AFI Life Achievement Award: Francis Ford Coppola

July 11–Sept. 9

Over the course of a seven-decade career, Francis Ford Coppola has proven himself an uncompromising cinematic rebel and a peerless artist. Cutting his teeth on Roger Corman’s sets in the early ‘60s, the maverick filmmaker made his debut with the 1963 Corman-produced horror flick DEMENTIA 13. In 1969, he and George Lucas founded American Zoetrope, the independent studio that produced every Coppola feature film since, in addition to works by Lucas, Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa and Paul Schrader, among others. Though he was armed with creative freedom, poor box office results led Coppola to accept what ended up being a serendipitous work-for-hire gig directing THE GODFATHER. He would follow THE GODFATHER PART II — winner of six Academy Awards®, including Best Director — with the ambitious war epic APOCALYPSE NOW. The tumultuous production deep in the jungles of Vietnam (documented in Eleanor Coppola’s HEARTS OF DARKNESS) quite nearly killed him, but the film proved a financial success that firmly cemented Coppola’s standing in the American film canon. Saddled with debt, Coppola spent the ‘80s churning out films, but much of this work — including THE OUTSIDERS, RUMBLE FISH and ONE FROM THE HEART — equally shaped contemporary American cinema. In celebration of the 50th AFI Life Achievement Award honoree, we present a tour through the inspirational filmography of this immensely talented and fiercely independent filmmaker.