“Francis Ford Coppola is a peerless artist – one who has created seminal works in the canon of American film and has also inspired generations of filmmakers who now embody his artistry and his independent spirit.”
–Kathleen Kennedy
Chair of the AFI Board of Trustees

Dreamer, maverick, pioneer and one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time, Francis Ford Coppola is a six-time Academy Award^®-winning director, writer and producer of some of the most influential and culturally significant films of all time, including THE GODFATHER TRILOGY, THE CONVERSATION, APOCALYPSE NOW, THE OUTSIDERS, BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA and his latest epic, MEGALOPOLIS.

Coppola was born on April 7, 1939, in Detroit, Michigan, to first-generation Italian Americans Italia Coppola (née Pennino; 1912–2004) and Carmine Coppola (1910–1991). Like his parents, he was born into a life of music and movies. His namesake and maternal grandfather, Francesco Pennino, was a songwriter, movie theater owner and early importer of Italian films. When Francis was two years old, his Juilliard-trained father was selected as the first chair flautist for the NBC Symphony under famed conductor Arturo Toscanini, and the family relocated to Queens,
New York.

It was his mother, Italia, who nurtured Francis’ creativity, as well as the artistic inclinations of Francis’ older brother, August, who went on to earn his doctorate in comparative literature and work in academia as a champion of the arts, and his younger sister, Talia, who went on to become an award-winning actress. At age 9, Francis contracted polio and was confined to his bed for over a year during which he experimented with puppetry – inventing stories and conversations, and recording sound and dialogue on a tape recorder that he would attempt to sync to his family’s home movies. When Francis fully regained his health, he began making 8mm movies; according to Francis, filmmaking marked a way to bring together his two interests – technical elements and gadgets, as well as plays, puppets, theater and musical comedy.

First earning a B.A. in theater arts from Hofstra University (which was August’s alma mater – “I wanted to be like him,” Francis would say later), Francis enrolled in UCLA’s School of Film, Theater and Television where he won the coveted Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award for his screenplay “Pilma Pilma.” His early roles in the film industry included screenwriter at Seven Arts and an apprenticeship with the legendary Roger Corman – a relationship that would prove pivotal in his professional and personal life.

Under the financial backing of Corman, Francis wrote and directed his first feature, DEMENTIA 13, a horror thriller film shot on location in Ireland. During the production, Francis met his future wife, Eleanor Neil, a talented artist and UCLA graduate with an applied design degree. “I was struck by his intensity and energy…I found him thrilling.” In 1963, Francis and Eleanor married in a small wedding in Las Vegas and welcomed son Gian-Carlo “Gio” to the family, and two years later, a second son, Roman.

For his next feature, Francis wrote and directed YOU’RE A BIG BOY NOW, a comedy based on a novel by David Benedictus. The film marked Francis’ first appearance at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar^® nomination for Geraldine Page.

In 1969, Francis co-founded American Zoetrope in San Francisco with George Lucas, who he befriended on the set of FINIAN’S RAINBOW, which starred Fred Astaire. The studio became a haven for young filmmakers.

When we left film school, our generation, the mid-Sixties film-school generation, found that Hollywood was in poor condition. We wanted to get out of there and to continue the experience that we all had as film students in the world of professional filmmaking. So we went to San Francisco, bankrolled by Francis Coppola, who as a screenwriter was the only successful one among us.”
–Oscar^®-winning Editor Walter Murch

Together with Lucas, Francis initiated and nourished the careers of talents such as Carroll Ballard and John Milius, and actors Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, James Caan, John Cazale, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, Matt Dillon and Diane Lane. To date, American Zoetrope-produced films have received 16 Academy Awards^® and 70 nominations, with four included on AFI’s list of the top 100 greatest American films (AMERICAN GRAFFITI, THE GODFATHER, APOCALYPSE NOW and THE GODFATHER PART II).

“Everything that Francis fought against and fought for made THE GODFATHER a screen classic.”
–Dean Tavoularis,
Academy Award^®-winning Production Designer

It was during this time that Francis co-wrote the screenplay for Franklin J. Schaffner’s PATTON, earning Francis his first Oscar^® – but it was his next project that catapulted the young filmmaker into the cinematic pantheon, THE GODFATHER. Coppola and Mario Puzo took home the Oscar^® for Best Adapted Screenplay and the film – which featured a cameo of Francis and Eleanor’s infant daughter, Sofia – won the Academy Award^® for Best Picture.

Francis followed up with two more masterpieces, THE GODFATHER PART II, which won six Academy Awards^®, including Best Picture, Best Director and Adapted Screenplay for Francis and Best Music for Francis’ father, Carmine; and the critically acclaimed neo-noir thriller THE CONVERSATION, starring Gene Hackman.

At the same time, Francis and Eleanor began their foray into winemaking, purchasing over 1,500 acres in Napa Valley. Later the family would open Francis Ford Coppola Winery with wines named after his mother, Eleanor, Sofia and Francis’ granddaughter, Gia.

Francis’ next project would prove to one of the most intense experiences of his life. “APOCALYPSE NOW was pretty scary. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of it.” Although the production was troubled – all of which was documented by Eleanor who turned the behind-the-scenes footage into the Emmy^®-winning documentary HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE – the film garnered eight nominations for Academy Awards^® and won two.

This capped off a remarkable decade for Coppola, with his collective works resulting in two Palme d’Or Awards at Cannes, 12 Academy Award^® nominations, and five Academy Awards^®, making the period arguably the most successful decade any filmmaker has ever had.

Over the next two decades, Francis explored storytelling across genres, with films like ONE FROM THE HEART, THE OUTSIDERS, RUMBLE FISH, THE COTTON CLUB, PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, GARDENS OF STONE, TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM, THE GODFATHER CODA: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL CORLEONE, BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA and JOHN GRISHAM’S THE RAINMAKER. With his entry into the anthology NEW YORK STORIES, “Life Without Zoe,” Francis marked the first of many behind-the-camera collaborations with his daughter, Sofia.

Francis continued his family’s tradition of encouraging creative endeavors of their children, producing Sofia’s directorial debut THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and executive producing his son Roman’s directorial debut, CQ. In 2010, Francis was once again honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, receiving the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. In his acceptance speech, Coppola said, “The fact that this is the Thalberg Award…the significance is not lost on me. Because this is an award for producing. This is not about my own writing and my own filmmaking, but this is about the talent that I came to really value.”

After 10 years away from the director’s chair, Francis reimagined his approach to filmmaking, focusing on experimental narrative techniques and producing projects independently. He wrote and directed YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, TETRO and TWIXT, a trilogy of deeply personal films.

I think the biggest thrill in life is to have a dream or imagine something and then get to see it be real. There’s nothing like that.”
–Francis Ford Coppola

Francis’ latest film MEGALOPOLIS is a Roman epic set in imagined modern America with an all-star cast including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Laurence Fishburne, Dustin Hoffman, Aubrey Plaza and Jon Voight. The film made its world premiere to a 10-minute standing ovation at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and was released theatrically and in IMAX globally.

As a writer, director, producer and technological pioneer, Francis has created a body of work that has helped shape contemporary American cinema.

In addition to his prolific film career, Francis has been producing wine for over 45 years at his Napa Valley winery, has luxury resorts in Central America, Argentina and Italy, and runs an award-winning short story magazine, “Zoetrope: All-Story.”