Locations¶
Roughly 90% of The Godfather was shot in and around New York City — a reported 120+ distinct locations — with the remainder in California and Sicily. This page covers the significant ones and what's still there.
New York¶
The Corleone compound¶
110 Longfellow Avenue, Todt Hill, Staten Island.
A real house on a real street. The production dressed the neighboring properties and built the compound wall out of styrofoam. The wedding scene used 750+ local extras.
It is a private residence and has been sold several times since, most recently for figures that reflect what it is. Do not go and knock on the door.
Sonny's tollbooth¶
Mitchel Field, Uniondale, Long Island — the former airfield, not an actual toll plaza.
Three tollbooths, guard rails, and billboards were built for the sequence, shot over three days beginning June 22, 1971, at a cost of over $100,000. A 1941 Lincoln Continental was pre-drilled with hundreds of holes for squibs.
The site is now largely developed; nothing of the set remains. See Sonny Corleone.
Louis' Restaurant¶
The Sollozzo/McCluskey murder was shot at Old Luna Restaurant, 2373 Arthur Avenue, in the Belmont section of the Bronx — the neighborhood that is still, genuinely, New York's best Italian food district.
The building has changed hands and function since. Arthur Avenue itself is very much alive.
The Genco Pura offices / Little Italy¶
Mott Street and the surrounding blocks in Manhattan's Little Italy carried the olive oil business and much of the street work.
For Part II, Dean Tavoularis built a far more ambitious version: several blocks of 1917 Little Italy on East 6th Street, dressed to a density no American film had attempted for that period. It won the Academy Award for Art Direction.
Barzini's death¶
The New York Supreme Court building, 60 Centre Street, Foley Square.
Al Neri, in a stolen police uniform, shoots Barzini on the steps in daylight. The building is still there, still a courthouse, and instantly recognizable — it has appeared in a great many films since, most persistently in the Law & Order opening.
The hospital¶
Exteriors and interiors for the sequence where Michael finds his father unguarded were shot at hospital locations in Manhattan; the specific building is variously attributed and the production used more than one.
Others¶
| Scene | Location |
|---|---|
| Michael and Kay Christmas shopping | Best & Co., Fifth Avenue (the first scene shot; the store is long gone) |
| Various interiors | Filmways studio, East Harlem |
| The Corleone funeral | Calvary Cemetery, Queens |
| Connie's wedding church | St. Joseph's, Staten Island area |
| Kay's hotel | The Edison Hotel, Manhattan |
| Michael's return / street scenes | Multiple locations across Manhattan and Brooklyn |
Weather note: filming began in late March 1971 expecting snow for the Christmas shopping scene. None came, and the production used snow machines.
Sicily¶
The Sicilian sequences were not shot in Corleone. The real town had modernized past usefulness by 1971 — too much concrete, too many aerials.
Savoca¶
Bar Vitelli, in the hill town of Savoca (province of Messina), is where Michael asks Signor Vitelli for Apollonia's hand. It is a real bar, it still operates, and it trades on this fact energetically. There is a plaque and a great deal of merchandise.
The Church of San Nicolò / Santa Lucia in Savoca is the church where Michael and Apollonia marry.
Forza d'Agrò¶
A few kilometers away, and the trilogy's most-used Sicilian location — it appears in all three films. The village square, the church steps, and the surrounding hills carry the Corleone-village scenes, Vito's 1901 flight in Part II, and Part III material.
Both towns are on the standard Taormina day-trip circuit and are extremely aware of why you have come.
Palermo¶
Part III's finale is at the Teatro Massimo, Palermo — the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in Europe. It is a real theatre and the steps are the real steps.
The theatre had been closed for restoration since 1974 and was still shut when the film shot there in 1990; it reopened in 1997. So the most famous steps in the building's modern life were filmed while it was derelict.
Also Taormina, for various Part III exteriors.
Nevada and California¶
Lake Tahoe provided the Corleone estate in Part II — the Fleur du Lac estate on the California side, built for Henry Kaiser in the 1930s. Some of the structures used in the film survive; the property is now a private condominium development and is not accessible.
Las Vegas material was largely shot in California. The production did not have the budget to shoot the Vegas sequences in Vegas — which is why Moe Greene's casino world is thinner than the rest of the film.
The Woltz estate — the horse's head — was shot at a Beverly Hills property; the specific attribution is contested between the Beverly House on Lexington Road and the Sands Point Preserve on Long Island, and different sources give different answers for the interiors and exteriors.
The Dominican Republic¶
All of Part II's Havana was shot in Santo Domingo.
Cuba was obviously unavailable in 1973. The Dominican Republic was convenient because Paramount's parent conglomerate, Gulf+Western under Charles Bluhdorn, was at that moment aggressively developing the country as a production base and had substantial local infrastructure and political access.
Italy — Part III¶
| Location | Use |
|---|---|
| Cinecittà Studios, Rome | Six weeks of interiors |
| Rome | Vatican exteriors and city scenes |
| Caprarola | Palazzo Farnese — the Vatican Bank and Immobiliare interiors |
| Castello di Lunghezza | Additional interiors |
| Santa Maria della Quercia, Viterbo | Church exteriors |
| Atlantic City, NJ | The Commission massacre — Trump Castle |
| New York | St. Patrick's Cathedral, Little Italy, the Waldorf Astoria |
If you're visiting¶
New York. The Staten Island house and the Foley Square courthouse are the two that hold up. Arthur Avenue in the Bronx is worth going to on its own merits and happens to be where the restaurant scene was shot.
Sicily. Savoca and Forza d'Agrò are close together and easily done in a day from Taormina. Expect the tourism to be extremely present. The real Corleone is a different trip entirely — inland from Palermo, not on any Godfather circuit, and home to the CIDMA anti-Mafia museum, which is a serious institution and a corrective to everything else on this list.
Please respect private property. The Staten Island house, Fleur du Lac, and the Beverly Hills estates are people's homes.