The Godfather Part II (1974)

Some films arrive with expectations so heavy they could sink lesser work without trace. The Godfather (1972), Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Mario Puzo's bestselling novel, had become a cultural phenomenon almost overnight, so when Paramount Pictures greenlit a sequel just two years later, the pressure was considerable. What Coppola and Puzo delivered was something genuinely unusual for the era: a film that runs two parallel narratives simultaneously, one moving forward in time and one reaching back, tracing both the consolidation and the cost of the Corleone legacy. The result, at a runtime of just over three hours and twenty minutes, is one of the most ambitious studio productions of the 1970s, a decade that was already producing some of American cinema's most adventurous work.

Coppola had come off the first film with enormous goodwill and a clutch of Academy Awards, and Part II matched and in some respects exceeded that recognition, winning six Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. The production brought together much of the original ensemble while expanding the world considerably, particularly through the extended sequences set in early twentieth-century New York and Sicily. The Coppola Company and American Zoetrope co-produced alongside Paramount, giving Coppola a degree of creative control that was relatively rare for a project of this scale at the time. Gordon Willis returned as cinematographer, lending the film that same low-lit, amber-and-shadow palette that had made the first picture so visually distinctive, polished but unhurried in its rhythms.

The cast is, by any measure, remarkable. Al Pacino, who had already proved himself in Scarecrow (1973) among other work from this period, returns as Michael Corleone, now the family patriarch rather than the reluctant younger son. The role asks something considerably darker of him here, and he delivers it with a controlled intensity that is difficult to look away from. Robert De Niro takes on the role of the young Vito, a part that requires him to carry whole sections of the film with minimal dialogue, much of it in Sicilian Italian. Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton and John Cazale all reprise their roles from the original, each given room to develop in ways the first film's structure did not always allow. It is a genuinely strong ensemble, working within a film that takes its time, sometimes a great deal of it, to make its points.

Good, but not as good as the first. Al Pacino as always gives an absolutely masterful performance. It's literally one of the classics of cinema but for some reason I always find the middle a really slow watch.

That feeling of the middle section dragging is one I've heard from a fair few people over the years, and I think it's worth taking seriously rather than dismissing as impatience. There's no question the film earns its place in the conversation about the greatest American cinema has produced, and Pacino's performance alone would justify a viewing. But great films can still have uneven pacing, and there's something honest in admitting when even a classic asks a lot of your attention. If you want to see where the story ends up, I covered The Godfather Part III elsewhere on the site, though fair warning: that one tests your patience in rather different ways. Some legacies are better left at two.

Rating: ★★★★½  | Year: 1974  | Watched: 2025-05-13

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Francis Ford Coppola: The Godfather Part III (1990) · The Godfather (1972)
More with Al Pacino: Scent of a Woman (1992) · Cruising (1980) · Insomnia (2002) · Scarecrow (1973)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)