Former AFI Life Achievement Award recipients like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Morgan Freeman celebrated risk-taking director Francis Ford Coppola.

Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Morgan Freeman, Harrison Ford, Adam Driver and Spike Lee were among the A-listers on hand to salute the filmmaker at Saturday's event.

On a night saluting the independence and go-for-broke cinematic life of Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino perhaps summed up why the legendary filmmaker has opted out of accepting many honors over the decades by quoting Coppola himself who once said,