After U.S. Army Colonel Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando) goes missing during the Vietnam War, stories begin to circulate that he has gone insane and amassed a group of followers. A Special Forces officer (Martin Sheen) is sent on a mission to find him and meets more than he bargained for. This visually rich film is at turns comedic, horrific, exhilarating, and contemplative, simultaneously poetic and visceral, highlighting the surreal realities of war (Playboy Playmates performing for rowdy troops, colonels surfing waves underneath helicopters, soldiers dropping acid in the jungle). Loosely adapted from Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now has inspired countless quotes and cultural references for decades following.

The product of an idyllic time in the 1970s, when 'New Hollywood' directors were afforded big budgets and tremendous leeway to pursue their ambitious visions, this unassailable classic takes advantage of that creative freedom. It's an epic war film infused with the weird energy of post-Altamont bad vibe hippies, when flower power turned to cocaine jitters. The stories behind the making of this film (improvised scenes of drunken mirror smashing, Brando eating a bug) are moviemaking legend (see the documentary Hearts of Darkness).