Apocalypse Now (1979)

All Critics (76) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (72) | Rotten (1) | DVD (55)

A film of pure sensation, dazzling audiences with light and noise, laying bare the stark horror - and unimaginable thrill - of combat.

May 25, 2011 Full Review

Tom Huddleston

Time Out

Top Critic

Alternately a brilliant and bizarre film, Francis Coppola's four year 'work in progress' offers the definitive validation to the old saw, 'war is hell.'

July 2, 2007 Full Review | Comments (2)

Dale Pollock

Variety

Top Critic

...it's wonderful to see this hallucinatory folly-cum-near masterpiece again on the big screen.

February 9, 2006 Full Review

Geoff Andrew

Time Out

Top Critic

Apocalypse Now did help provide me, and many of my generation, with a vision of what film art could achieve, a vision so magnificent it doomed us to spend much of our subsequent moviegoing lives in a funk.

July 21, 2005 Full Review

Eric Harrison

Houston Chronicle

Top Critic

...Coppola's sprawling, harrowing war story is not to be missed.

December 31, 2003 Full Review

Moira MacDonald

Seattle Times

Top Critic

The opening, with the whirling sound of choppers intercut with Willard sweating angst in his Saigon hotel bed, a jungle burning with napalm...remains a visual and aural wonder.

January 17, 2002 | Comment (1)

Peter Travers

Rolling Stone

Top Critic

With a famously horrific and documentary inspiring shoot it's almost unfathomable how Francis Ford Coppolla managed to harness the chaotic energy into one of the most potent examinations of war and masculinity to ever grace celluloid.

January 2, 2013 Full Review

Blake Howard

2UE That Movie Show

Perhaps Francis Ford Coppola's greatest directorial achievement, Apocalypse Now is a visually stunning war film that has no equal, with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro capturing the films Philippine location to great effect.

January 4, 2012 Full Review

Matthew Pejkovic

Matt's Movie Reviews

Apocalypse Now is not merely the greatest film to come out of the Vietnam experience but one of the great works about the madness of our times.

May 28, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Philip French

Guardian [UK]

A must-see, preferably in the cinema.

May 28, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Coco Forsythe

Future Movies UK

The best of it is grand, mysterious and oddly possessed.

May 27, 2011 Full Review

Anthony Quinn

Independent

Undoubtedly it is one of the best films about war ever made.

May 27, 2011 Full Review

Derek Malcolm

This is London

A film that needs to be seen on the big screen.

May 26, 2011 Full Review

Peter Bradshaw

Guardian [UK]

It is mystical, daring, poetic, thrilling, appalling and never less than utterly mesmerising.

May 26, 2011 Full Review

Marc Lee

Daily Telegraph

A gilt-edged, no-messing, accept-no-substitutes masterpiece.

May 26, 2011 Full Review

Matt Bochenski

Little White Lies

Coppola delivered a harrowing masterwork that bursts with malarial, mystical images...

May 26, 2011 Full Review

Adrian Turner

Radio Times

This disturbing vision of the harrowing effects of war and violence continues to shock and haunt audiences.

May 24, 2011 Full Review

Angie Errigo

Empire Magazine

One of the best movies about the Vietnam War, an epic spectacle that's brilliant up to the last reel, when Brando appears.

February 25, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Disturbing tale of war horrors isn't for kids.

January 2, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Kelly Kessler

Common Sense Media

There is greatness in Apocalypse Now, but there is also madness, and they feed off each other.

July 13, 2009 Full Review

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

The movie Francis Ford Coppola never recovered from, and the last word in Ci-Nam-a.

May 13, 2008 Full Review

Film4

Apocalypse Now is as good as ever.

December 30, 2006 Full Review

Empire Magazine

His film is timeless because although the setting may change, the wars and the plight of soldiers will remain the same.

August 18, 2006 Full Review

Phil Villarreal

Arizona Daily Star

• 1. Roach: He's close, real close. Motherfucker.
  2. Capt. Benjamin Willard: Do you know who's in command here?
  3. Roach: Yeah.
  – Submitted by Mark B (8 days ago)
• 1. Chief: You like it hot, don't you Captain?
  2. Capt. Benjamin Willard: You'll never find out about yourself working in some fucking factory in Ohio.
  – Submitted by Mark B (8 days ago)
• 1. Colonel Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
  2. Capt. Benjamin Willard: I don't see any method at all, sir.
  3. Colonel Kurtz: I expected someone like you. What did you expect? Are you an assassin?
  4. Capt. Benjamin Willard: I'm a soldier.
  5. Colonel Kurtz: You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.
  – Submitted by Jim C (8 months ago)
• 1. Lt. Col. Kilgore: Charlie don't surf!
  – Submitted by Alex K (9 months ago)
• 1. Soldier in Trench: Ain't you?!
  – Submitted by Jesse K (9 months ago)
• 1. Colonel Kurtz: I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor... and surviving.
  – Submitted by Gonzalo D (9 months ago)