'Best war film ever' made by Godfather director and streaming on Prime

Lucky Amazon Prime subscribers are now able to watch “the best war film of all time”, Apocalypse Now, on the streaming platform. The 1979 American psychological war film was produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who also directed the iconic 1972 epic gangster film, The Godfather.

Set during the Vietnam War, viewers are aken on an epic journey through South Vietnam and Cambodia. Apocalypse Now is loosely based on Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness - a 1899 novella - using a river journey from South Vietnam to Cambodia as a metaphor for a trip into the darkest corners of the human mind. Martin Sheen stars as Captain Willard, a special-ops soldier assigned to end the reign of the tyrannical Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, a renegade Special Forces officer accused of murder and presumed insane.

"In Vietnam in 1970, Captain Willard (Sheen) takes a perilous and increasingly hallucinatory journey upriver to find and terminate Colonel Kurtz (Brando),” the synopsis reads.

"A once-promising officer who has reportedly gone completely mad. In the company of a Navy patrol boat filled with street-smart kids, a surfing-obsessed Air Cavalry officer (Robert Duvall), and a crazed freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper), Willard travels further and further into the heart of darkness."

The ensemble cast also features Harrison Ford as Colonel G. Lucas, aide to Corman and an Army intelligence specialist who gives Willard his orders. The character is named for George Lucas, who had directed Ford in American Graffiti and Star Wars.

While it received mixed reviews upon its release, today the movie is regarded by many as a masterpiece of the New Hollywood era, in which the film director, rather than the studio, took on a key authorial role.

The film received numerous prestigious award nominations and collected several awards after its 1979 release, including the Academy Award, BAFTA, and Golden Globe for Best Director. It also won Best Cinematography and Best Sound at the 52nd Academy Awards and the Palme d'Or - the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Roger Ebert considered it the finest film on the Vietnam War and included it on his list for the 2002 Sight & Sound poll for the greatest movie of all time.

Praises have continued today, with one Reddit user hailing it as the "best war film."

"Apocalypse Now is an absolute masterpiece that deserves every bit of praise that it has received,” a Google reviewer also wrote. “From the stunning visuals to the incredible performances, everything about this film is top-notch."

Apocalypse Now is available to stream on Amazon Prime now.