The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (2020)¶

At a glance¶

Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Re-edited by: Coppola, with Barry Malkin's original material
Released: December 4, 2020 (limited theatrical) · December 8, 2020 (digital / Blu-ray)
Runtime: 158 min (vs. 162 theatrical)
Box office: ~$166,000 (pandemic-era limited release)
Rotten Tomatoes: 86% (vs. 67% for Part III)
Metacritic: 76 (vs. 60)

When the Sicilians wish you "cent'anni," it means "for long life"… and a Sicilian never forgets. The closing title card of Coda

Thirty years after Part III opened to the worst reviews of the trilogy, Coppola went back into it for the anniversary and released a re-edit under the title he and Puzo had wanted in 1990: The Death of Michael Corleone. Paramount, this time, let him have it — with The Godfather Coda bolted on the front so the marketing still worked.

The result is not a new film. It is the same footage, roughly four minutes shorter, resequenced at both ends. And it is meaningfully better, which is an unusually clean demonstration of what editing alone can do.

What actually changed¶

1. The opening¶

Part III (1990) opens on the ruined Lake Tahoe compound, Michael's letter to his children in voiceover, and then the ceremony at St. Patrick's where he receives the Order of St. Sebastian. The Vatican Bank material arrives about forty minutes in, as a development.

Coda (2020) opens with the scene of Michael meeting Archbishop Gilday to propose the Immobiliare deal — the meeting that was buried in the middle of the 1990 cut.

This is the whole trick, and it works for two reasons. First, it states the film's business plainly in its first minutes: this is a story about a criminal buying his way into the Church. Second, it re-frames everything after it as consequence. In 1990 the ceremony read as a scene about a man's vanity; in Coda, arriving second, it reads as a receipt. Owen Gleiberman (Variety) called it the one genuinely impactful change, and it is.

2. The ending¶

Part III ends on the 1997 courtyard: an aged Michael slumps out of a chair and dies alone, with a dog nosing at the body.

Coda cuts the death. The film ends on Michael in the chair, the scream still recent, quietly putting on his sunglasses — and then black, and the title card about cent'anni.

Coppola's argument is that Michael's punishment is not dying. It's living. The 1990 ending grants him an exit; Coda denies it. In a trilogy whose second film ends on a man alone in a chair by a lake, ending the third on a man alone in a chair in a courtyard is also a piece of rhyming that the death scene interrupted.

Both readings are defensible and people argue about it. The counter-case is that The Death of Michael Corleone is a strange title for a version in which he does not die on screen.

3. Trims and cues¶

Beyond the two structural moves: several scenes are shortened, a handful of transitions are rebuilt, and some music cues are replaced or repositioned. Michael's illness is tightened. A few of the more expository Immobiliare beats are shaved. None of it individually registers; cumulatively, the film moves better.

Nothing was reshot. No new footage exists. Everything in Coda was in the 1990 dailies.

Reception¶

The nineteen-point swing on Rotten Tomatoes (67% → 86%) is the headline, though it deserves an asterisk: the Coda sample is smaller, it was reviewed by critics who already knew the film's reputation, and thirty years of Part III rehabilitation had already happened independently.

Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian), ⅗: unsure how much the re-edit really does, but worth watching.
Owen Gleiberman (Variety): the same damn movie — except the opening, which he thought genuinely transformative, and the film gathers force as it goes.
David Ehrlich (IndieWire): read the recut as reframing the film as a postscript to a legendary pair rather than the third leg of a flawed trilogy — which is exactly what the word Coda is doing.

Both Al Pacino and Diane Keaton publicly endorsed the new version over the 1990 cut. Coppola has said it vindicates the film's place in the trilogy and, pointedly, his daughter's performance.

Commercially it was irrelevant: a December 2020 limited release into closed cinemas took about $166,000 worldwide. It exists to be watched at home, which is where it has been since.

Which should you watch?¶

First-time viewers: Coda. It is the better-shaped film and Coppola's preferred version.

Already seen Part III: watch Coda anyway, and specifically watch what the reordering does to your read of Michael. In 1990 you meet a man seeking absolution and then learn he's buying a bank. In Coda you meet a man buying a bank and then watch him seek absolution. Same events; different man.

Completists: the 1991 "director's cut" home video release ran ~170 minutes with additional footage and is a third distinct version. See Recuts & Restorations.