The Films¶
Four features carrying the Corleone story, made across forty-eight years by the same director, with the same star, and — for the first three — the same cinematographer.
I never wanted this for you. Vito Corleone — The Godfather (1972)
The trilogy at a glance¶
| The Godfather | Part II | Part III | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US release | March 24, 1972 | December 20, 1974 | December 25, 1990 |
| Runtime | 175 min | 202–205 min | 162 min |
| Story years | 1945–1955 | 1901–1925 / 1958–1959 | 1979–1980 |
| Budget | ~$6–7M | ~$13M | ~$54M |
| Worldwide | ~$250–291M | ~$93M | ~$136.9M |
| Oscar noms | 10 | 11 | 7 |
| Oscar wins | 3 | 6 | 0 |
| Director | Coppola | Coppola | Coppola |
| DP | Gordon Willis | Gordon Willis | Gordon Willis |
| Score | Nino Rota | Rota / Carmine Coppola | Carmine Coppola |
| RT / Metacritic | 97% / 100 | 96% / 90 | 67% / 60 |
Runtimes vary slightly between prints and territories; figures above are the common US theatrical runtimes. Box office figures combine original release and reissues — see Box Office for the breakdown.
Every version, in order of existence¶
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The Godfather — 1972
The one that changed the American film industry's idea of what a hit could be. Made under near-constant threat of the director's firing.
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The Godfather Part II — 1974
The first sequel to win Best Picture. Also the first major American film to use "Part II" in its title, which Paramount fought.
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The Godfather Saga — 1977
Both films re-cut into chronological order for NBC, with restored footage and softened violence. The blueprint for every later reassembly.
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The Godfather Part III — 1990
Coppola and Puzo wanted to call it The Death of Michael Corleone. Paramount said no. Sixteen years later Coppola got his way, sort of.
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The Godfather Coda — 2020
A 158-minute re-edit with a new opening, a new ending, and a real claim to being a different film.
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Saga, Epic, Trilogy: 1901–1980, the 2008 Coppola Restoration, the 2022 4K remasters — what's in each and which to watch.
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Roughly an hour of material cut from the first two films, most of it later restored. Genco's deathbed, Vito's Prohibition rise, Michael's Sicilian aftermath.
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The Sicilian — 1987
Michael Cimino's adaptation of Puzo's sequel novel, from which Michael Corleone had to be surgically removed for rights reasons.
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The Offer — 2022
A ten-part Paramount+ series about making the first film. Mixed reviews; irresistible subject.
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De Niro as 1930s Vito, DiCaprio as young Sonny, García as a ruined Vincent. Puzo died; the script became a novel instead.
What the three films are each about¶
They are not three chapters of one story. They are three different arguments.
The Godfather (1972) is about succession. It's a coronation story told as a horror film: a young man who has deliberately placed himself outside his family is drawn back in, one reasonable decision at a time, until he is the thing he refused to be. Its structure is a family gathering (the wedding), a crisis (the shooting), an exile, a return, and a second family gathering (the baptism) that mirrors the first and inverts it. Nothing in it is wasted.
Part II (1974) is about cost. It runs two stories at once — Vito building the family from nothing between 1901 and 1925, Michael dismantling it between 1958 and 1959 — and the cutting between them is the entire argument. Everything Vito gains, Michael loses in the adjacent scene. Where the first film asks how does a man become a monster, the sequel asks what does the monster have left. The answer is a chair, a lake, and nobody.
Part III (1990) is about absolution, and whether it's available. Michael has spent twenty years trying to buy his way clean, and the film's thesis is that the legitimate world he's trying to enter — the Vatican Bank, the international holding company — is more corrupt than the one he came from, and less honest about it. Its reputation is poor. Some of that is earned. A lot of it isn't. See Part III Reassessed.
The recurring craft team¶
The trilogy's consistency across eighteen years is unusual, and it's mostly the same names:
| Role | I (1972) | II (1974) | III (1990) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Francis Ford Coppola | Coppola | Coppola |
| Screenplay | Puzo & Coppola | Coppola & Puzo | Puzo & Coppola |
| Cinematography | Gordon Willis | Willis | Willis |
| Production design | Dean Tavoularis | Tavoularis | Tavoularis |
| Editing | William Reynolds, Peter Zinner | Zinner, Barry Malkin, Richard Marks | Malkin, Lisa Fruchtman, Walter Murch |
| Music | Nino Rota (Carmine Coppola addl.) | Rota & Carmine Coppola | Carmine Coppola |
| Casting | Fred Roos | Roos | Roos |
Rota died in 1979, which is why Part III's score is Carmine Coppola's alone, working from Rota's themes. Willis retired from features in 1997; Part III was his last collaboration with Coppola. See The Crew.