Claim: Francis Ford Coppola directs films.

Francis Ford Coppola -LRB- -LSB- pronˈkoʊpələ -RSB- born April 7 , 1939 -RRB- , also credited as Francis Coppola , is a semi-retired American film director , producer , and screenwriter . He is considered to have been a central figure of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking .   After directing The Rain People -LRB- 1969 -RRB- , he co-wrote the 1970 film Patton , earning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay along with co-writer Edmund H. North . His directorial prominence was cemented with the release in 1972 of The Godfather , a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre , earning praise from both critics and the public before winning three Academy Awards -- including his second Oscar -LRB- Best Adapted Screenplay , with Mario Puzo -RRB- , Best Picture , and his first nomination for Best Director .   He followed with The Godfather Part II in 1974 , which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture . Highly regarded by critics , it brought him three more Academy Awards : Best Adapted Screenplay , Best Director and Best Picture , and made him the second director , after Billy Wilder , to be honored three times for the same film . The Conversation , which he directed , produced and wrote , was released that same year , winning the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival . He next directed 1979 's Apocalypse Now . While notorious for its lengthy and strenuous production , the film was widely acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War , winning the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival . Coppola is one of only eight filmmakers to win two Palme d'Or awards .   While a number of Coppola 's ventures in the 1980s and 1990s were critically lauded , he has never quite achieved the same commercial success with films as in the 1970s . His most well-known films released since the start of the 1980s are the dramas The Outsiders and Rumble Fish -LRB- both 1983 -RRB- , the crime-drama The Cotton Club -LRB- 1984 -RRB- , and the horror film Bram Stoker 's Dracula -LRB- 1992 -RRB- .