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Godfather This article is about the film. For the novel, see The Godfather (novel). For other uses, see Godfather. is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name (see The Godfather (novel)) written by Mario Puzo, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. The film's story spans ten years from late 1945 to 1955.

This movie is regarded by many as being the definitive Mafia film. It is consistently ranked amongst the finest movies of all time and has repeatedly been voted as the number one greatest movie ever made, according to the Internet Movie Database

The film begins at the wedding of Don Vito Corleone's (Marlon Brando) daughter, Connie, to Carlo Rizzi. According to tradition, no Sicilian can refuse a request on his daughter's wedding day, so the Don is meeting people and granting various favors. One of the favors is asked by Johnny Fontane, a crooner who wants Corleone's influence to break into the movie business, more specifically, with a movie he'd be perfect in, but can't land the lead role as it is being produced by Jack Woltz, with whom Johnny had a falling-out in the past.

After Don Corleone tells Johnny to rest and let him take care of everything, he reassures him by saying that he's "gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." The family consigliere Tom Hagen (Duvall) "persuades" Woltz to cast Fontane in the movie by leaving the head of the producer's prize racehorse, Khartoum, in his bed.

Meanwhile, Don Corleone's younger son Michael (Al Pacino) has returned from service in World War II. While Vito Corleone is receiving requests on his daughter's wedding day, Michael is telling his girlfriend Kay about the kinds of things his father does. He tells her, "That's my family, Kay. It's not me."

After the wedding and the famous scene with the horse's head, narcotics man Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo asks Don Corleone for his help in selling narcotics. Don Corleone refuses, though his oldest son (Santino, or "Sonny") expresses interest in the deal. Luca Brasi, Don Corleone's unfailingly loyal guard, is sent to obtain information from Sollozzo's apparent backers, the Tattaglia family, who kill him as part of a previous plan to get to Don Corleone.

Because Don Corleone is opposed but his eldest son (next in line to run the family business) favors the narcotics deal, Sollozzo and company attempt (almost successfully) to assassinate Don Corleone. In response to the crisis, Michael (previously uninvolved in the family business) volunteers to kill Sollozzo and his guard, the corrupt police captain McClusky, during a meeting to end the conflict regarding Sollozzo's business proposal. After shooting them both in a Bronx restaurant, Michael flees to Sicily to avoid attention. There, he meets and marries Apollonia, who is later murdered by a duplicitous guard's car bomb meant for Michael. Back in America, Don Corleone returns home from the hospital and is heartbroken to learn that Michael was the one who killed Solozzo and McClusky.

In New York, the temperamental Sonny (James Caan) prepares to deal with Carlo, who is abusing his wife (Sonny's sister Connie). Sonny is set up and murdered. Instead of perpetuating the revenge cycle, Don Corleone (now more or less recovered from the assassination attempt) seeks peace with the warring Five Families so his youngest son can return home. Don Corleone realizes that it was Don Barzini, not Philip Tattaglia, who was behind most of the war and Sonny's death. Michael returns from Sicily and marries former girlfriend Kay (Diane Keaton).

The ailing Don Corleone places Michael in charge of the Family, since the next oldest brother Fredo is the weakest and least intelligent of the brothers. While advising Michael about important details such as how his enemies will attempt to come after him, Vito Corleone reveals that he had hoped his youngest son wouldn't have to work in the family business. He had hoped Michael would one day be "the one pulling the strings...Governor Corleone or Senator Corleone," but unfortunately things didn't work out that way. Michael has plans to leave behind the family's cover (olive oil importing) and "go legit" in the Las Vegas casino business. His offers to buy out casino owner Moe Greene (based partly on Bugsy Siegel) are rebuffed. While playing with his grandson, Don Corleone dies from a heart attack.

During the funeral, Corleone family underboss Sal Tessio conveys a proposal for a meeting with Don Barzini, on Tessio's turf so Michael will be safe. As Vito Corleone told him and Tom Hagen confirms at the funeral, such an offer through a trusted acquaintance is how Michael's enemies will attempt to dispose of him once Vito Corleone and his important political connections are gone. Michael then arranges for the murders of the heads of the other families (Tattaglia, Barzini, Strachi and Cuneo), Moe Greene, and Tessio (for betraying Michael to Don Barzini) --all while Michael is acting as godfather at the baptism of his nephew, Connie and Carlo's son. The film's climactic scene involves intercutting between the brutal assassinations and the church, as Michael recites the traditional vows of baptism. The brutal deaths of all Michael's enemies are portrayed: Moe Greene is shot clean through the eye, then Carlo is killed (Clemenza strangles him with a garrote) for helping to arrange the murder of Sonny. After seeing Connie hysterical over the murder of her husband, Kay questions Michael who reassures her by denying he ordered the hit on Carlo.

The movie ends as Kay steps out of the room to get a drink following Michael's reassurances, while in the background high-ups under Vito Corleone pay their respects to Michael, addressing him as Don Corleone.

The film was released in 1972 and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who had directed several films prior to this; none of these had a significant impact upon the public. Shooting spanned from March 29, 1971, to August 6 of that year. Due to skepticism about the film's expected success, a low budget was set for the film, forcing the crew to use regular lighting as opposed to production lighting. This lent a more realistic appearance to the film.

Puzo helped in the making of the movie and its sequels and co-wrote the screenplay. The producers originally wanted Robert Redford to play Michael Corleone, but Coppola demanded Al Pacino. Pacino was not well known at the time, and the studio did not consider him right for the part. Pacino was only granted the role after Coppola threatened to quit the production.

The role of Don Vito Corleone was memorably acted by Marlon Brando, who won an Academy Award (which he did not accept, in protest of Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans) for his portrayal of the aging Don. Many of the actors playing the supporting roles were largely unknown or minor actors; however, they rocketed into the limelight with the success of . Al Pacino and Robert Duvall, in particular, went on to enjoy long, successful, highly acclaimed careers.

The film is greatly respected among international critics and the public. It was voted greatest film of all time by , and #3 of all time by the American Film Institute. It is consistently, and currently, ranked #1 on IMDB's Top 250. In the 2002

The film was also nominated for eight additional Academy Awards. In addition, it won five Golden Globes, one Grammy, and numerous other awards.

The sequel trilogy the only series of films to date to win multiple Oscars in this field.

It was also the only sequel ever to win an Academy Award, until Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the Best Picture award in 2003 (IMDb.com.)

The film was an enormous box-office hit, smashing previous records to become the highest-grossing film of all time (until that record was surpassed by was also a great success with audiences. The film made USD $5,264,402 in its opening weekend, which was a record at the time. The film went on to gross $81,500,000 in its initial run; re releases boosted its North American total to $134 million.

, was released in 1974. It consists of two parallel storylines, with the focus switching between these. The first storyline follows Michael Corleone in the 1950s; the other is a flashback sequence following his father, Vito, from his youth in Sicily up through the founding of the Corleone crime family in New York and the births of Michael and his siblings. This version of Vito is played by different actors at different ages, but the adult Vito is played by Robert De Niro, who won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for a role in which, interestingly, he speaks almost no English-language dialogue. Many critics consider the sequel to be superior to the original film in quality.

Coppola re-edited the two movies together, in chronological order (adding some previously unseen footage but also toning down the violence), into one long saga for TV broadcast, entitled . While easier to understand, many consider this version to be less interesting than the original from a structural or artistic standpoint. Subsequent re-edits of the chronological version, including one that brings all three films together, have appeared on VHS but not yet on DVD.

Both have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. This is not the case for the third installment.

. This film was successful financially, but critical and fan response was mixed. However, the movie still received seven Academy Award nominations, among them Best Picture and Best Cinematography. The film is also notable for the key role played by Coppola's daughter, the future Academy Award-winning film-maker Sofia Coppola, who was forced to play Mary Corleone on short notice after Winona Ryder became ill.

The movie was set in 1979, and focused on an aging Michael Corleone. Parts of the film were very loosely based on real historical events concerning the very short Papacy of John Paul I in 1978 and the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in 1982.

One of the movie's most shocking moments comes early in the film, involving the real severed head of a horse. Animal rights groups protested the inclusion of the scene, but Coppola stated that the horse's head was delivered to him from a dog food company; a horse had not been killed especially for the movie. movies note what they believe is the significance of oranges in the films. The fruit plays a symbolic role, fans suggest, as the appearance of an orange in the film indicates an important "death scene" will take place. In the first film, Don Vito Corleone is buying oranges from a fruit seller when he is attacked; oranges are placed on the table at the meeting of the Mafia bosses (and specifically in front of the ones who will be assassinated at the film's climax); and Don Corleone dies while eating an orange, as he plays with his young grandson. Tessio is also seen peeling an orange at Connie's wedding. In Michael Corleone receives an orange from an associate of a group behind an attempt on his life, and later in the movie, is seen eating an orange as he orders the "hit" against his enemies, in preparation for the climax of the film. Additionally, in a scene from the early 1900s storyline, Don Fanucci takes an orange from a street vendor's cart and tosses it about just before his death at the hands of a young Vito. Michael also dies while eating an orange in Sicily at the end of the third film. Also, in , a bowl of oranges is knocked over as the helicopter assault begins. "The Sopranos" copy this when Uncle Junior tries to have Tony killed, just before which Tony buys a bottle of orange juice. and when Frankie Pentangeli denies being a part of "la cosa nostra, the mafia or what ever you wanna call it" in

The trilogy had a powerful impact upon the public. Don Vito's line "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse" was voted as the second most memorable line in cinema history in a 2005 poll, called AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute, and it is often parodied.

Reports from Mafia trials and confessions have suggested that Mafia families began a "real life" tradition of paying respect to the family organization with a "royal family" doing favors for underlings is very popular. For example, in John Grisham's novel , the Mafia is depicted as having an organisation wherein the top mobsters marry into the "royal family". However, this image bears little resemblance to the more sordid reality of a Mafia "family", which is depicted in the film in a humorous episode where they discuss the feasibility of bootlegging copies of the DVD. Paramount returned the favor by including this clip as an Easter Egg on the Godfather DVD Collection. Moreover, characters in as both favorite films and images to live up to in the less glamorous real world of organized crime.

"Luca Brasi held a gun to his [the band leader's] head while my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract." - Michael Corleone explains to Kay how his father got Johnny Fontane's solo career started."Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news immediately." -Tom Hagen's last line before the famous horse head scene"It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes." -Clemenza explains the meaning of a just-arrived package with a fish."Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." -Peter Clemenza, after killing the "soldier" who sold out Vito Corleone"It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business." -Michael Corleone on his motives for wanting to kill Solozzo (tried to kill Don Corleone) and McClusky (broke Michael's jaw) good, and I mean very good to plant that gun. I don't want my brother coming out of there [the restaurant bathroom] with just his dick in his hand." - Sonny Corleone to Clemenza, discussing Michael's impending assassination of Solozzo and McClusky."You son-of-a-bitch! Do you know who I am?! I'm Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!" - Moe Greene. The player assumes the role of a "soldier" in the Corleone family. Prior to his death, Marlon Brando provided some voice work for Vito, which was eventually deemed unusable and was dubbed over by a Brando impersonator. Francis Ford Coppola said in April 2005 that he was not informed of Paramount's decision to allow the game to be made and he did not approve of it.span Al Pacino also did not participate, and his likeness was replaced with a different depiction of Michael Corleone.

A board game based on the movie was also produced.