Francis Ford Coppola's career in pictures

Coppola, who was born in Detroit on April 7, 1939, had a career that could have easily been the topic of movie in itself. He was for years one of the most influential and commercially successful directors, but also faced disastrous box office flops that brought financial ruin. At 80, he is a longtime legend of US cinema.

"You're a Big Boy Now," from 1966, was Coppola's third feature film after debuting as co-director three years earlier with the horror movie "The Terror." The comedy is about a man who finally frees himself from his mother's clutches and discovers life. At the time, it wasn't quite clear where the 27-year-old director was headed.

Two movies later, Coppola was offered the film adaptation of Mario Puzo's crime novel "The Godfather." The 30-year-old wasn't the studio's first choice, and the project wasn't really close to the director's heart — but the film was a huge success, artistically and at the box office, making Coppola one of the top directors in the US.

Coppola followed "The Godfather" with the 1974 thriller "The Conversation" starring Gene Hackman in the role of an introverted surveillance expert. The film was not very successful back then but today, it is considered one of the best US films of the 1970s. "The Conversation" reflects the social and political climate of the country at the time of the Watergate scandal.

In 1974, "The Godfather part II" was a huge success, too. Next, the director turned to the Vietnam War. Inspired by "Heart of Darkness," by 19th century British novelist Joseph Conrad, and with a narration by US war correspondent Michael Herr, the director told an epic apocalyptic story. Shooting took a long time, but when it was released in 1979, "Apocalypse Now" was an overwhelming success.

Three years later, Coppola, one of the country's most influential directors, shot the melodrama "One from the Heart," starring Nastassja Kinski. It flopped terribly and led to the director's financial ruin. Coppola, who wanted to be independent from the big Hollywood studios, had taken his own studio to the brink.

Coppola basically had to start all over again from scratch, and also work for other producers. With talented new young actors and two movies about youth gangs, he managed a comeback: "The Outsiders" and "Rumble Fish" (above photo).

Far from humble, Coppola wanted his next movie to be "big" again. "Cotton Club" (1984) set in 1930's New York, was a wild mixture of a music film and a gangster movie about a roaring period. But the film's box office results didn't cover its production costs and Coppola was back to struggling.

For years afterwards, Coppola was making movies that did not meet his artistic expectations — but he needed the money. The 1988 film "Tucker," starring Jeff Bridges in the role of the American entrepreneur who rebelled against the mainstream automobile industry of that day is one of the better films from that era — and it echoes the director's own moves toward independence.

After releasing part 3 of the "Godfather" saga in 1990, the director moved on two years later to shoot the classic story of the famous bloodsucker, Dracula. Reviews of the film adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel weren't overwhelmingly positive, but critics praised the film's setting and opulence.

Over the past two decades, the director has made more headlines with the winery he runs in California than with his movies. Some critics say he gets better results with his wines than with his last cinematic works — but arguably, his 1997 legal drama "The Rainmaker" starring a very young Matt Damon is the best film adaptation of a John Grisham novel ever made.