Apocalypse Now is a 1979 war film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, and Robert Duvall. Set during the height of the Vietnam War, the film follows Captain Benjamin Willard, a U.S. Army officer who is sent on a secret mission deep into the Cambodian jungle to assassinate Colonel Walter Kurtz, a Green Beret who has gone rogue and is waging his own private war against the Viet Cong.
As Willard journeys upriver toward Kurtz's compound, he encounters a number of obstacles and challenges, including encounters with a patrol boat crew led by the charismatic Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, a hippie surfer named Lance, and a group of Montagnard natives who worship Kurtz like a god.
Along the way, Willard confronts the horrors and moral ambiguities of war, including the senseless violence and destruction wrought by both sides, the madness and brutality of Kurtz's followers, and his own creeping sense of disillusionment and nihilism.
When he finally reaches Kurtz's fortress, Willard is confronted with the Colonel's innermost thoughts and demons, as well as the realization that his mission may have been a ruse all along. The film ends with Willard making a fateful decision about Kurtz's fate, as well as his own destiny in the war-torn world he has inhabited.