Quartile rating: 9/10 · 4 ratings
On Quartile, Apocalypse Now scores 9/10 across five categories — strongest on Plot (Well Above Average), weakest on Acting (Above Average).
Ranked among Quartile’s Top Plot, Top Cinematography, Top Novelty.
At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.
Apocalypse Now is a towering achievement in nearly every dimension. The plot, loosely adapted from Conrad's Heart of Darkness, builds a hypnotic, escalating dread that transcends its war-movie premise. The acting — Brando's mythic, menacing Kurtz, Sheen's haunted Willard, Duvall's unforgettable Kilgore — is exceptional across the board. Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is among the most visionary ever committed to film, from the napalm sunrises to the ghostly jungle river sequences. As a work of surrealist war cinema, it remains utterly singular and unmistakable in voice and conception. The ending, however, is the film's most debated element — Brando's improvised, elliptical conclusion is powerful but also somewhat opaque and narratively unsatisfying for many viewers, keeping it from matching the near-perfection of what precedes it.