Francis Ford Coppola and 50 Years of American Zoetrope

Starting March 5, 2020

Fifty years after the founding of American Zoetrope, we celebrate the studio and its co-creator, Francis Ford Coppola. Along with Coppola’s works, the series features films by George Lucas, Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, and more.

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  • The Conversation

  • The Godfather

  • THX 1138

  • One from the Heart

  • Kagemusha

  • Koyaanisqatsi

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • CANCELED: Koyaanisqatsi

    • Sunday, May 17 4:30 PM
    Godfrey Reggio
    United States, 1982

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    Digital Restoration

    Koyaanisqatsi (a Hopi word for “life out of balance”) is one of the most successful avant-garde films of all time, a spectacular montage of images of American landscapes, industrial sites, cities, and people propelled by Philip Glass’s classic score.

  • CANCELED: Kagemusha

    • Wednesday, May 13 7 PM
    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1980

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick!

    George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped produce Kurosawa’s big-budget return to epic filmmaking, involving a lord and his double (both played by Tatsuya Nakadai) trying to hold a kingdom together. “Probably the director’s most elaborate, awesome film . . . majestic, stately, cool, almost abstract” (New York Times).

  • CANCELED: Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

    • Friday, May 1 8 PM
    Paul Schrader
    United States, 1985

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    New Digital Restoration

    Paul Schrader’s riveting docu-fiction retells the life and death of Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, supported by Philip Glass’s compelling score, Eiko Ishioka’s remarkable set designs, and a riveting Ken Ogata performance. “One of the most gorgeous and sophisticated portraits of an artist ever put on film” (New Yorker).

    Introduction by Tom Luddy

  • CANCELED: Passion

    • Saturday, April 4 8 PM
    Jean-Luc Godard
    France, 1982

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    BAMPFA Collection

    Two directors create a film based on tableaux vivants of famous paintings, but find the true stories beyond the frames, in Godard’s essay on labor, love, and capital. Isabelle Huppert, Michel Piccoli, and Hanna Schygulla star.

    Introduction by Tom Luddy

  • CANCELED: One from the Heart

    • Saturday, March 28 7 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1982

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    Restored 35mm Print

    Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Raul Julia, and Nastassia Kinski float through an even more artificial version of Las Vegas in Coppola’s lavishly surreal, giddily romantic valentine to a cinema of pure attractions. “A playful, delightfully unfathomable piece of magic” (Washington Post).

  • CANCELED: Every Man for Himself

    • Wednesday, March 25 7 PM
    Jean-Luc Godard
    France, Switzerland, 1980

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    This achingly lyrical film about the selling of the self revolves around three characters: a filmmaker, his estranged partner, and a prostitute. “A stunning, original work” (NY Times). With Isabelle Huppert and Nathalie Baye.

  • CANCELED: The Conversation

    • Friday, March 20 7:30 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1974

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    New 35mm Print!

    Gene Hackman plays a crack wiretapper in over his head in Coppola’s formalist exercise in paranoia, set in a 1970s San Francisco where—much like today—privacy is elusive and technology can work both for you and against you. Winner, Grand Prize, Cannes Film Festival.

    Introduction by James Mockoski

  • CANCELED: Dementia 13

    • Saturday, March 14 8:15 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1963

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been cancelled through March 29. Learn more

    An unwelcome visitor finds herself in the dank manse of a family haunted by its secrets in Coppola’s atmospheric tale of terror, produced and financed by exploitation guru Roger Corman.

    Introduction by James Mockoski

  • The Rain People

    • Sunday, March 8 7 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1969

    4K Digital Restoration 

    A disaffected Long Island housewife ditches her man, hits the road, and never stops heading west in Coppola’s striking early work, described as a female Easy Rider and overflowing with a loose energy that recalls the French New Wave.

    Introduction by James Mockoski

  • THX 1138

    • Saturday, March 7 8 PM
    George Lucas
    United States, 1971

    George Lucas’s debut film is more 1984 than Star Wars. Robert Duvall stars as a rebel in a dystopian future where sex is illegal, robots are everywhere, and TV monitors keep the populace both sedated and monitored.

  • The Godfather

    • Thursday, March 5 7 PM
    Francis Ford Coppola
    United States, 1972

    4K Digital Restoration
    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick!

    A chronicle of the life and times of an Italian American mafia family becomes a shadow history of the American dream in Coppola’s masterpiece, widely acclaimed as one of the best American films ever made. “Overflowing with life” (Los Angeles Times).