Throughout April, The Henry Ford in Dearborn is celebrating the career of renowned filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola with “Francis Ford at The Henry Ford.”

Eight of Coppola’s movies will be screened with two in-person appearances by the five-time Oscar winner, who turned 86 on April 7.

“Coppola has multiple classics that have stood the test of time, including ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘The Conversation.’ All three are the cream of the crop of what is considered the best decade of film. Even if he had only done one of those films, he would still have been one of the best directors ever. He has several other great movies, too.

And of course, his daughter Sofia is one of the more important voices in cinema today,” said Dearborn native R.J. Fox, who teaches film and media arts in Ann Arbor Public Schools and wrote the screenplay to the indie film, “Love & Vodka.”Born at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Coppola is the middle child of three children (his sister is Talia Shire, who appeared in “The Godfather” and “Rocky” movies) to Carmine and Italia Coppola. Carmine was a flutist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and an arranger and assistant orchestra director for “The Ford Sunday Evening Hour,” a concert music series sponsored by Ford Motor Co. These two connections to automotive tycoon Henry Ford inspired Coppola’s parents to give him the middle name “Ford.”

When Coppola was 2 years old, his father was named principal flutist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra. As a result, the Coppolas moved and settled in Queens, New York, where Coppola spent the rest of his childhood. During his childhood, Coppola suffered from polio. This allowed him to pursue puppetry and make home movies.

Although he was aiming for a music career, Coppola earned his undergraduate degree in theater arts from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. He later earned his graduate degree in filmmaking from the University of California Los Angeles. In fact, Coppola is the first major American film director to earn a graduate degree in filmmaking from a major university.

In 1972, Coppola directed and co-wrote “The Godfather,” based on Puzo’s 1969 novel of the same name, with Mario Puzo. This was a turning point in Coppola’s career and his claim to fame as it’s considered one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.

It was the highest-grossing film of 1972 and the highest-grossing film ever made from 1972-76, having earned nearly $290 million at the box office against a $6 million to $7 million budget.

In 1990, “The Godfather” was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It is ranked the second-greatest film in American cinema after 1941’s “Citizen Kane.” Coppola was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director and won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

“The Godfather Part II” was released in 1974. The film was nominated for 11 Oscars. Coppola won for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is the first sequel to win Best Picture and is considered a rare example of a sequel that rivals — if not surpasses — the original film. It grossed $93 million at the box office against a $14 million budget. In 1993, “The Godfather Part II” was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

In 1990, “The Godfather Part III” was released, concluding the trilogy. It was nominated for seven Oscars — including Best Director and Best Picture — but didn’t win. It grossed $137 million against a $54 million budget.

While “The Godfather Part III” earned critical acclaim for the most part, it is considered the weakest of the three movies. In late 2020 on the 30th anniversary, Coppola reedited the film, renaming it “The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.”

“‘The Godfather’ movies are first and foremost about family and the lengths we will go for family,” Fox said. “The mob hits and backstabbing are fun entertainment, of course, but they ultimately serve the story, which is Shakespearean in scope, yet at times intimate and eerily silent. As somebody from a big Italian family, this movie is part of our culture. It had a profound impact on ‘The Sopranos’ and, of course, in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Casino.’ Even the more recent ‘The Brutalist’ seems to have been influenced by ‘The Godfather.’”

Since the late 1970s, Coppola has worked on “Megalopolis,” a film drawing parallels between the fall of the Roman Empire and the future of the United States by retelling the Catilinarian conspiracy in modern-day New York City. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks made Coppola hold off on making “Megalopolis” since the subject matter was too sensitive at the time.

Coppola financed the movie with $120 million of his own money. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito and Aubrey Plaza. “Megalopolis” debuted at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in 2024. It grossed $14.3 million at the box office.