Francis Ford Coppola	...	(Director)
	...	(Writer)
Marlon Brando	...
Al Pacino	...
Gordon Willis	...	Cinematography

Summary: "Make him an offer he can't refuse." The youngest son, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), returns from World War II outside the family business, organised crime. When his father, Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) is gunned down, however, Michael is driven to commit a revenge murder, bound by blood and "honor" to a violent course (or curse) of underworld power and survival. Eventually Michael inherits the role as family head, closing the door on his uncomprehending WASP wife (Diane Keaton) as he receives the homage as the new "Godfather".
The dialogue and characters of The Godfather instantly entered the collective consciousness of filmgoers. It made stars of Pacino and James Caan (hot-headed elder brother Sonny), won Oscars for Picture, Screenplay, and Best Actor for Brando, in a triumphant comeback. it is one of the greatest American films, beloved by all, not only those who adore making Corleone impersonations but also businessmen who consider it the font of wisdom. Adapting Mario Puzo's bestseller, writer-director Francis Ford Coppola made a pulp fiction gangster opera, an epic of patriarchy, family, and of America itself. Original protests by Italian-Americans citing defamation were swept away in the film's staggering popularity. All descendants of immigrants viewed with nostalgic yearning the Corleone clan pounding the pasta, celebrating and sorrowing together. Anecdotes, footnotes, and postscripts are part of film folklore—Brando did not stuff his cheeks with cotton, but had resin blobs clipped to his back teeth, the baby baptised is Sofia Coppola, Brando sent a fake indian "Satcheen Littlefeather" to the Academy Awards ceremony to reject his Oscar.
It is a masterly work, fully deserving of its reputation. Coppola laid much of the groundwork of 1970s cinema with his commanding technique. The audacious, visceral, and stately set pieces are legend—the horse's head in the bed, Sonny's slaughter, the intercutting of a sunny wedding party in the garden with Don Corleone's court indoors, and the dazzling finale of assassinations carried out during the christening of a new Corleone (in effect the sacramental rites for Michael as he assume the role of Godfather). The film's finest qualities reveal Coppola's fluency in classics, pulp, noir, and social dramas, but an enduring criticism of The Godfather is that it glorifies the Mafia. Pacino's Michael is the film's hero, and Michael is not a good guy. But its mythic exploration of familial ties, be it one cursed in blood and ambition, still entices viewers with the idea that Family is better than no family at all.—Angela Errigo (1001)

Generally acknowledged as a bona fide classic, this Francis Ford Coppola film is one of those rare experiences that feels perfectly right from beginning to end--almost as if everyone involved had been born to participate in it. Based on Mario Puzo's bestselling novel about a Mafia dynasty, Coppola's "Godfather" extracted and enhanced the most universal themes of immigrant experience in America: the plotting-out of hopes and dreams for one's successors, the raising of children to carry on the good work, etc. In the midst of generational strife during the Vietnam years, the film somehow struck a chord with a nation fascinated by the metamorphosis of a rebellious son (Al Pacino) into the keeper of his father's dream. Marlon Brando played against Puzo's own conception of patriarch Vito Corleone, and time has certainly proven the actor correct. The rest of the cast, particularly James Caan, John Cazale, and Robert Duvall as the rest of Vito's male brood—all coping with how to take the mantle of responsibility from their father—is seamless and wonderful. "—Tom Keogh"