4. Apocalypse Now
This is a toughie, and one many might be keen to disagree with. While Joseph Conrad's powerful novel Heart of Darkness is certainly not to be sniffed at, Francis Ford Coppola's entrancing adaptation ending up as one of the best films ever made might just be the ultimate compliment to the author. What makes Apocalypse Now better, is its modernised context; rather ingeniously, Coppola takes the themes and characters of the novel - written in 1899 - and transposes them onto the context of the Vietnam War, which only serves to enhance the devastating sense of madness that the story implies. The contemporary context serves as a potent commentary on the Vietnam War, while Coppola's magnificent visual direction, and the fantastic performances combine to create an unsettling, fiendishly entertaining film. Still, it manages to be a colourful and starkly different version of Conrad's story, while still retaining his pessimistic view of human-kind and the capacity for evil to win out over good. There is no film like it, and few adaptations so brazenly jettison their inspiration's safer content in favour of something contemporary.