Francis Ford Coppola

Part I
*****
5/5

Not only one of the all-time high watermarks of American cinema, the young Francis Ford Coppola's elegiac organised-crime saga also proves that an intelligent, sometimes slow-moving, drama with impeccable artistic credentials can also create queues around the block. Beginning after the end of the second World War, it traces the handover within the Corleone family from the old world values of Don Vito (a heavily disguised but stately Marlon Brando) to his son, the 'white sheep' Michael (Al Pacino, proving that his risky casting was inspired). The Mafia is never mentioned by name, but underneath all the slayings and sinister 'offers you can't refuse,' this is an immigrant family drama about assimilation, blood loyalty and honour, rich with subtle acting and blessed with stunning cinematography.
 
(1972)   
US   Colour   168 mins

Part II
*****
5/5

In The Godfather, Don Corleone's war hero son Michael (Al Pacino) turns into a man who orders death like room service. In this sequel, Michael is a symbol of an America born of immigrant idealism and dying of corruption. The only moral support is the Family. Breathtaking in scope, Part II also shows the early life of the Don, brilliantly portrayed by Robert De Niro, as he flees Sicily and sails for New York. These sequences have the grandeur of a silent movie by DW Griffith or Erich von Stroheim; the later sequences, with Michael in Cuba, are clumsy and confusing, though the climax is as chilling as the look on Michael's face when he realises that even Family members can be rubbed out. Pacino gives a monumental performance and it was an equally monumental crime that he never won an Oscar for it.

(1974)   
US   Colour   192 mins