Want to know the best Francis Ford Coppola movies? How about the worst Francis Ford Coppola movies? Curious about Francis Ford Coppola’s box office grosses or which Francis Ford Coppola movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Francis Ford Coppola movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Francis Ford Coppola (1939-) is a 5 time Oscar® winning writer, director and producer. When looking at a list of great directors…Coppola was one of the few directors that we had not done a page on. So seeing that Coppola was on our request list (request by HInton66) we decided to make him our latest movie subject. Coppola has been directing movies for over 50 years. The Godfather trilogy are easily his most famous movies….but he made many other movies.
His IMDb page shows over 150 credits from 1962-2015. This page ranks 27 Francis Ford Coppola movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, video games and movies not released in North America and many of his movies that barely made a dent at the box office were not included in the rankings.
Francis Ford Coppola Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Francis Ford Coppola movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Francis Ford Coppola movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Francis Ford Coppola movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Francis Ford Coppola movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Francis Ford Coppola movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Francis Ford Coppola movie won.
- Sort Francis Ford Coppola movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Francis Ford Coppolal Table
- Eight Francis Ford Coppola movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 29.63% of his movies listed. The Godfather (1972) was his biggest box office hit.
- An average Francis Ford Coppola movie grosses $96.40 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 20 Francis Ford Coppola movies are rated as good movies…or 74.07% of his movies. The Godfather (1972) is his highest rated movie while Jack (1996) is his lowest rated movie.
- Fourteen Francis Ford Coppola movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 51.85% of his movies.
- Five Francis Ford Coppola movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 18.51% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 13 Francis Ford Coppola movies scored higher that average….or 48.14% of his movies. The Godfather 2 (1974) got the the highest UMR Score while Tonight For Sure (1962) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Francis Ford Coppola
1. George Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan.
2. Francis Ford Coppola has been nominated for 14 Oscars®….he was won 5 times. In 2011 he also received a Honorary Oscar®.
3. Francis Ford Coppola has been nominated for 11 Golden Globes….he has won 5 times.
4. Francis Ford Coppola has helped make seven movies that received a Best Picture Oscar® nomination: 1970’s Patton (he wrote screenplay) , 1972’s The Godfather, 1973’s American Graffiti (he produced the movie), 1974’s The Godfather Part 2, 1974’s The Conversation, 1979’s Apocalypse Now and 1990’s The Godfather Part 3.
5. Three Francis Ford Coppola movies won the Best Picture Oscar®: 1970’s Patton, 1972’s The Godfather and 1974’s The Godfather Part 2.
6. George Lucas said that he based the “Han Solo” character from the Star Wars trilogy on Francis Ford Coppola.
7. Francis Ford Coppola Oscar® family tree: His dad, Carmine Coppola was an Oscar® winning composer. His sister, Talia Shire, is a two time Oscar® nominated actress who starred in the Godfather and Rocky movies. His daughter, Sophia Coppola, is an Oscar® nominated director. His nephew, Nicolas Cage, is an Oscar® winning actor.
8. Francis Ford Coppola directed 12 different actors in Oscar®-nominated performances: Geraldine Page, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, Michael V. Gazzo, Lee Strasberg, Talia Shire, Kathleen Turner, Andy Garcia and Martin Landau. Brando and De Niro won their Oscar® for their performances as Vito Corleone.
9. Francis Ford Coppola’s favorite films are: 1958’s Ashes and Diamonds, 1946’s The Best Years of Our Lives , 1951’s I Vitelloni, 1960’s The Bad Sleep Well, 1961’s Yojimbo, 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, 1982’s The King of Comedy, 1980’s Raging Bull, 1960’s The Apartment and 1927’s Sunrise.
10. Check out Francis Ford Coppola‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globe® is a registered trademark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.
For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
STEVE:
1 It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good because in my feverish search to relocate what I thought was YOUR video I discovered a lot of the gems that you HAVE made and I watched your Coppola Top 10 worldwide grosses video. I have long been interested in those figures as of the so-called Movie Brats of the 70s Francis was the most commercially unsuccessful overall with monster hits like Godpop being offset by some flops.
2 Your worldwide figures for Godfather and Apocalypse Now, Bruce’s one for Superman 1978 and Wikipedia’s stats for Last Tango In Paris give those 4 Mumbles Movies an adjusted worldwide gross of around $3.5 billion For what it’s worth whilst we tend to ignore video/DVD sales Lee’s Movies suggest that the first 3 movies engendered a further half a billion in such sales since 2001 bringing the overall known adjusted total for the 4 movies to over $4 billion. **
3 Whilst as Bruce has stipulated the 1950s were Brando’s most consistent artistic decade the above mentioned figures illustrate clearly that the 70s were his most successful COMMERCIAL decade. One movie statistician explains that film producers are like professional gamblers and that such people tend to be superstitious about following proven success stories when betting.
4 Hence whatever weight you attach to Brando’s personal contribution to the success of those films [and Babs Streisand attributes a lot] superstitious producers so the argument goes hoped to be the next one to ‘ride the ‘Brando luck and were therefore prepared to pay him massive fees as part of their stake
** Wikipedia and other sources quote an actual worldwide figure of £150 million for Apocalypse Now and I presume you have done the same. However the US magazine Newsweek claims that it took $200 million actual gross and $85 million of that in rentals on its original release which if true would bring its adjusted gross to around $600 million.
However I have stayed with the figures provided by you and Wikipedia, but either way it’s a heck of a lot of money for just 4 movies.
BOB.
Bob, I remember having to dig real deep looking for worldwide box office figures for some of these actors and directors, scouring the internet for info. Bruce was no help he was only interested in domestic grosses.
Looking at his Coppola chart the adjusted domestic gross for The Godfather, which is quite impressive, is dwarfed by the adjusted worldwide total – $1,394,000,000!! Not bad for a gangster movie by a near unknown director starring an actor who hadn’t had a hit for over a decade.
There was a big fall off on Coppola’s second biggest hit, Apocalypse Now, which did $491.4m adjusted worldwide. It was all downhill from there.
Martin Scorsese had a different trajectory his biggest hits were all recent.
Bob, I’m guessing The Godfather is your favorite film and Brando, your favorite actor?
STEVE
1 Wrong on both counts. My fave films are Shane, two Stewart classics Where the River Bends, and The Far Country with On the Waterfront & Godpop next. Brando and the Duke followed by Tracy and Sinatra are the actors I most like writing about because there have been many colourful stories about them down the years..
2 My fave actors are Peck, Widmark, Jimmy Stewart Morgan Freeman and Laddie but they were all so ‘tame’ that they never generated a great deal of gossip so I have relatively few stories about them. Doris Day, Deanna Durbin and Joan Crawford are my fave actresses. Brando and the Duke are still very well up there among my heroes and probably lie about the middle of my Top 20 along with the likes of Glenn Ford, Denzel Washington and
Gorgeous George Clooney
3. Thanks for explaining to me the mechanics behind your worldwide grosses projects. I suppose that it’s logical that Bruce would be preoccupied more with domestic grosses because they provide a level playing field for comparing one star with another as it is very difficult to get comprehensive worldwide figures for many stars. I suspect that if worldwide figures for everyone were know and DVD/Video sales added in modern stars would outgross stars of the classic era because of the way that markets have expanded since those days..
4 There is a very complicated economists’ formula on the Internet for adjusting movie grosses for inflation which takes account of not just actual grosses but population changes, changing competition from other mediums and from other types of leisure activity ,no of cinemas in existence at any one time, audience sizes etc but it takes virtually all day to work out an adjusted gross for just one film ! and I think that the methods used by Bruce, you and Mojo suffice for our purposes of comparing the differing popularity of movies and stars over the years and at the same time keep it simple.
5 Anyway catch up with u later in week with posts on A Hepburn/Mitchum videos.
BOB
Hey Bob…thanks for sharing your favorites. WoC has suggested I do interviews with people and get them to list their favorite movies….this comment will answer lots of those questions if we ever decide to do what the wife is suggesting…..as I know BERN1960 wants us to interview her in the near future.
The Godfather was a beast at the box office for sure.
🙂
Hi
At his best he was absolutely brilliant. The first 2 Godfathers and Apocalypse Now must be his masterpieces. Although I’ve always really loved Finnegan’s Rainbow. I went to see it when I was 10 or 11, at that time I didn’t know who Fred Astaire was, but Petula Clark was a big star in the U.K. I suppose if it had been made 10 years earlier, it would have been Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor would have played the Leprechaun role.
I read in an interview that Coppola didn’t believe in failure. If you went to the effort of making a movie, you were contributing to the art of cinema, blockbuster or not. I don’t think a lot of studio executives would go along with that!
Hey Chris.
1. I would put The Conversation up there with the ones you mentioned. Though recently I re-watched that with son #2….and he became very bored and stopped watching it.
2. I imagine if you re-watched Finnian’s Rainbow….the Astaire performance would seem 100% different now that you know who he is.
3. Reynolds and O’Connor would have been interesting.
4. Interesting quote from Coppola about making art. It probably explains why his last few movies have done almost nothing at the box office….and why there have been so new Coppola movies over the last 20 or so years.
Appreciate your comment and thoughts.
Regarding his favourite films: I have seen four of them. Alphabetically:
The Apartment
The Best Years of Our lives
Singin’ in the Rain
Sunrise
Flora
I am at 6…I have seen all 4 you have seen….along with the two Scorsese movies…Raging Bull and King of Comedy. Thanks for the update.
“Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in!” ooh Francis Ford Coppola, the Godfather director, gets his own movie page, and about time too! [wink]
Flora is right, Martin Sheen was the hero of Apocalypse Now and nearly died for his art, he should be listed instead of Harrison Ford. Now I’m trying to picture Flora watching Apocalypse Now… not the most pleasant of films but it’s a favorite of mine. 🙂
I’ve seen 15 of the 27 films you’ve listed. Of his directed films my favorite is the first Godfather movie followed by the second Godfather movie and Apocalypse Now. I also enjoyed Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Cotton Club.
Patton is one of my favorite war movies, George C. Scott fully deserved the Oscar, shame on him for not accepting it. Brando snubbed his Oscar too.
I haven’t seen Jack, Finian’s Rainbow or Gardens of Stone. I’ve only seen 5 of Coppola’s favorite movies and Singin’ in the Rain tops them all.
Excellent work Bruce. Voted Up.
Hey Steve….
1. All the Godfather movies have great memorable lines….that is easily the best from part 3.
2. Ok…point taken….Mr. Sheen is now the first name when it comes to the star of Apocalypse Now….although without Ford’s 10 minute scene….Martin would not know his mission….so Ford is crucial to that movie…lol.
3. Tally count….18 for me….15 for you and 9 for Flora….pretty close.
4. His Oscar win for Best Director in Godfather Part 2 put G2 ahead of G1 in the UMR score…since Coppola only got nominated for G1……in case you were wondering….that Oscar win for FFC in Patton move G1 all the way down to 3rd.
5. Scott and Brando both refusing their Oscars from scripts written by FFC…..I wonder the odds of that happening?
6. Jack is one of the few Robin Williams movies that I have not seen….I actually saw Gardens of Stone in theaters….Finian’s Rainbow is interesting….but I am not much of a musical fan.
Thanks for your thoughts on FFC.
Damn I thought I had this one in the bag. Can I add the 5 films I’ve seen from Coppola’s list of favorites to my tally? No?
Nice of you to add Martin Sheen’s name to the list of Apocalypse Now stars, he was in there somewhere if you look hard enough. I think he was on the boat. Well you can definitely spot him at the briefing at the start of the film… 🙂
Hey Steve….sure you can add those 5…but I will be adding 6 …which is the amount of Coppola favorites I have seen….gotta admit….I have not heard of a couple of the movies he listed.
Yes Flora set me straight. If you blink you wait miss Sheen’s role in Apocalypse Now….lol. I I even added Kathleen Turner to Peggy Sue Got Married…I previously had Jim Carrey as one of the stars. Thankfully you and Flora have not noticed that I always include Michael Caine whenever I get the opportunity….lol.
Hi, Bruce.
I checked out the list of movies here to see if there were enough titles I had seen to warrant me commenting on this page since I have personal reasons nothing to do with the quality of the trilogy to avoid seeing them. And there are indeed.
I won’t bother going through the viewings by rankings therefore. Instead I will comment on some of the films individually.
One thing I noticed right off-I know you are a big fan of Harrison Ford. But Bruce, when you listed who was in Apocalypse Now , the second name after Brando should not be him. The movie belongs to Martin Sheen. Either he or Robert Duvall should be listed instead. I say this because if I went to see Apocalypse Now Redux on the big screen to see Ford I would have been quite disappointed in the amount of screen time. I did indeed see this Redux version on the big screen for Martin Sheen. I haven’t commented yet on his page since you separated his page from his sons, but I am actually a big Sheen fan. I saw no point in commenting on it on that other site. If Badlands ever came back to the big screen and came where I could see it I would love to see it on the big screen. I know this is a movie you would not expect me to have seen and to be sure it makes me sick in some scenes, but as a Sheen fan I thought it very important to see as he had a near fatal heart attack during the making of this film.
Another film I want to talk about is The Conversation starring Gene Hackman. I love this movie. This is a great suspense film and one that I only heard about because it aired on TCM. I do not know why it is not more famous than it is.
I’ve seen Finian’s Rainbow and could not have told you Coppola directed this movie. Lots of fun this film.
I’ve seen quite a few of his movies from the 1980s-Rumble Fish, The Outsiders, and Peggy Sue Got Married-the latter the only one I’ve seen more than once.
Others I have seen are The Property Is Condemned, Is Paris Burning? and Dementia 13.
9 movies seen.
Flora
Hey Flora.
1. Guilty as charged…my liking of Harrison Ford got him listed as one of the stars of A.N…..and yes you are 100% correct Mr. Sheen should be listed….and I will make that change as soon as I send this return comment.
2. I love The Conversation as well. FFC had a great 1974 year….not sure how many directors have had a better year than he did in 1974…with Godfather 2 and Conversation.
3. 9 is a pretty good tally….Steve is at 15…and I am at…counting 18…..yes a win for me….I think I have been last for many many pages in a row.
4. I would have never guessed that Apocalypse Now Redux was a movie you saw in theaters….that is a movie I want to see on the big screen
5. I have not seen Badlands in years…I will have to check that one out soon.
Greatly appreciated you checking this page out.
6. So how was Dementia 13? I have heard different things on that movie.
Congratulations on the win, Bruce!
I see Martin Sheen is now listed top in A.N. I have seen so few classic movies on the big screen that I do pay close attention to when they are coming to town. I wanted to see Martin Sheen on the big screen as a young man which I had not done before-yes, he and Emilio look like the same person at different ages and have even played the same character in a film, but seeing Emilio on the big screen is not the same thing…
Dementia 13 is a movie I have only seen around Halloween. I am not sure I would have watched it had William Campbell not been in it. In other words, I was watching for the actor, not the genre. It’s not a great movie, but it is one I’d watch in October in a marathon of Halloween movies.
Flora
Hey Flora…I was half asleep when I commented back last night…..but I did not make sure I gave Mr. Sheen his proper credit for Apocalypse Now. Thanks for the mini-review on Dementia 13.
FYI….yesterday I went to the William and Mary College library (one of the best libraries in the country) and picked up The Encyclopedia of Film Noir and Film Noir Guide…as I start to figure out how I would do a film noir page.
Re: film noir page-that is wonderful. Current TCM star of the month Fred McMurray starred in a famous one… 🙂
Lizabeth Scott who died last year was a frequent noir star. The Summer of Noir festival TCM did last year added a large number of them to my seen list that had been hard to find. Curiously, Richard Widmark was not included even though his picture was on the front of a book on film noir.
Flora
Thanks for the information Flora. Pretty sure at least one or two Widmark movies will make my page. Lots of reading to do. MacMurray might have the top film noir movie ever.