Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic adventure war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and starring Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and Martin Sheen. The film follows the central character, Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Sheen), on a secret mission to assassinate the renegade and presumed insane Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Brando).