Westminster trembled in July when Boris Johnson told the Daily Mail his favourite movie scene was “the multiple retribution killings at the end of The Godfather”. But now the film’s director, Francis Ford Coppola, has taken his revenge on the prime minister, ruthlessly denouncing his “foolish” rush towards a potentially catastrophic no-deal Brexit.

Coppola pointed out that Johnson’s love of his 1972 mafia film put him in the company of some of “modern history’s most brutal figures”, including Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi.

“I feel badly that scenes in a gangster film might inspire any activity in the real world or [provide] encouragement to someone I see is about to bring the beloved United Kingdom to ruin,” he said.

Coppola spoke out after he was contacted by the Financial News diarist Tom Teodorczuk, who suggested the Johnson government’s Brexit plans were closer to Coppola’s 1979 war film Apocalypse Now than his gangster classic.

The director, now 80, told Financial News: “I love the United Kingdom and its many contributions to humanity, ranging from our beautiful language and Newtonian physics to penicillin, and am horrified that it would even consider doing such a foolish thing as leaving the European Union.”

A spokesperson for No 10 said she did not think the prime minister would respond to Coppola’s comments.