Even if he had retired in 1979, Francis Ford Coppola would still probably be considered to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time because of just how influential his early work was. Coppola had already made four films in a row that are ranked among the greatest ever made, undisputed masterpieces that had a sizable respect in their respective genres. The first two films in The Godfather franchise served as proof that gangster films could be perceived as prestige works of art, The Conversation tapped into the anxieties about surveillance that many Americans felt in the wake of the Watergate scandal, and Apocalypse Now became the definitive cultural statement about the Vietnam War. The success that Coppola earned from his early work allowed him to pursue more artistically minded projects later on in his career, including the bizarre fantasy film Youth Without Youth.