Gangster films were no longer a popular genre when Paramount optioned Mario Puzo’s novel about an aging head of a crime family and the son reluctant to join the family business, but Francis Ford Coppola’s faithful and emotionally resonant film version was a box office blockbuster as well as one of the most critically acclaimed American films of all time, with many of the finest actors of the modern era playing their first star-making roles. 

Director: Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall. 1972. 177 min. USA. Color. English. DCP. 

All film screenings of The Godfather Trilogy are available here.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.