Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope

December 3, 2021–February 27, 2022

Fifty years after the founding of American Zoetrope, we celebrate the studio and its co-creator, Francis Ford Coppola. Along with Coppola’s works, the series features films by George Lucas, Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, and more.

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  • One from the Heart

  • The Cotton Club Encore

  • The Outsiders: The Complete Novel

  • Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

  • Every Man for Himself

  • Kagemusha

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Rumble Fish

    • Sunday, February 27 5 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1983

    4K Digital Restoration

    Matt Dillon is a teenager under the spell of his jaded older brother (Mickey Rourke) and beaten-down father (Dennis Hopper) in Francis Ford Coppola’s version of a teen movie, “an exercise in hallucinatory style” (Richard Corliss).

  • The Conversation

    • Wednesday, January 19 7 PM
    • Sunday, February 20 2 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1974

    New 35mm Print

    Gene Hackman plays a crack wiretapper in over his head in Francis Ford Coppola’s formalist exercise in paranoia, a grand prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival set in a 1970s San Francisco where—much like today—privacy is elusive and technology can work both for you and against you.

  • Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse

    • Saturday, February 19 1 PM
    Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola
    United States, 1991

    Watch as Francis Ford Coppola and crew storm and blunder through the Philippines during the making of Apocalypse Now. This documentary, crafted from Eleanor Coppola’s home movies, is a work of “fascinating, harrowing film history” (Roger Ebert).

    Eleanor Coppola in Person

  • The Outsiders: The Complete Novel

    • Sunday, February 13 2 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1983/2005

    4K Digital Restoration

    Two groups of rival teens—a cast of soon-to-be Hollywood heartthrobs, including Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, C. Thomas Howell, and Rob Lowe—rumble in a dead-end Southwestern town in Francis Ford Coppola’s cult classic.

  • Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

    • Friday, February 11 7 PM
    Paul Schrader
    United States, 1985

    New Digital Restoration

    Paul Schrader’s riveting docu-fiction about the life and death of Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima is “one of the most gorgeous and sophisticated portraits of an artist ever put on film” (New Yorker).

  • Kagemusha

    • Thursday, February 3 7 PM
    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1980

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped produce Akira Kurosawa’s return to epic filmmaking, a “majestic, stately, cool, almost abstract” film about a king and his double (both played by Tatsuya Nakadai) trying to hold a kingdom together (New York Times).

  • Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

    • Thursday, January 27 7 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1979/2019

    4K Digital Restoration

    Francis Ford Coppola’s hallucinatory Vietnam War epic, one of AFI’s Top 100 Films of All Time, returns in a new cut, a remix of newly discovered soundtrack masters and a 4K restoration from the original negative.

  • American Graffiti

    • Thursday, January 13 7 PM
    George Lucas
    United States, 1973

    George Lucas’s classic of boomer nostalgia follows the teens of a small Northern California town through one long summer night. With Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, and Harrison Ford among the cast, it’s “the film that launched a thousand careers” (Hollywood Reporter).

  • Dementia 13

    • Friday, January 7 7 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1963

    4K Digital Restoration

    An unwelcome visitor finds herself in the dank manse of a family haunted by its secrets in Francis Ford Coppola’s atmospheric tale of terror, produced and financed by exploitation guru Roger Corman.

    Introduced by James Mockoski

  • The Cotton Club Encore

    • Saturday, December 18 3:30 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1984/2019

    4K Digital Restoration

    This newly recut, restored version of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 vision of 1930s America brings new rhythm and nuance to the tale, reinstating many of the musical numbers and secondary stories that were cut from the original release.

    Richard Beggs in Person

  • Passion

    • Wednesday, December 15 7 PM
    Jean-Luc Godard
    France, 1982

    BAMPFA Collection

    Two directors create a film based on tableaux vivants of famous paintings, but they find the true stories beyond the frames in Jean-Luc Godard’s essay on labor, love, and capital.

  • One from the Heart

    • Saturday, December 11 3:30 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1982

    Restored 35mm Print

    Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Raul Julia, and Nastassja Kinski float through an even more artificial version of Las Vegas in Francis Ford Coppola’s lavishly surreal, giddily romantic valentine to a cinema of pure attractions. 

  • Every Man for Himself

    • Wednesday, December 8 7 PM
    Jean-Luc Godard
    France, Switzerland, 1980

    This achingly lyrical film—“a stunning, original work”—about the selling of the self revolves around three characters: a filmmaker, his estranged partner, and a prostitute.

  • The Rain People

    • Friday, December 3 7 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1969

    4K Digital Restoration 

    A disaffected Long Island housewife ditches her man, hits the road, and never stops heading west in Francis Ford Coppola’s striking early work, described as a female Easy Rider with a loose energy that recalls the French New Wave.