I Watched Megalopolis So You Don’t Have To

After months of buzz surrounding Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited film, I finally got the chance to see it, and all I can say is this: watching it was an experience unlike any other—but one I wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

Megalopolis tells the story of an architect determined to overcome resistance and transform a fictional city—“New Rome,” evoking both New York and ancient Rome—into a utopia where everyone can find enlightenment and fulfillment. Coppola nurtured this idea for over 40 years. He first proposed the concept in 1977 and attempted to start producing it in 1989 and 2001, only for the project to falter each time due to unfortunate circumstances.

Though Coppola never stopped filming throughout the new millennium, Megalopolis remained his passion project. He famously stated that while Apocalypse Now and One From the Heart nearly bankrupted him, he would take the same risks again if he ever managed to save up $100 million—even if it meant losing everything once more.

His adventurous spirit deserves admiration. Megalopolis was ultimately self-funded: Coppola sold his long-held vineyard and poured the profits from his classic films into making his dream come true.

Unfortunately, that dream was not shared by the audience. Upon release, Megalopolis faced dismal box office returns and overwhelmingly poor reviews, arguably the lowest point of Coppola’s career.

So, what went wrong?

1. A Film Made Too Late

It’s rarely a good sign when a film spends decades in development: ideas become outdated, the filmmaker’s artistic sensibilities fade, and their creative instincts falter after too much overthinking.

Megalopolis exemplifies these pitfalls. Many of its concepts feel antiquated, and not even Coppola’s fantastical merging of ancient Rome and modern New York can excuse this sense of being out of touch. In this world, an architect-turned-urban planner becomes the idol of an entire city, a TV host is the epitome of stardom, and a teenage pop star’s music echoes contemporary trends, yet her music videos feel stuck in the early 2000s.

The film’s core concerns—civilization’s future, the feasibility of utopias, and bridging the gap between elites and the masses—also feel misaligned with our times. Coppola’s musings on fostering long-term hope and cooperation for future generations don’t address today’s pressing crises: whether universal values can survive increasing polarization, how economic inequality might spark upheaval, or when our strained planet will unleash its ultimate retaliation. For Coppola, long detached from the ground-level struggles of society, these issues seem to exist in his blind spot.

Perhaps Megalopolis’s greatest flaw is its blurry portrayal of the masses. The ideological debates and power struggles among its elite characters are disconnected from the lives of ordinary people, who are displaced by urban planning decisions yet remain little more than faceless tools or backdrops. These working-class citizens, who shape the city’s ground-level reality, are separated by an unbridgeable chasm from those in lofty towers deciding civilization’s fate. Coppola seeks to engage the masses in this debate about the future but fails to consider their perspective—a major reason why Megalopolis struggled to resonate with the public.

2. A Film Too Self-Satisfied

At times, Megalopolis feels like it isn’t just decades late but a century behind. Its Art Deco-inspired architecture and costumes, focus on urban civilization, and use of cinematic techniques like iris shots, multiple exposures and split screens are reminiscent of 1920s and 1930s silent films, such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), which celebrated the vibrancy of industrial modernity.

Unlike those classic silent films, which conveyed the filmmakers’ curiosity and wonder at their newest tool, Coppola’s homage reeks of overindulgent self-satisfaction. Nearly every shot flaunts his artistic ingenuity, and the portrayal of the protagonist Caesar is steeped in self-adulation. Caesar is a defiant idealist opposing mediocrity, a visionary who pretends to be a villain for publicity (much like Coppola’s own reputation as a master of self-promotion). Caesar is driven by a forward-looking mission while haunted by past trauma, mirroring Coppola’s personal losses of his son and wife.

Autobiographical films can evoke intimacy or arrogance, and unfortunately, Megalopolis leans heavily toward the latter, with Coppola’s ambition overshadowing emotional resonance.

3. An Aging Artist’s Misjudgment

Ultimately, as a vision of the future, Megalopolis lacks meaningful imagination. Its depiction of Caesar’s utopian city is hollow and ostentatious—defined by its dazzling triptych format and golden hues but vague in concept. This makes Megalopolis yet another example of Coppola’s ornate but shallow misfires.

Coppola has never been the prophetic figure he imagines himself to be. His true strengths lie in his classical sensibilities. Films like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now owe their success to their Greek tragedy/Shakespearean tones and Homeric epic scope, which Coppola masterfully handled.

Even when attempting modernist filmmaking, as in his low-budget 1974 political thriller The Conversation, Coppola grounded its abstract premise (inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up) in the realities of Watergate-era America and an in-depth character study. This balance of weight and precision elevated the film. By contrast, Coppola’s more extravagant experiments in pushing cinematic boundaries—such as One from the Heart, Dracula and Megalopolis—have rarely matched the heights of his 1970s masterpieces.

Perhaps this is yet another cautionary tale about success: achieving greatness too early and too overwhelmingly can distort a creator’s self-perception, leading them to believe they can do anything.

Conclusion

Coppola’s decline is not a tragedy of art but an Italian-style farce—or perhaps a comedy of errors. While a beautiful utopia might someday arise, it won’t come through lofty speeches alone. Achieving dreams requires walking the earth, not pontificating like a self-styled Zeus from the clouds.