply depot USO show featuring Playboy Playmates. The crew search a civilian sampan they come across, but Mr. Clean snaps and kills almost all on board, while Willard coldly shoots an injured survivor to prevent any delay of his mission. On reaching a US outpost at a bridge under constant attack, Willard is informed that a Captain Colby (Scott Glenn) was sent to find Kurtz, but is now missing. Lance and Chef are continually under the influence of drugs and Lance becomes withdrawn, smearing his face with camouflage paint.

The next day the boat is fired upon by an unseen enemy in the trees, killing Mr. Clean and turning Chief hostile toward Willard. Later, they are ambushed again, by Montagnard warriors. They return fire and Chief is impaled with a spear, tries to kill Willard by pulling him onto it, but dies from his wound. Afterwards, Willard confides in the remaining Chef and Lance about his mission, and they reluctantly agree to continue upriver where they see the river bank is littered with bodies. Arriving at Kurtz's outpost, Willard takes Lance with him to the village, leaving Chef behind with orders to call an airstrike on the village if he does not return.

In the camp, the two men are met by a manic freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper), who explains that Kurtz's great philosophical skills inspire his people to follow him. As they proceed, they see bodies and severed heads scattered about the nearby temple that serves as Kurtz's living quarters, and encounter the missing Captain Colby, who is nearly catatonic. Willard is brought before Kurtz in the darkened temple, where Kurtz derides him as an errand boy. Meanwhile Chef calls in the airstrike but is kidnapped. Bound to a post, Willard screams helplessly as Kurtz drops Chef's severed head into his lap. After some time, Willard is released and given the freedom of the compound. Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, humanity and civilization while praising the ruthlessness and dedication of the Viet Cong. He asks Willard to tell his son everything about him in the event of his death.

That night, as the villagers ceremonially slaughter a water buffalo, Willard enters Kurtz's chamber as Kurtz is making a recording, and attacks him with a machete. Lying mortally wounded on the ground, Kurtz whispers his final words "The horror ... the horror ..." before dying. Willard descends the stairs from Kurtz's chamber and drops his weapon. The villagers do likewise and allow Willard to take Lance by the hand and lead him to the boat. The two of them sail away as Kurtz's final words echo.

Critical response
In his original review, Roger Ebert wrote, "Apocalypse Now achieves greatness not by analyzing our 'experience in Vietnam', but by re-creating, in characters and images, something of that experience".  In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Charles Champlin wrote, "as a noble use of the medium and as a tireless expression of national anguish, it towers over everything that has been attempted by an American filmmaker in a very long time".

Ebert added Coppola's film to his list of Great Movies, stating: "Apocalypse Now is the best Vietnam film, one of the greatest of all films, because it pushes beyond the others, into the dark places of the soul. It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover".

Other reviews were less positive; Frank Rich in Time said "while much of the footage is breathtaking, Apocalypse Now is emotionally obtuse and intellectually empty".

Various commentators have debated whether Apocalypse Now is an anti-war or pro-war film. Some commentators' evidence of the film's anti-war message include the purposeless brutality of the war, the absence of military leadership, and the imagery of machinery destroying nature. Advocates of the film's pro-war stance, however, view these same elements as a glorification of war and the assertion of American supremacy. According to Frank Tomasulo, “the U.S. foisting its culture on Vietnam,” including the destruction of a village so that soldiers could surf, affirms the film's pro-war message.  Additionally, a Marine named Anthony Swofford recounted how his platoon watched Apocalypse Now before being sent to Iraq in 1990 in order to get excited for war. According to Coppola, the film may be considered anti-war, but is even more anti-lie: “...the fact that a culture can lie about what's really going on in warfare, that people are being brutalized, tortured, maimed, and killed, and somehow present this as moral is what horrifies me, and perpetuates the possibility of war”.

In May 2011, a newly restored digital print of Apocalypse Now was released in UK cinemas, distributed by Optimum Releasing. Total Film magazine gave the film a five-star review, stating: "This is the original cut rather than the 2001 ‘Redux’ (be gone, jarring French plantation interlude!), digitally restored to such heights you can, indeed, get a nose full of the napalm."

Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 99% "Certified Fresh" with an average rating of 8.9/10, and the stated consensus that "Francis Ford Coppola's haunting, hallucinatory Vietnam war epic is cinema at its most audacious and visionary".

Awards and honors
Wins
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro)
Academy Award for Best Sound (Walter Murch, Mark Berger, Richard Beggs, Nathan Boxer)
Cannes Film Festival: Palme d'Or
Golden Globe Award for Best Director (Francis Ford Coppola)
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall)
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (Carmine Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor (Frederic Forrest)
David di Donatello Award for Best Director, Foreign Film (Migliore Regista Straniero) (Francis Ford Coppola)
American Movie Award for Best Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall)
BAFTA Award for Best Direction (Francis Ford Coppola)
BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall)

In 2000, Apocalypse Now was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Nominations
Academy Award for Best Picture (Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Roos, Gray Frederickson and Tom Sternberg)
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor  (Robert Duvall)
Academy Award for Best Art Direction — Set Decoration (Dean Tavoularis, Angelo P. Graham and George R. Nelson)
Academy Award for Directing (Francis Ford Coppola)
Academy Award for Film Editing (Richard Marks, Walter Murch, Gerald B. Greenberg and Lisa Fruchtman)
Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola)
DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Francis Ford Coppola)
WGA Award for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen (John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola)
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama (Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Roos, Gray Frederickson and Tom Sternberg)
Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture (Carmine Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola)
César Award for Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger) (Francis Ford Coppola)
American Movie Award for Best Actor (Martin Sheen)
BAFTA Award for Best Film Music (Carmine Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola)
BAFTA Award for Best Actor (Martin Sheen)

American Film Institute lists
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #28
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
Colonel Walter E. Kurtz – Nominated Villain
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
"The End" – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning." – #12
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #30
AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Epic film

Marlon Brando was also ranked #4 of the Top 25 American male screen legends.