Apocalypse Now

In Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola's hallucinatory Vietnam-set interpretation of Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, the director presents a hauntingly beautiful and unforgettable vision of the horrors of war. Martin Sheen's Captain Willard walks a knife's edge of sanity as the jaded vet sent upriver deep into Viet Cong—or "Charlie"—territory with a small patrol-boat escort. His mission is to "terminate the command" of the elusive Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a decorated officer who has shunned protocol, built a primitive empire deep in the Cambodian jungle, and is at once completely in control and unquestionably out of his mind. Worshipped as a god and operating free from what he sees as the shackles of morality, Kurtz is portrayed with disturbing perfection by Brando, despite the legendary actor showing up on set grossly overweight and often drunk, without having read the script. Willard encounters the terrifying nature of jungle warfare and Kurtz's "unsound" methods as the crew journeys further into the wild, kept company by their neuroses and the constant specter of enemy troops. Glassy-eyed soldiers on drugs amidst a firefight, itchy trigger fingers shooting at shadows, wreckage and corpses everywhere—these are the daily encounters of Willard and his men. Aided by the gloriously unhinged supporting performances of Frederic Forrest and Dennis Hopper, among others, the movie was completed against all odds—a stressed-out Coppola was way over budget and at the breaking point while filming in the ersatz Vietnam of the Philippine jungle—but somehow the director came away with a mesmerizing, affecting masterpiece.