Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola ( , ; born April 7, 1939) is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood and one of the greatest directors of all time.}} Coppola is the recipient of five Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Palmes d'Or and a BAFTA Award.

After directing ''The Rain People'' (1969), Coppola co-wrote ''Patton'' (1970), which earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay along with Edmund H. North. Coppola's reputation as a filmmaker was cemented with the release of ''The Godfather'' (1972), which won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay and revolutionized the gangster genre. He directed ''The Godfather Part II'' (1974), which also won Best Picture and earned Coppola Best Director. Also in 1974, Coppola released the thriller ''The Conversation'', which received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

His next film, the Vietnam War epic ''Apocalypse Now'' (1979), had a notoriously lengthy and strenuous production and also won the Palme d'Or, making Coppola one of only ten filmmakers to have won the award twice. Coppola later directed notable films such as ''The Outsiders'' and ''Rumble Fish'' (both 1983), ''The Cotton Club'' (1984), ''Peggy Sue Got Married'' (1986), ''The Godfather Part III'' (1990), ''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' (1992) and ''The Rainmaker'' (1997). Coppola has acted as producer on such diverse films as ''American Graffiti'' (1973), ''The Black Stallion'' (1979), ''The Escape Artist'' and ''Hammett'' (both 1982), ''Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters'' (1985) and ''The Secret Garden'' (1993).

Coppola's father Carmine was a composer whose music featured in his son's films. Many of his relatives have found success in film: his sister Talia Shire is an actress, his daughter Sofia is a director, his son Roman is a screenwriter and his nephews Jason Schwartzman and Nicolas Cage are actors. In 1997, he cofounded the literary magazine ''Zoetrope: All Story'' with Adrienne Brodeur. Coppola resides in Napa, California, and since the 2010s has been a vintner, owning a family-branded winery of his own. In 2024, Coppola was feted at the Kennedy Center Honors. Introducing him, his friend George Lucas said: “What Francis does creatively is jump off cliffs. When you spend enough time with Francis, you begin to believe you can jump off cliffs, too.” Provided by Wikipedia