“Apocalypse Now” quotes

(1979)
Movie Apocalypse Now
Title Apocalypse Now
Year 1979
Director Francis Ford Coppola
Genre Drama, War
Plot – Walter Kurtz, Colonel of the US Army, was on a mission in Vietnam. In the middle of the jungle, he went insane and traveled to Cambodia with his troops to form a sort of empire and set himself as the leader. Captain Willard has to find him and kill him for this reason. The journey will be terrible: Kurtz territories are full of pitfalls and many other horrors. Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' is a transposition of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' and is set in the tangled, filthy surroundings of the Vietnam war.
All actors – Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Albert Hall, Harrison Ford, Dennis Hopper, G.D. Spradlin, Jerry Ziesmer, Scott Glenn, Bo Byers, James Keane, Kerry Rossall, Ron McQueen, Tom Mason, Cynthia Wood, Colleen Camp, Linda Carpenter, Jack Thibeau, Glenn Walken, George Cantero, Damien Leake, Herb Rice, William Upton, Larry Carney, Marc Coppola, Daniel Kiewit, Father Elias, Bill Graham, Hattie James, Jerry Ross, Dick White, Christian Marquand, Aurore Clément, Michel Pitton, Frank Villard, David Olivier, Chrystel Le Pelletier, Robert Julian, Yvon LeSeaux, Roman Coppola, Gian-Carlo Coppola, Henri Sadardeil, Gilbert Renkens, , Don Gordon Bell, Francis Ford Coppola, R. Lee Ermey, Jim Gaines, Evan A. Lottman, Nick Nicholson, Linn Phillips III, Charles Robinson, Sebastián Roque, Pierre Segui, Charlie Sheen, Vittorio Storaro, Henry Strzalkowski, Lonnie 'Lono' Woodley
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  • “I like the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like... victory.”
    Robert Duvall
     
  • “How many people had I already killed? There were those six that I knew about for sure. Close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time, it was an American and an officer. That wasn't supposed to make any difference to me, but it did. Shit... charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the...” (continue)(continue reading)
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    [Tag:killing, war]
  • “- Chef: I was supposed to go to Paris, study at the Escoffier School. That's when I got my orders. Well, I joined the Navy. Heard they had better food. Cook school, that did it.
    - Willard: Oh yeah? How's that?
    - Chef: They lined us up in front of a hundred yards of prime rib. All of us, you know, lined up and looking at it. Magnificent meat!...” (continue)
    (continue reading)
    Frederic Forrest - Jay 'Chef' Hicks
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    [Tag:cooking, food, navy]
  • “- Captain Benjamin L. Willard: I was sent on a classified mission, sir.
    - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz: It's no longer classified, is it? Did they tell you?
    - Captain Benjamin L. Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.
    - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
    - Captain Benjamin L. Willard:...” (continue)
    (continue reading)
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    Marlon Brando - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz
    [Tag:madness, secrets, war]
  • “I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor... and surviving.”
    Marlon Brando - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz
    [Tag:dreams, fear, survival]
  • “- Colonel Lucas: Did you not assassinate a government tax collector in Quang Tri province, June 19th, 1968? Captain?
    - Captain Benjamin L. Willard: Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation... nor would I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in fact exist, sir.”

    Harrison Ford - Colonel Lucas
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    [Tag:killing, secrets]
  • “- Chief Phillips: My orders say I'm not supposed to know where I'm taking this boat, so I don't! But one look at you, and I know it's gonna be hot!
    - Captain Benjamin L. Willard: We're going up river about 75 klicks above the Do Lung bridge.
    - Chief Phillips: That's Cambodia, captain.
    - Captain Benjamin L. Willard: That's classified. We're not...” (continue)
    (continue reading)
    Albert Hall - Chief Phillips
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    [Tag:war]
  • “The Vietnamese... we worked with them, made something, something out of nothing... we want to stay here because it's ours, it belongs to us. It keeps our family together. I mean, we fought for that. While you Americans... you are fighting for the biggest nothing in history!”

    Christian Marquand - Hubert de Marais
  • “I used to think if I died in an evil place, then my soul wouldn't be able to make it to Heaven. But now? Fuck! I mean, I don't care where it goes, as long as it ain't here.”
    Frederic Forrest - Jay 'Chef' Hicks
    [Tag:death, evil, soul]
  • “- Roxanne Sarrault: Do you know why you can never step into the same river twice?
    - Willard: Yeah, 'cause it's always moving.”

    Aurore Clément - Roxanne Sarrault
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    [Tag:rivers]
  • We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!
    Marlon Brando - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz
    [Tag:hypocrisy, war]
  • Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moralterror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.”
    Marlon Brando - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz
    [Tag:enemy, fear, friends]
  • “Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another.”
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    [Tag:regret, war]
  • “- Captain Benjamin L. Willard: Terminate the Colonel?
    - General Corman: He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And he is still in the field commanding troops.
    - Jerry, Civilian: Terminate with extreme prejudice.
    - Colonel Lucas: You understand, Captain, that this mission...” (continue)
    (continue reading)
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    G.D. Spradlin - General Corman
    Jerry Ziesmer - Jerry, Civilian
    Harrison Ford - Colonel Lucas
    [Tag:killing, secrets, war]
  • “In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action, what is often called ruthless, what may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it.”
    Martin Sheen - Captain Benjamin L. Willard
    [Tag:cruelty, moment, war]
  • “In this war, things get confused out there. Power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity. But out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to be God.”
    G.D. Spradlin - General Corman
    [Tag:confusion, war]
  • There's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and irration, between good and evil. And good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature".
    G.D. Spradlin - General Corman
  • “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like [sniffing, pondering] victory. Someday this war's gonna end...”
    Robert Duvall - Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore
    [Tag:stink, war]
  • “Disneyland? Fuck, man, this is better than Disneyland!”

    Sam Bottoms - Lance B. Johnson
    [Tag:war]
  • “You can have the whole goddamn fuckin' shit, man! You can kiss my ass in the county square cause I'm fuckin' buggin' out! I didn't come here for this! I don't fuckin' need it, I don't want it! I didn't get out of the goddamn Eighth grade for this kinda shit! All I wanted to do was fuckin' cook! I just wanted to learn to fuckin' cook, man!”

    Frederic Forrest - Jay 'Chef' Hicks
    [Tag:anger, cooking, danger]
  • “- Jay 'Chef' Hicks: Why do all you guys sit on your helmets?
    - Soldier: So we don't get our balls blown off.”

    Frederic Forrest - Jay 'Chef' Hicks
    Evan A. Lottman - Soldier
  • “I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.”
    Marlon Brando - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz
    [Tag:fear, murder]
  • “What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? A lie. A lie and we have to be merciful.”
    Marlon Brando - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz
    [Tag:lies, murder]
Highlights