I've been to war, and it's not easy to kill. It's bloody and messy and totally horrifying, and the consequences are serious.

" Because of Stone's feature film commitments production took four years to complete. More recently Stone directed Savages based on a novel by Don Winslow. Stone was admitted into Yale University but left after a year to teach high school students at the Free Pacific Institute in South Vietnam.

Many of Stone's films focus on contemporary American political and cultural issues. British newspaper The Guardian described Stone as "one of the few committed men of the left working in mainstream American cinema.