Francis Ford Coppola

Coppola broke through writing Patton in 1970, then became untouchable: The Godfather in 1972, The Conversation and The Godfather Part II both in 1974, the latter winning him Best Director. Then came Apocalypse Now in 1979, a Vietnam War epic whose production was as grueling as the war it depicted - real corpses procured illegally, a water buffalo killed on camera, and a Palme d'Or at the end of it. He kept moving: The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, Bram Stoker's Dracula. But the studio system wore thin, and he turned inward - Youth Without Youth, Tetro, Twixt, and finally Megalopolis in 2024, self-financed and decades in the making. He lives in Napa now, runs a winery, part of a family operation that includes his daughter Sofia, his nephew Nicolas Cage, his late father Carmine's music still threaded through the films.