Best Francis Ford Coppola Movies — Every Film Ranked

Francis Ford Coppola’s worst movie, Jack, is absolutely insane. The film follows the titular Jack (Robin Williams) – a 10 year-old boy who appears to be an adult man due to an inexplicable aging disorder – as he goes to school and grapples with the difficulty of “fitting in.” 

Jack tackles some surprisingly serious subjects, including the very real syndrome progeria and the cardiovascular issues it presents. But the tone is inconsistent which hinders its ability to garner any real emotional effect. 

The set-up for Twixt is about as contrived as it gets: an aimless writer comes across a small-town crime that they just have to write about. Enter Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer), Ford Coppola’s archetypal protagonist for Twixt. Hall discovers the perfect subject for a new novel in a “real-world” murder. However, things aren’t as they seem… and Hall has to separate truth from fiction to tell the story of the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, vampires, and terror plaguing the land. 

Twixt was recut (in typical Ford Coppola fashion) and re-released as B’Twixt Now and Sunrise in 2022.

Francis Ford Coppola famously re-entered the world of feature directing after a ten-year hiatus with Youth Without Youth, a 2007 film based on Mircea Eliade’s 1976 novella of the same name.

New York Stories had all the makings of an anthology classic; how couldn’t it with films from Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese? However, the three films, Allen’s “Oedipus Wrecks,” Ford Coppola’s “Life Without Zoë,” and Scorsese’s “Life Lessons” don’t cohesively come together to give the impression of life in New York as the title suggests.

Ford Coppola’s “Life Without Zoë,” which follows a rich young girl’s escapades in the city, is considered by many to be the weakest of the bunch.

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Ford Coppola iconically depicted the war in Vietnam with Apocalypse Now – but did you know he made another film aimed at the war’s effects on American domestic life? Gardens of Stone, based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Proffitt, is a tale of the Vietnam war told through the eyes of Hazard (James Caan), an Army Sergeant assigned to “The Old Guard:” a domestic unit that honors fallen soldiers. 

Gardens of Stone is certainly a somber film, but not quite as emotionally crushing as other Vietnam war films that tackle domestic issues, such as Born on the Fourth of July and The Deer Hunter.

Francis Ford Coppola’s fantastical musical, Finian’s Rainbow, is perhaps most well-known today for featuring Fred Astaire in one of his last major roles – but the film more wholly represents a swan song for the Hollywood Golden Age. 

Astaire leads the charge as a gold thief seeking to multiply his fortune by placing it at the end of a rainbow; that is Rainbow Valley in the fictional state of Missitucky. The whole song and dance is expectedly absurd, but fans of musicals will surely find things to toe-tap to in Finian’s Rainbow.

Peggy Sue Got Married is a decidedly ‘80s movie. It’s got time travel. It’s got high-school drama. And it’s got lots of cheesy romance. These elements sound more at home in a John Hughes movie than a Francis Ford Coppola movie. So how did the director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now get stuck directing a teenage daydream? 

Well, the money certainly didn’t hurt. Peggy Sue Got Married had a solid budget of $18 million. Ford Coppola was also allowed to cast his daughter (Sofia Coppola) and nephew (Nicholas Cage). 

The film shockingly turned out to be a commercial hit grossing more than double its budget at the box-office.

The real-world “Cotton Club” – which infamously featured black artists performing for an (almost) exclusive white clientele – holds a precarious spot in the history of the Harlem Renaissance. With the film The Cotton Club, Ford Coppola recreated the club and raised many of the social and political issues of the time.

The Cotton Club boasts a remarkable cast, led by Richard Gere and Diane Lane, but does little to make you care about the characters; which is a shame because there’s a lot of great artistic craft on display. All in all, The Cotton Club works best as a visual interpretation of an iconic era.

Francis Ford Coppola adapted David Benedictus’ novel You’re a Big Boy Now into a film for his thesis to earn a Master’s degree from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television (which makes my paper on the historiography of Assassin’s Creed seem unimpressive by comparison).

Geraldine Page earned one of eight career Oscar nominations for her performance in You’re a Big Boy Now as the mother of protagonist Bernard Chanticleer (Peter Kastner), a wide-eyed young man navigating dating in the big city.

The Rain People marked the first collaboration between Hofstra classmates James Caan and Francis Ford Coppola; Caan would later appear in Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and Gardens of Stone. Caan features in The Rain People as Killer, a college football star who suffers from a traumatic brain injury. 

But Shirley Knight is the star of the show playing Natalie, a pregnant young woman who leaves her husband in search of freedom. The Rain People captures an excellent sense of dread about the aimlessness of life by incorporating profound subtext.

Francis Ford Coppola’s first official directorial feature, Dementia 13, is a low-budget horror movie that follows a young widow (Luana Anders) as she tries to convince her mother-in-law that her husband is alive in order to procure an inheritance.

Ford Coppola worked on a variety of films before the release of Dementia 13 (including an array of erotica). But Dementia 13 was his breakthrough into the Hollywood mainstream. 

One from the Heart is a visual spectacle that features some strong song and dance. Frederic Forrest and Terrie Garr star in the film as lapsed lovers who seek new partners after getting into an argument on their anniversary.

But as mentioned: the plot of One from the Heart takes a backseat to its magic visuals. Ford Coppola utilized some truly elaborate soundstage sets to give the film a distinctly fake Las Vegas aesthetic.

The Outsiders is perhaps most well-known nowadays for its ensemble cast, including“Brat Pack” members Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe, and stars Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, Tom Cruise, and Diane Lane.

The film, which is based on S.E. Hinton’s novel of the same name, follows brothers Darrell, Sodapop, and Ponyboy as they navigate life without parents amidst gang violence in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

What does the ideal city-state look like? It’s a question that’s plagued philosophers for thousands of years. Plato (The Republic), Machiavelli (The Prince), and Thomas More (Utopia) are just a few who have offered their opinions; enter Francis Ford Coppola: a contemporary philosopher who’s made it his life’s work to raise the question through the filmic medium.

Megalopolis presents a lot of allusions to “best commonwealth” philosophy, particularly those written and orated by Cicero during the end of the Roman Republic. Adam Driver stars in Megalopolis as Cesar Catalina, an architect with dreams of the perfect city, whose name is a not-so-veiled reference to Julius Caesar and the Catilinarian conspiracy. 

Rumble Fish is a film that stands out distinctly in Francis Ford Coppola’s enigmatic filmography; partly due to its stark black and white cinematography; partly because it deviates from its source material (a novel of the same name written by S.E. Hilton); but mostly because of its enduring legacy as the companion piece to Ford Coppola’s other 1983 film The Outsiders.

The Outsiders and Rumble Fish were released in the same year, and although there are considerable differences between the two films, there are some binding similarities as well. Both movies focus on gangs in Tulsa, Oklahoma and feature riotous teen angst.

“The car of tomorrow… today.” Preston Tucker had a dream of creating a car that would awe and inspire the post-War American public. 

Ford Coppola recreates Tucker’s quest to turn dream into reality through some great period detail; costuming and production design are particularly noteworthy. Tucker made good on his dream, despite only having 50 cars to show for it, proving that sometimes idea and intent is more important than the end result. 

The Godfather Part III failed to receive the same level of acclaim as the previous films in the series despite receiving seven Oscar nominations. There’s no denying that Part III, which follows an older and more contemplative Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), failed to reach the heights of its predecessors, largely due to a poor performance from Ford Coppola’s daughter, Sofia Coppola, (who has gone on to become a great film director). 

Enter The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone: Ford Coppola’s 2020 re-cut of the final installment in the Corleone crime family. The Godfather Coda was the film Ford Coppola originally wanted to make; a denouement for the series rather than a climax in a trilogy. 

Tetro is the story of a family in crisis told through the eyes of Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich), an errant young man in search of purpose. After marooning in Buenos Aires, Bennie reconnects with his estranged half-brother Angelo (Vincent Gallo). Both brothers pursue dreams of writing while dealing with the specter of Carlo (Klaus Maria Brandeur), their abusive father.

But things aren’t exactly as they seem on the surface. I won’t spoil anything here; just know that Tetro is well worth a watch, not only for its story’s twists and turns but for its excellent acting and cinematography as well.

The Rainmaker – based on John Grisham’s 1995 novel of the same name – expertly deconstructs the American legal system. Matt Damon stars in the film as Rudy Baylor, a fresh-out-of-school lawyer who battles an insurance giant in the hopes of getting a dying young man the treatment he needs.

The film certainly has a penchant for melodrama, but it’s played up well due to great performances from an all-star cast, including Claire Daines, Jon Voight, Danny DeVito, and Mickey Rourke.

Francis Ford Coppola’s rendition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a fun and seductive telling of the bloodsucking Count from Transylvania. That said, the acting is all over the place. Keanu Reeves’ questionable performance has been lampooned to death, so I won’t harp on it too much here. But there’s just a great inconsistency in tone between the whole cast; which is only exacerbated when some (ineffective) actors share the screen with legends like Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins.

The visuals of Bram Stoker’s Dracula are perhaps not as celebrated as they should be; the film’s set design, costume design, and practical effects are intoxicating elements that contribute to a macabrely cohesive whole.

The Conversation has been thrust into the limelight in recent years despite being somewhat buried upon release. Both things make sense; The Conversation was a prescient examination of a surveillance state that seems to grow more and more every day. It was also released in the same year as The Godfather Part II… and there just wasn’t enough room for two Ford Coppola movies at the box-office in 1974.

The Conversation is considered one of Francis Ford Coppola’s greatest films; and just one of two to win Palme d’Or at Cannes (the other being Apocalypse Now). The film is frequently cited by academics for its realistic depictions of crime, surveillance, and privacy. 

Francis Ford Coppola reinvented the term “guerilla filmmaking” with his seminal classic Apocalypse Now, which infamously underwent one of the most arduous productions in cinema history. The film, which is adapted from Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, shocked audiences at the time of its release; and still remains jaw-dropping to this day.

Martin Sheen stars in Apocalypse Now as an American soldier tasked with finding (and terminating) an AWOL Colonel, played by Marlon Brando. What follows is a three hour (little more or little less depending on version) descent into the belly of the beast. We follow Sheen into the jungle as things go from bad to worse to worst. If war is hell, then Apocalypse Now is a river boat tour down the river styx. 

What can be said about The Godfather that hasn’t already been said? Ford Coppola’s signature masterpiece, which came together despite overwhelming odds, is the gold standard for movie making. 

Al Pacino gives a career-defining performance as Michael Corleone, a marine who grapples with seizing the title of “Godfather” from his father, Don Vito (Marlon Brando). The Godfather established Ford Coppola as one of the world’s preeminent directors, and a leading figure of the New Hollywood movement.  

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The Godfather Part II isn’t just Francis Ford Coppola’s greatest movie, it’s the best mafia movie and best gangster movie of all-time. It’s not a stretch to say that The Godfather Part II may be the greatest movie ever made. 

Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus continues the story of the Corleone crime family through a parallel structure, leveraging flashbacks of Vito (Robert De Niro) in the past and Michael in the present. The Godfather Part II is a meditation on the ways in which power corrupts. Ultimately, it’s a cinematic tour de force that builds upon the fantastic themes of the original.

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