The Dark War Movie That's Gripping Netflix Subscribers

That movie is "Apocalypse Now Redux," the 2001 extended cut of director Francis Ford Coppola's epic 1979 Vietnam War film. The film is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's classic 1899 novella "Heart of Darkness," and follows Capt. Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen), who is sent on a mission to assassinate Col. Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has gone insane and is running his own rogue paramilitary unit in the jungles of Cambodia. Willard is pretty insane himself, having been at war for three years.

Willard joins up with a river patrol boat. He and the crew encounter Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall), whose favorite things are surfing and killing, and a holdout family of French colonists on a rubber plantation, eventually reaching the temple where Kurtz lives after sustaining heavy losses of their own. What Willard finds at Kurtz's temple is "horror... the horror."

The supporting cast includes Harrison Ford, Dennis Hopper, and a teenage Laurence Fishburne in his first movie role. 

"Apocalypse Now," in addition to its extraordinary legacy, is known for its extraordinarily difficult production. According to The Independent, principal photography in the Philippines lasted for almost a year. Sets were destroyed by a typhoon, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack, and Marlon Brando showed up out-of-shape and not knowing his lines, among myriad other disasters. The film went $18 million over budget. And somehow, they pulled a classic out of the chaos.

"Apocalypse Now Redux" is a recut version of the original that adds 49 minutes of new footage. The French plantation scene was entirely cut from the original and makes up the bulk of the changes in "Redux." There's also a 40th anniversary edition, called "the Final Cut," which was released in 2019.