Schooled in low-budget filmmaking, Francis Ford Coppola (born 1939) has gone on to direct some of the most financially successful and critically acclaimed movies in U.S. cinematic history.

Francis Ford Coppola, director of The Godfather and its two sequels, would be considered one of the masters of modern cinema based on those credits alone. But the writer/director/producer has been behind the scenes on numerous commercial and critical successes outside the gangster genre. Coppola's uncommon craftsmanship has enabled him to make a dizzying variety of films, from low-budget labors of love to mainstream Hollywood crowd-pleasers. All his projects have the earmarks of a Coppola production: a respect for storytelling and a passionate commitment to the filmmaker's art. It was these qualities that led David Thomson, in his Biographical Dictionary of Film, to say of Coppola: "No one retains so many jubilant traits of the kid moviemaker."

Raised...