Apocalypse Now

During the Vietnam War, Captain Benjamin Willard is assigned to travel upriver into Cambodia and terminate Colonel Walter Kurtz, a decorated officer operating outside military command. A Navy patrol boat carries Willard through increasingly surreal zones of American power and disorder.

Vittorio Storaro's shifting color, layered helicopter and jungle sound, hallucinatory dissolves, and episodes of terrifying military theater make the river journey feel psychological and historical at once. Martin Sheen's withdrawn Willard absorbs rather than explains the madness.