The Godfather

Don Vito Corleone is the patriarch of one of the five families of the New York mafia. When he rejects a drug dealer as a partner, he suffers an assassination attempt that leaves him incapacitated and forces his younger son Michael — a war veteran who had tried to keep away from the family business — to take the reins. Francis Ford Coppola adapted Mario Puzo's novel in 1972 into what is considered the first film of modern prestige Hollywood: a study of power, loyalty, and moral corruption without equal in the history of cinema.

The Godfather remains the gold standard of gangster cinema and family drama. Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, and Diane Keaton in top form. A film that looks different with each decade of the viewer's life.