Francis Ford Coppola was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 7, 1939. His family consisted of descendants of Italian immigrants that moved to the United States in 1900. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a talented musician that attended the Julliard School and met Francis' mother, Italia Pernnino. When Francis was born, his father was playing in the NBC Symphony as a flautist.

When Francis was 10, he contracted polio and became paralyzed on his left side. He was forced to stay in bed for nine months and watched television continuously during the time. Francis refused to give up trying to walk, despite doctors telling him that he wouldn't be able to walk again. After several months of therapy with a physiotherapist, Francis was able to walk once again and returned to school.

After his recovery, Francis enrolled in the New York Military Academy, playing the tuba in the school's band. However, he became disgusted with the school's emphasis on sports and ran away to Manhattan after a year and a half. After returning to his previous high school, Francis continued playing tuba and began to write plays. As a result of his playwright skills, he was given a scholarship to Hofstra University, the same place his brother had studied. He graduated in 1959 with a BA in Theater Arts, but had no desire to become a film director. However, after seeing Sergei Eisenstein's "Ten Days that Shook the World", he changed his mind overnight.

Francis enrolled in the UCLA Film School for master's degree in 1960. During his studies, he directed his first film "Dementia 13" about an axe mudering maniac, which was shot in Ireland. While there, he met a woman named Eleanor Neil, who was in UCLA's Art Department. The two were married in 1963 and Francis graduated in 1966, using his film "You're a Big Boy Now" as his thesis.

His next film, "Finian's Rainbow", was made in 1968 with a budget of $3.5 million from Warner Brothers. Francis finished the film for just under $4 million. Unfortunately, it was a box office flop, but he met a USC student named George Lucas on the set.

Francis started a film company called American Zoetrope in 1969 as president and George Lucas as vice president. Francis soon received major recognition when he worked on the screenplay for the movie "Patton" in 1970 and won an oscar. Francis' success as screenwriter landed him the job of writing the the screenplay for "The Great Gatsby" in 1974.

In 1972, Francis was given the job of directing the mafia epic "The Godfather" by Robert Evans, the vice president of production at Paramount, supposedly because he was the only Italian director in Hollywood. Francis was given the rights to write the movie and direct it for $150,000. However, Francis made it very clear that the film would not be a "gangster flick", instead focusing on the family relations between the Corleones throughout their conflicts. Francis worked closely with the author of the book, Mario Puzo, to write the scripts for both "The Godfather" and "The Godfather 2", efforts which won the team oscars in 1973 and 1975.

Francis had considered Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Dustin Hoffman for the role of Michael, but instead decided to give it to Al Pacino, a relative unknown at the time. He also begged Paramount to get Marlon Brando as Vito and, after some difficulty, they did so. The hard work on the filming paid off since the Godfather movies were nominated for twenty-three academy awards and received nine oscars.

In between the Godfathers, Francis directed "The Conversation" and used some interesting filming techniques. The actors were often not told where the crews were hiding and it seemed to make the acting more realistic. When the police saw the crew hiding, they thought that they were snipers trying to kill Coppola and arrested them. However, the film was nominated for Best Picture and Screenplay.

Francis then began work on his most daring film, "Apocalypse Now". Although George Lucas was initially slated to direct the film, Francis took over and decided to film in Cuba. He wrote a glowing letter to Fidel Castro saying "Dear Fidel, I love you.... We have the same initials. We both have beards. We both have power and want to use it for good." Despite this, he decided to film in the Phillipines when the president offered to put his army and air force at the crew's disposal.

Francis began shooting in 1976 with Harvey Keitel playing Captain Willard, but fired him two weeks later because he didn't like the way Keitel was portraying Willard. In his place, Martin Sheen was chosen to play the role. Other problems erupted, including a civil war, depriving the crew of helicopters. Hurricane Olga destroyed a number of sets, delaying filming further. Marlon Brando showed up on the set drunk, obese, and late, without reading the script. Unbelievably, Sheen suffe

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Set during the Vietnam War, the film tells the story of a taciturn American soldier who is sent to "terminate with extreme prejudice" the command of a rogue United States Army Special Forces colonel. The narrative of his journey and its culmination are studded with events which, while bizarre, are based on real Vietnam stories. The soldier's journey becomes increasingly nonlinear and hallucinatory. Coppola's agenda clearly involves larger themes; the film's subtext concerns a journey into the darkness of the human psyche.

The film features performances by Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Marlow in Conrad's novel), Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Dennis Hopper as a fast-talking hallucinogen-using photojournalist, and Robert Duvall in an Oscar-nominated turn as the borderline-psychotic Lt. Colonel Kilgore. Several other actors who were (or later became) prominent stars had minor or supporting roles in the movie including Harrison Ford, R. Lee Ermey and Laurence Fishburne (who, only fourteen years old when shooting began in March 1976, was credited as 'Larry Fishburne').

The Godfather is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Mario Puzo, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. The film's story spans ten years from late 1945 to 1955.

This movie is universally regarded as the definitive Mafia film. It is consistently ranked amongst the finest movies of all time and has repeatedly been voted as the greatest movie ever made by users at the Internet Movie Database Top 250 Movies of All Time.