It won three Oscars that year: for Best Picture, for Best Actor (Brando) and in the category Best Adapted Screenplay for Puzo and Coppola. The film was for a time the highest grossing picture ever made, and remains the box office leader for 1972. Now ranked as the second greatest film in American cinema (behind Citizen Kane) by the American Film Institute, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1990. The Godfather is widely regarded as one of the greatest films in world cinema -and as one of the most influential, especially in the gangster genre.
The story, spanning the years 1945 to 1955, centers on the transformation of Michael Corleone (Pacino) from reluctant family outsider to ruthless Mafia boss while also chronicling the Corleone family under the patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando).
Based on Puzo's 1969 novel of the same name, the film stars Marlon Brando and Al Pacino as the leaders of a powerful New York crime family.
Ruddy from a screenplay by Mario Puzo and Coppola. The Godfather is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Albert S. 0068646 ' I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.' ―Vito Corleone's most famous quote
