I was just being silly. It doesn't really mean anything. Sweden is the first country with snow that came to mind that isn't America.

It doesn't snow in Sweden. There's stuff that looks like snow, but it's not snow.

His favorite movie isn't necessarily the same as the movie he considers to be the greatest movie.

I think that Schindler's List is one of the greatest movies, but it's far from my favorite movie.

I actually did not say there was anything wrong with The Godfather being The Greatest, I almost said the opposite (but not quite), but what I said was that there is no The Greatest. And I stand by that.

I honestly don't understand what you mean when you say, there can be one greatest movie. Literally Captain Quint's post just said the opposite but you said you agree with his post, yet you seem to be pushing back on those who say there isn't just one greatest movie. I really don't understand how you're parsing this. Are you misreading us? Are we misreading you?

That's a logical point and yes my favorite movies are from what I would say are the greatest.

Wow Spielberg isn't as clever as I thought. My bad.

Is this some Abbot and Costello routine? How do we just keep getting shuffled right back to the start of this conversation?

Where have I said 'there can be one greatest movie'? I have repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly stated that the notion of there being one movie that is objectively better than all is a completely impossible argument to prove.


Instead what I have said is it is pointless to endlessly talk about how there is no such thing as a greatest movie "because it's all just a matter of opinion". But just because something can't be proved, this doesn't mean a valuable conversation can't be had in understanding WHY people BELIEVE certain movies are better than others. WHY some people BELIEVE one movie can be the best of all.

WHY means we are learning about how others think about film, and by proxy, how they think about all sorts of other different things. That matters.

BELIEVE means its a belief. We don't need to prove a belief. Art is an article of faith, in many ways not completely removed from religion. Faith can be more important than proof. You can have a conversation about what you think God is without inviting him to the dinner table. Same thing with movies.

So I have never, not once, in my entire life, ever said that there "is one greatest movie". All there can be is one greatest movie for an individual, based on their feelings and knowledge and life experience, and that can be absolutely anything. It can be Blues Clues Licks His Balls for all I care. What matters is do they have anything of interest to say about it.

In this instance Spielberg is saying it's the Godfather for him. And maybe in other instances he has said something else. Which you are allowed do. These stupid rankings aren't a stagnant pool, because ultimately Speilberg's conclusion here isn't of much interest. It's how he explains his position, on that day, in that mood, in that situation that matters. Who cares if he's said It's a Wonderful Life is the best movie on other occassions. I'd like to hear his reason for why both might be considered, without being blinded by the inherent contradiction that there can't be two greatest movies. Because WHO CARES what the greatest movie of all time is. We have already established it can never be proven, so let's not get hung up on something we already all agree on anyways. It just ends up being distraction from the actual conversation of what makes it possible that someone would think the answer to the question is The Godfather (just as Boy Wondeur rightfully pointed out a few pages back)

As for me agreeing with Quint's quote, that is just an interesting philosophy of how to look at all art. It's the idea of getting to a zen like state where we no longer differentiate between what films are good or bad, better or best. Where we just understand it as a lineage of human expression through the ages. And this is actually the philosophy that has guided my last twenty years of watching films, and why I have also repeatedly claimed over the years that (much like Mark claimed) there isn't such thing as a bad movie. They all have something to offer. What matters is that people made them. Who gives a **** if they are technically good. Worrying about quality is a waste of breath when you would prefer to look at the whole history of cinema (or painting, or music, or books) holistically instead of individually. And I'm more interested in looking at it that way.

But just because this general philosophy lines up with mine, doesn't mean I somehow can't play along with these silly games of 'what's best'. Because, as I stated above, and all over this forum for the past few years, we can still get things of value from the discussion no matter what movie we end up talking about. I just don't put any particular weight on who is right, or who is wrong, or who made a masterpiece, or who made dog shit. I'm here for the conversation. And while, yes, I too choose sides (I think 2001 is the greatest, I think Babydriver is the worst), I only do so as a provocation to talk about the things I like in movies, and the things I don't like so much, and then see if people agree or say my taste is dog shit. Either way, I don't care if people agree or disagree. I just care that they say something worth starting a conversation or a debate over. Because that's how we learn. And learning is good.

Basically the only thing I don't see the point in, is constantly going back to the drawing board with "but there can't be a greatest movie", or "why bother having this conversation since we can't prove who is right", because these hot takes just lead to a road of mostly nothingness. Because if we take these points as gospel (and, admittedly, they probably are), why even bother talking at all? We've already decided anything anyone says is pointlessly 'subjective' or 'personal' and 'can't be proved'. Where can you possibly go from there? You're lost if you get hung up on these sorts of technicalities, instead of just looking and listening to what the person is saying about what they like, or don't like, or think is the greatest of all time.

I'm being sincere. I perceive you as grousing about certain post that stated there is no one single best film, especially the posts made by Le Boy Wondeur.
...but maybe I perceived your complaint wrong, though I posted the same thought that you support, that no one single film can be the best, and I didn't get any conformation from you that you agreed.Discussion works best when people can both give a friendly nod that they agree with at least part of what was said. That's why I find debating adversarial and a waste of time, however I find communication and discussion valuable.
I think that's your fear that if someone says 'it can't be decided what the best film is' that it ends your chance to debate. Seems to me this thread is going on pretty long and yes it is all pointless but that's OK, talking about nothing can be fun too.

I was 'grousing' about how as soon as this thread kicked off, at least three posters (Corax, Wondeur, and I believe yourself) immediately pivoted to the "there is no greatest movie" spiel. And my 'grousing' was in fact just a joke about my complete ineffectiveness in ever being able to articulate why this is a conversational dead end (at least in Wondeur's defense, they quickly suggested we get back to talking about The Godfather and its merits instead of this)

Then my comment yesterday was also a joke about how even after the thread died down for a few days, when it started up again, it was literally the exact same thing all over again. How this reinforced my original joke about how nothing I ever say can stop this circle of 'subjectivity hell' I've gotten myself stuck in here.



I didn't confirm that I agreed with you because I didn't. Comparing our thoughts about films to pizza toppings, something that doesn't amount to anything more than 'personal taste', is insinuating that discussing these things gets us nowhere. Some people like pepperoni other people like pineapple and talking about it doesn't change anything, so why bother. It completely overlooks my point where conversation is what matters, even and especially when it will never lead to agreement. So there is an inherent apathy in your pizza topping analogy that I reject out of hand.


You seem to reject debate because you ignore all the nuance in the things I or someone like Corax says, or concessions we may make, and view everything as a black and white, agree or disagree dichotomy. I'm not here to pat you on the back and tell you you're a good boy, but if you actually listen to what is being said, you'll see all sorts of areas where I am agreeing with parts of what people are saying.

Of course you are going to think debate is a waste of time if all you ever seem to do is take any kind of disagreement with what you said as simply being a case of 'you're wrong'. That's rarely the case. Most of what I or some of the more debate friendly posters here are saying is considerably more nuanced than this.

Oh, yes, my quaking fear. Or maybe the fear is more on the end of the people who are always trying to stop people from having deeper discussions. I've got enough posters here more than equipped to have decent conversations on these matters. What is annoying (not frightening) about this constant disparagement of the idea of debate is when I'm instructed not to do it with people who are willing to engage in the same way I am. If you don't like debate, you don't have to keep stepping right into the middle of them.

The greatest American movie either came out in 1939 or is a Coen brothers production. Rummage around in that bag and you’ll find it.
I have spoken.

Quick reply because I'm leaving for the day in about 15 minutes, so forgive the crappy spelling errors and my jumbled thoughts. That's exactly the cause of thread derailment. By labeling our thoughts as spiel, you can then most likely expect push back. In effect you can cause the lack of conversation by complaining about it in the first place.

Well if you're humorous it escapes me. I'll take your word for it, but people aren't going to know you're not being abrupt unless you make the humor clearer, we can't read your mind and we don't know you, maybe Corax does but I don't.


There you go again knocking the freedom for the individual to have their own thoughts. So you right, we wrong...got ya;)
If that works for you and Corax, good. I prefer a lighter fare.

You mean me and that's a falsehood, I'm all for discussion but very little internet debate is done by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules. Instead it's usually (and I'm not directly referencing you) about moving the goal post, ignoring good points, baiting people to keep them on the hook and aggression and yes I hate that as that is the killer of good discussion.

For sure. I know that a list of self-appointed authorities think it was "The Greatest". Being someone who, on my non-movie days, inhabits the world of art and galleries, I've seen plenty of experts, pundits, critics and art historians. At the bottom line, however, they get paid to do the same thing MOFO people do, which is pass on personal opinions. I don't disrespect them, but like one art historian once told me, "opinions are like a**holes....everybody has one and they all stink".

Personally, I have only a limited regard for movie historians and their 100 greatest lists. You do have to ask yourself, if there's anything objective about this, why are all of the lists different?

It's advice, not revealed wisdom from on high.

Gee Whiz. I thought I did that.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

Well, whatever went wrong in this thread, there's certainly no lack of discussion.
As for crumbsroom - and I'm not going back to the "but you said"/"but I mean" word plays - I *think* I understand the essence of your frustration.
Discussing films is far more interesting than discussing the status of a film, but that just happens to be the topic of this thread.
(although FilmBuff himself has gone radio silence).

But rather than telling other forum members how a topic should or shouldn't be discussed, why don't you show us how it should be done? And I don't mean the general outline as you've already posted, but the matter at hand, in this case The Godfather.
The question was asked in the first post.
Now, what do you have to say about it?

If anything my comment has kept this thread right on track. I turned a couple of posts about how there can be no such thing as a greatest movie into multiple pages of it.

I'm not certain that wasn't where it was going anyways, but I certainly didn't help matters. On that we will agree.

The mistake was mislabelling it as a spiel. Spiels are usually long winded, which is more what I've been doing. What those initially offending comments were was a reflex. Something that always happens in certain situations, without fail, and clearly, is supposed to happen in a complete vaccuum where no one should ever dare comment on the constant reflexivity of them.

Just because this conversation has sucked, doesn't mean it wasn't a conversation. Before that it was just a couple of people nodding there heads in agreement that 'it's all just opinions, man'.

So you legitimately thought I wanted to stock pile a bunch of dimes to melt down into a hammer to hit myself in the head with.

Yeah, I probably should have made it clearer that I wasn't actually going to do that. Then the joke would have been super hilarious.

Oh, get lost with this soapboxing that I'm attacking your freedom. I called some posts boring and predictable. You know, using that freedom you love so much to say what I think. If you believe that makes me an ******* or a grouch or difficult, fine. At this point I probably am all of those things. But I haven't done a ****ing thing against freedom. Learn what that word means.

Please tell me this is a joke about me saying you turn everything into a black and white issue. Please tell me that's what the winky face means.

And yet you keep stepping into the middle of conversations to explain how much that lighter fare means to you. Which is a weird place for you to keep showing up, if you hate arguing so much.

Somehow you think that constantly being passively aggressive about how you expect us to converse with eachother on these forums isn't argumentative. You literally show up in every one of these kinds of exchanges to talk about how arguing about these things is beneath you, and yet there you always are. Making snide comments about the maturity of people who are debating about things that frequently don't even concern you, or how they are just foolishly wasting there time. Telling them to cut it out. Sometimes even suggesting that mods should get involved.

Basically, what you do isn't very far removed from what I do. You have a type of discourse you prefer and you are clear about what that is, and don't like it when people veer off that course. The main difference though is that you claim you aren't being 'argumentative' because you don't 'argue'. You just want other people to stop doing what bothers you because, I don't know, it bothers you? Personally, I think that's worse.

Then call out the moving of fence posts and stop trying to stop people from having these arguments like they are all by default 'conversation killers'. And if you love 'good points' so much, and hate them being ignored, maybe look at all of the things you completely overlook on these boards in favour of just finding shit for you to take offence at. You do it all the time. It doesn't just happen to pizza topping analogies.

There's a fundamental problem here. "how it should be done" implies that there's one right way, when anything involving humans contains an element of personal experience, attitude, emotional predisposition and error. If there were anything like truly objective reviews, we'd only need one review and that would be IT.

In regard to the Godfather, all this is exactly the point. It's a tall order to define great, much less greatest when there's no objective measure for great. Tallest building or deepest ocean is pretty easy, but movies are nothing like that. I think of it as a "darn good gangster movie", confined by its genre and a bunch of cultural stereotypes, but greatest ever.....no, not at all.

There we go. This is a fair response to what I said. You actually are acknowledging what my point was, and are fairly pointing out how I haven't helped matters. I should be talking about the merits of the film. Instead I've allowed myself to become distracted doing the exact thing I don't want to be doing.



But sadly, I just wasted all of my forum time on a bunch of completely pointless exchanges. FTR though, I did briefly mention my opinions on the Godfather's 'greatness' above in a response to you. It wasn't much, but it gets to the gyst of why I respect the movie, and understand why others have canonized it, but that it personally doesn't do a whole lot for me (I greatly prefer the sequel). I like sprawl, I like imperfections. And, if this makes sense, the Godfather is too perfect to really penetrate me. I think it's more interesting to study than to actually feel.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

Apart from the technical aspects - good writing, good acting, good cinematography, blablabla - is there something else about The Godfather that makes it (one of the) finest examples of American cinema?
Do Americans identify with the story, is it that old "land of freedom and opportunity" thing, the idea that you and you alone are responsible for your success (or the lack thereof?)

Personally I think The Magnificent Ambersons has something more interesting to say. The decline of the "Mayflower" aristocracy and the boom of the self-made tycoons (the New Money) courtesy of oil and the industrialisation. It was such a huge turning point, in a good way, but also with devastating results.
When I watched that film for the first time I could almost believe it was made in the 19th century. And of course it's also the holy grail of incomplete films.

Which is why the closest thing we have is a combination list. Now even if you got a bunch of critics to collect all their opinions together, such as Sight and Sound did, you still only have a limited selection of critics and a small portion of the world therein. So combining the "official" lists ends up being more or less the same as combining the opinions of forumers such as us. With there being both good and bad critics, it ultimately defeats the purpose of rank, acknowledging the autodidacts and the unfairness of life as the movies themselves do all the time.

In Crumbs defense, he legitimately tries to get people to get more involved in the thinking process of what we’re discussing and to challenge normal conventions on their thoughts on films, and other topics, in general.
I think most people take his posts the wrong way, and sometimes he certainly doesn’t help matters with his approach when he gets annoyed (which happens all too quickly at times), but he generally means well in moving the discussion in a more thoughtful lines.
That being said, his very first post realky did nothing to do any of this, and I can see how quickly it derailed right after it. It helps to question what his motivation and his thoughts, however. And I don’t mean necessarily to challenge him personally but to ask him to clarify his post.
As he already acknowledged, he was challenged but Wondeur and look how well that conversation went right he after. It went back into the discussion of what and why a movie is considered the best. And it was interesting stuff.

Magnificent Ambersons > The Godfather


How's that for some deep meaningful analysis.


I also think the tragedy of the Michael Corleone character is what makes the Godfather particularly meaningful. How the good and honest can be slowly corrupted and turned into exactly what they always hoped to rebel against. That maybe what they were fighting against all along was what they knew was always somewhere inside of them. It's both a profound and unsettling sentiment, especially when articulated as cleanly and honestly as The Godfather does. It doesn't ever pander to that cliche of becoming what one hates. It moves silently and almost imperceptibly until it completely has overcome Michael. We can in many ways completely empathize with his ultimate corruption. In these ways, it's an extremely relatable tragedy, even if so few of us would ever be in the kind of situation he finds himself in.


This is the beating, human heart of the film, even if it betrays itself with its search and (possible achievement of) technical perfection.

While I do think The Godfather is among the best films ever, I love Apocalypse Now even more.

Yeah. In my statistics world, meta-analysis (a composite of lots of ratings and averages) is kinda neat but still suffers from trying to impose some sort of rationale to something that, after all, is a calculation. Math-wise, you can take any 100 critics, average their ratings and get a number. Even within the frame of reference of a particular culture, raters, e.g., American reviewers who are published in mainstream media, errors such as recency, halo, etc, bias the outcome.

I'm fine with combinations, meta-analysis, etc, but I also take it as a recommendation, not as Truth.

Someone in a recent comment mentioned the movie Ben Hur, the 1950's one. It was "Greatest Ever", most Oscars, in its day, but, in spite of that amazing production, has some elements that are fairly cringe-worthy now. That happens to a lot of movies eventually, casting doubt on the idea that reviews over had that thing we like to call objectivity. It all depends......

Which only justifies the idea that the greatest of all time changes with technology and the awareness of how it worked with the general time period of each candidate. This means that historical context can help.

Of course, when you think about it, even a bad opinion or an uneducated one is purely relevant in certain cases. Think about all the critically acclaimed movies that fail to reach thousands of people because of their unique genre or datedness or modern social perception of right and wrong. When a movie can grab mass amounts people despite any of these things, that's a true measurement of its greatness. So if the objectivity thing did exist, I can at least speak from personal experience when I say I don't think Jeanne Deilman is going to achieve that same thing in this day and age (although I adore Satantango, which may fail to grab people for those same reasons).

So just having people who don't get movies is also a healthy reflection on which films do a better job of gripping the masse, even those who don't study the way we do. The whole world is relevant in that way.

Sure, lay opinion is closer to the mean of the masses. If you want to know how that people felt about a film, sample the people. Critics direct opinion. The common man reflects opinion.

But are they good directors? If so, French art films would be much more popular (as an Agnes Varda fanboy, I wouldn't complain).

While perusing this thread, I was internally drafting a comment to the effect that there is no objective measure for "greatest." A statement such as "The Godfather is the greatest movie of all time" is always written or uttered by some person (or some bot, these days) and this is inarguably someone's opinion, not fact. So when I hear a sentence such as "The Godfather is the greatest ..." I internally reprocess it as "I consider The Godfather the greatest ..." and it saves the stress of spewing pedantic outrage. But time and again I found this sentiment expressed better and more eloquently in earlier multiple posts by @skizzerflake, so I will leave him to continue to fight the good fight here.

Except, well, I'd like to pick up on the topic of a meta-analysis. I take these with a grain of salt (pun intended!) on questions such as whether vegans live longer than us non-vegans. So much depends on the authoritativeness of the contributing studies. And methodology, and sponsorship, and on and on .... But sometimes the sheer scale of a metanalysis can produce results that are worth casting your eyes over.

In this arena I'd have to say I do refer to They Shoot Pictures Don't They to fill in the gaps in my own menu of consumed films. Over 10K "ballots" collated from over 30 different curated lists that, to my eyes, seem to be gathered with a fair global distribution. But I'm not here to submit the voluminous data can actually elevate "the best." Just that it's worth a look. (And gosh, what an effort.) Anyway, here's what this huge metanalysis shows as the frequency with which films appear at the top of "best of" lists:

1. Citizen Kane
2. Vertigo
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Tokyo Story
5. The Rules of the Game
6. The Godfather
7. 8½
8. Sunrise
9. The Searchers
10. The Seven Samurai

And, ho gosh, if you're going to reply that you consider another movie "the best of all time" you'll be completely missing the point. :) (But let's see if someone does.)

They Shoot Pictures always has great lists. Mostly the further you go into them, as you end up finding films you might not expect or haven't even heard of. That's what I'm always looking for in these things, surprises. Inclusions that catch me off guard and make me want to seek them out. Or give them another chance.


The top 10 of that list is pretty basic though. But isn't that sort of what we want when looking for the supposed best ever? There is a reason some movies always appear in these things, because they truly do feel a cut above most and these 10 movies make sense in the context of the conversation, even if Rules of the Game has always baffled me slightly. Thats a movie I like a lot, but if I didn't constantly keep seeing it pop up on top 10s, it wouldn't even occur to me it might be considered as such a top tier contribution to cinema. I find Grand Illusion to be a much better Renoir, but it seems to have fallen slightly out of favor over the years.

From that list I suspect The Godfather to be the one with the broadest appeal.
Perhaps "greatest" is a combination of the film and the audience.
It's not my favourite greatest film, but this is about what most people like, not individual opinions.

Conclusion: Steven Spielberg was right when he made that comment about The Godfather (even if he didn't mean it).

A forum thread with a happy ending and we're all friends now :)

Exactly what I use it for. Many of the polls referenced stretch back a decade or more, which is OK in that they don't reflect recency bias. And as far as I can tell, no crowd-sourced lists. (The Rotten Tomatoes count of 246 seems to me to indicated those are the critics.)

The Rules of the Game also perplexes me.It seems to be a critics' favorite rather than an audience favorite.

No one can complain about happy endings. But I do wish I'd discovered this thread four days ago, when all the fun was happening. ;)

Ummmmmm.............

Even though I disagree with the list, just seeing that link made it one of my favorite things.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

I"m surprised that Death In Venice is not on the list.
It's a film about passion for beauty, and by extension art.
It climaxes with the death scene when Tadzio points at the sky (or maybe the sun) which creates an image of such divine beauty that it cannot be watched by the living.
I think there's a similarity with the Thornbird myth which is about the greatest beauty (the bird's song) which can only be achieved by the ultimate sacrifice.
Apart from that the whole film is like a gorgeous painting, and Dirk Bogarde is almost unrecognisable despite his appearance not being overly enhanced.
The evil that appears in the shape of the plague, threatening to destroy Tadzio's beauty, emphasized by the gypsy's intrusive mockery.

I watched this film on TV when I was a child and of course this is not the kind of film that children love, but I couldn't forget it and when I watched it again as an adult I understood why it had made such a huge impression.

But no, Vertigo had to be on that list.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

is Bill from TSPDT on here?

New question: Is Mall Cop the greatest American film ever made?

At the very least, the best American film about a mall cop ever made (and hopefully the last)

Well, there was Mall Cop 2.

Yeah, I remember some years ago when I brought up their noir/neo noir list.
Lists like tht interest not for their numerical listing but rather why is included for the reasons you’ve given.
I remember searching out lists for top 100 Brazilian films ever made, top 100 Mexican film, top 100 European horror films ever made, top 100 Giallo, top 100 spaghetti westerns, top 100 poliziottesco films, top 100 Japanese yakuza films and more recently a list of Italian cannibal films (for um….research ), and the lesser known euro war/macoroni combat films.
I try to be extensive.

That's how you do it.


It's all about finding things or hearing about things and going for it


Who cares if you like it. If you like movies, that should be good enough

Position 209 for 2025, 210 for 2024. Check back in the year 2233 and I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

I've hardly even touched TSPDT. I've mostly used Sight & Sound to determine which films to watch, but I'm curious how TSPDT differentiates.

S&S sends out ballots every decade to a select set of critics to send in their list of top 10 best/favorite movies, and then just lists the movies that get the most votes. So, every movie that gets any type of vote is amongst somebody's favorite movies and it's more of a question of which movie is amongst the most people's top 10 favorite movies.

I don't follow TSPDT, like other people I know, but it's an aggregate of other best of lists. I'm not clear what the weightings are, but my understanding is the S&S polls are heavily weighted (and it includes both current and past ones). But by also pulling in a lot of other "best of lists," it gets a wider range of movies, more data points, so it makes more sense to go further down the results, and you'll get more random stuff showing up higher. At least that's what I understand from what other people who look more at the list sometimes tell me.

Interesting, looks like I got to check it out.

Absolutely NOT. The greatest is the one that scared the living sh** out of me when I saw it in a Saturday afternoon kiddie matinee in my small town Bijou. It was Tarantula....John Agar and Mara Corday run and scream from a giant, hairy spider while Leo G Carroll works with his chemistry set in the lab. I actually found a DVD copy not too long ago in my local Wall-Wart close-out bin.

Giant spiders beat the heck out of watching Corleone family members do whatever it was that they did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtU1YYxQXJw

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

It's a poll of polls.

"Compiled from 16,874 film lists and ballots, the 20th edition of The 1,000 Greatest Films is quite possibly the definitive collection of the most critically acclaimed films you will find."

This one's been going on for a while, but seems to have gone meandering. It makes me wonder.....given that some watchers are quite ardent that GF is the greatest movie ever, and that some (including me) are not willing to bestow that status, what WOULD be the criteria for "Greatest"?

Do we go with the opinions of the Great Unwashed, who have put money down on popcorn and date night to make box office receipts huge? Do we sample their opinion?

Do we count purchases, disk sales, streaming receipts?

Do we sample erudite reviewers or university trained experts with degrees as critics?

Do we sample untrained, but generally literate movie goers like me?

What are the criteria?

This is certainly what we should discuss. Sales and critical analysis are both types of "impact," so to have both would help. But since quite a few movies would have both, we narrow the list only down to a couple thousand. In the vein of critics vs. comman reviewers, we have websites that take into account both, thankfully, so I suppose the only thing to do would be to take the movies that fit both massive acclaim towards the general public AND the critics, as well as to decide on a minimum amount of money made after adjusting for inflation.

At least, that would be the start.

Bare minimum average rating for critics
Bare minimum average rating for the public
Bare minimum box office after adjusting for inflation.

A base estimation on all of this, considering world impact and sales adjusted for inflation, and lack of controversy, would leave the clear winner to be Star Wars. Fourth highest grossing (no May the 4th or Episode IV pun intended), easily the biggest impact on the world, the masses absolutely adore it on the level of The Godfather.

So in this instance, the definition of "objective" would be "worldwide."

The same criteria that you used to determine that Tarantula was the greatest film...Because it resonated with you and still does. It's a good b-sci-fi creature flick too.

So what I'm saying is: We each determine what the greatest film is by whatever metric we decide is relevant and important to us. Sorry if that's boring but that's how I call it.

We could go by x number of critics opinions...but I don't give a rat's ass about that, as my opinion is what matters to me. I get it that my personal greatest film isn't going to be to other's liking, but they'll just have to find their own greatest film, I'm not sharing:D

Why do we think this should even be possible? Who do we anoint to bless the criteria? And then assemble the data? And get through that entire process and come out on the other end with a conclusion that absolutely no one, everywhere in the world, would contest? The world would reverberate with the sound of a billion film fans collectively slapping their foreheads and saying "Of course! That's the answer to the the ultimate question of movies, life, the universe, and everything!"

But there's a difference between assessing what the world sees as the greatest vs. no one contesting it. One can be at least partially calculated and discussed, which is what some people here are attempting, while the other is basically wishing for world peace.

It's kinda the same thing. To "assess what the world sees as the greatest" still implies that someone, or some group, has to do the assessing. It just won't miraculously manifest. And having done so, "the world" will accept the "assessment." You're lobbying for a theoretical possibility. Can you explain specifically how this theory of a "greatest film of all time" can be derived with credibility?

I was just thinking what would I do if I was in charge of choosing the #1 greatest movie of all time for one of the big, renowned movie list, like AFI.

Would I say, 'screw it and just pick my personal favorite'? Probably not as I'd feel like I had an obligation to those at AFI not to choose Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman or even Sweet Smell of Success. So instead I'd feel hemmed in by past list and past opinions and probably end up picking a movie that has landed in the top 5 spot for decades. I bet that's how a lot of people who helm those list roll.

An opinion becomes a standard, then it becomes movie dogma. Why isn't Sweet Smell of Success or Jaws or even Downfall voted number one instead of The Godfather? Don't tell me those films aren't as good as The Godfather. So the answer must be that popular opinions have great impact on people's own opinions...I believe TheManBehindTheCurtain just posted something very similar. But I was thinking about this all day long, really I was!

I am aware of no satisfactory criteria.

Research and discussion on a board that's willing. But people have tried since the dawn of man to get the whole world on their side. One's just a look at what the world typically sees, like looking up the most common religion. The other literally requires a mindcontrol helmet to stretch across the world a la Cerebro.

Having something to say that isn't boring or stupid.


And anyone could do that, if they at least slightly tried.

Since I'm so stupid, perhaps you can enlighten me on the original question about that well-worn gangster movie. It would be a teaching moment for all of us if you can do that. Why IS the Godfather better than Tarantula? 50 words will suffice.

What a great challenge to give to someone who has never seen Tarantula, has in this very thread claimed not to like The Godfather all that much and has up to this point had to reiterate on every single ****ing page that you can't objectively prove any one movie is better than another.


And on top off all this, you now want me to do this in under 50 words.


I dont know, how about: Tarantula ****ed yo' momma.

I'd be OK with 100 words really.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

Volunteering to watch Tarantula and write the 50 words or less before this thread gets locked.

So your response to what I wrote is to allow me more words to explain to you that I havent seen Tarantula, I don't think Godfather is the greatest movie of all time, and that there isn't actually any clear objective metric for making any kind of claim like this in the first place?


Or is this all just a ruse to hear more about that steamy Mom/Tarantula action I've so teasingly alluded to above.


If so, sorry bud, a hundred words is still nowhere near enough.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

The greatest film (from a list of greatest films) is the one that has become an evergreen.
Citizen Kane and Gone With The Wind still have an audience, but for many people it's become "old crap", as it were.
The Godfather wins. Simple and logical. (ha, logic, seems I was right all along).

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

I suppose there's a good moral to the Godfather story, though I don't think I've seen enough films to declare it the best. The fact that violence is so central to the Godfather's plot makes me wonder how much it actually resonates with the lives of its audience, since violence isn't actually a commonality in day-to-day life, despite what the media would have you believe.

The Godfather has a lot of violence, but far less than a lot of movies these days. And it doesn't feel to me like violence is central to the plot, but a device that shows the extent to which they're willing to go to achieve their aims. To me the theme that stands out most is commitment the family leader (Vito first, then Michael) has in preserving his "family" ... not just blood relatives for the loyal members in their orbit.

Fair enough. I'm just not sure how much gangster movies and TV shows really symbolize "America", since they definitely don't represent the life of the average person. They also don't coincide with more humanistic ideals, such as the principles of the US Constitution.

Or the principles of Starfleet:p

Being friends with Steven Spielberg.

Does it have to be popular and highly regarded and well done and admired in the right circles? I didn't even like Godfather because I hated the characters so I'd never say it's "The Greatest American Film Ever" but that's based on my standards. The general consensus is it's an amazing film. Does that make it "Greatest"? Having a consensus as to it being "the best film I've ever seen"?

It is impossible for everyone to agree that one specific movie is perfect. It just doesn't happen. That's what makes this so hard. Le Boy doesn't like Blade Runner, which is a popular film. Is it still a widely-regarded sci-fi? Sure. It just has its detractors.

Movies being popular in critical circles can obviously reinforce someone's opinion on what the greatest movies are.


But know what is more likely than reinforcing that belief? Causing a backlash against the film, not only amongst those who treat any kind of critical darling with disdain because they reflexively believe critics are the enemy...but it even affects those well meaning viewers who end up placing expectations too high for the film, making it so it can't help but underwhelm once it's called the greatest thing since sliced bread


Biases affect things both ways, people. That's why it is important to actually see what people have to say about things before taking their opinion seriously.


The reality is you can love The Godfather and have terrible taste. You can also hate it and have great taste.


Pay attention to what they say about the movie, not their conclusions. Conclusions don't mean shit.

Violence is the whole point of the plot, even though it's low compared to today's movies. Gangsters don't get their way with the people they coerce by using rational persuasion. The Corleone family gets their way specifically by cloaking their persuasion with the ever present threat of violence and that's why "we" like the movie. The movie does a great job of portraying that paternalistic, violent family, especially when they wear nice suits and sit at the conference table.

Again, that's the point of the plot; you don't have to be committed, just obedient. That's how Vito gets to be the "Godfather", cloaking himself in paternalistic authority, having a nearly ceremonious obedience and using the prefix "God" in that context. Since the first GF movie, movies in general have amped up the violence, but GF was pretty violent in its day, especially compared to other top-drawer productions that were not westerns or war movies.

It's all just feudalism with electric lights and modern weapons....turf, influence, power and money, enforced by extra-legal violence. In the real feudal world there was not much in the way of law and enforcement. The GF movies seem to be a throwback to the time and place guys like them make and enforce their own "laws".

In that respect, that's where I thought that GF went wrong; it's an opera basically. All that civilized pretension. In my real life, work context, I've sat in the room with guys who arrest and prosecute guys like Vito and Michael. Their comment that I heard many times was that it ain't like that at all. They portrayed guys like that as well dressed street thugs who kill because it's what they do. They said that the movie version was "lite entertainment". They used it as a metaphor for untruth about gangsters.

I would hope when these greatest movie list are made by prestigious organizations that they would not be influenced by other movie list or by movie popularity or critic's approval. But apparently they are influenced by those factors. It's evident as basically the same movies end up at top of the greatest movie list with just some reshuffling. If these greatest movie list were made by individuals who were only choosing greatest movies by their own personal opinions, then those list would be as diversified as us MoFo's own personal greatest movie list are.

I don't follow your objection. Are you saying you think the film is portraying them as civilized? Because that's not my read (or the general read of critics) at all. It's clearly showing us the divide between how they rationalize their violence and its cold reality, which is what pretty much all the best gangster movies do.

Here's a fun thought experiment: compare and contrast the violence in the "dawn of humanity" segment of 2001: Space Odyssey with the violence in The Godfather.

The problem is a list is simply the conclusion. That's one reason a site like this can be popular; it brings out what people have to say about the movie. We've spent countless hours, days, weeks, and months discussing films because we want to get answers to why people like them, or dislike them. That's what makes reviews commonplace and popular; they explain the thoughts behind the conclusion.

I like reviews for that; they explain the movie, or whatever, way better than a simple number. Anything can have any number. The reason behind the number is the important, and interesting, part.

See I think that's the problem. The list is either too individualized or too generic.

What I like to do is have my own list, and then see other lists and compare them. I make no bones about it; my taste is eclectic, so my list will be unusual. However no one has ever told me my tastes have to align with the general populace's.

I enjoy weird and obscure shit, some of which hardly anyone has seen. It doesn't really change anything about general consensus, nor should general consensus dictate what I think. I don't know if there's one right answer or not honestly. Who knows.

As far as American films go I would have to agree The Godfather is the GOAT. My all-time favorite film is 2001 Space Odyssey but I believe that was filmed in Britain and was based on the writings of a British author.

Exactly. Rankings don't mean anything. Or numbers. Or thumbs up or down. Those things can be fun to pointlessly debate, and they can generate discussion. But anything that isn't actually someone's feelings being articulated is virtually worthless.


That said, most movies that end up on greatest ever of all time lists aren't usually there just randomly. People ultimately have there reasons for choosing them and they are most often, at the very least, worth checking out (yes, even ones I think are shit). But, these lists and their ultimately silly rankings are only the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.

And some people interpret numbers and rankings and et al differently than others do. I don't like some popular films but I can respect their place amongst the greats. That's why we discuss them, I think; to figure out what those arbitrary numbers and what not mean. At least that's my impression.

Amen to that. If all us MoFos made a personal Top 100 list and they we compared them all, which is a cool idea, I'm sure my own list would have little in common with other people. But then again after being here at MoFo I've learned we're all very individualistic and even eclectic in our movie taste.

Absolutely how I feel too.

"Greatest" is weird. I think Schindler's List is the greatest American film ever made. I don't know how much weight that carries, nor do I expect anyone to agree, though I'll accept it. I march to my own beat and I do it unashamedly. Anyone can like anything, but no one will like everything.

I think that's what makes discussing films here fun; we all have our tastes and criteria, and then we can banter about them.

I'm in violent agreement with all of this ...

My chief motivation for being here is to discuss what I like, or dislike, about a particular movie. I welcome being disagreed with. In fact, I crave it. When it comes to the movies I really like (such as The Godfather ... maybe we'll get around to discussing it more in this thread ;) ), I'll admit my mind might not be changed so much. I'm actually throwing my arguments out, hoping for dispute, so I can challenge myself to sharpen my views based on thoughtful (hopefully) opinions to the contrary. Trying to justify your views is a great way to exercise your analytical and rhetorical muscles, so to speak. But if you change my mind about something, I'll give you credit. Grudgingly. But credit all the same!

A Top 100 ... that might challenge our powers of comparison. But maybe something more focused, like a thread to compare our "most overlooked candidate for the world's Top 10"? But if you come up with some rules of engagement, sounds like an idea worth pursuing....

That's a solid idea for a thread, asking people to do a top 100 would be like pulling teeth. But one's most overlooked candidate for the world's Top 10 movies, that could be doable.

I think that's the broad appeal to the site. When I first watched the Best Picture Parasite, I couldn't quite grasp the ending, and so while I did like the film, I didn't really love it, so I discussed it with my friend, who knows movies too, and he explained what he had learned about it, so I watched it again with that information in mind. Then it made sense, and I fell in love with the film.

Sometimes it helps to get different perspectives and insights on films to help the individual approach it differently and maybe appreciate it more.

Maybe I missed what made Godfather so great. I'm not infallible so that can happen. What I saw were bad people doing bad things to worse people, although that's not full-stop, and what I considered poor pacing. I liked the music of the film and the performances weren't bad. I just didn't like the characters.

With the "bad people" thing, they did bad things, and came out ahead. The reason that's important, to me, is because in other films and miniseries I've seen where bad people do bad things to other bad people, either they get their comeuppance or they're not actually bad people; they're just thrust in a bad situation and make bad decisions. One of my favorite miniseries is Hatfields & McCoys, even though they're people who made bad decisions doing bad things to other people who made bad decisions. That shows their flaws and they recognize their flaws and no one came out ahead. So many people died because of their terrible mistakes and it spiraled out of control and no one won. It's also a historical piece and the characters were more interesting (at least to me).

In Godfather, Michael rises to power and is now a new crime kingpin. I know he reluctantly became head of the house, but he did it all the same. Because he did terrible things, he came out ahead. That's what I don't like. Technically there's not much wrong with it, aside from a meandering pace, which I probably didn't like because I wasn't invested in the story. I can handle slow if I like the characters.

Sorry; I kind of wandered a bit.

Thanks ... getting back to discussing The Godfather.

It's a topic worth exploring ... does The Godfather glorify violence, or validate violence as a way to achieve the "American Dream"?

My own take is that The Godfather is honest about who the Corleones are. They're criminals. At the intro, Michael tells Kay about a crime his father committed but declares he's not like that. Later, Don Vito is meeting with the heads of other crime families and lists where he'll go (prostitution, gambling) and won't go (drugs, a decision that nearly gets him killed). Toward the end, Michael acknowledges to the Nevada senator that they're both criminals; he acknowledges he's a criminal, but insists it doesn't apply to his family. But then in that opening scene, where community member asks the don to kill the men who assaulted his daughter, he tells Tom Hagen to find someone to beat them up who won't get carried away because despite what people believe they are not murderers.("Murder" here being defined as unequal punishment since the daughter was still alive.)

Of course, they are murderers. They murder the innocent (the prosititue whose death is used to snare the Nevada senator's support), but mostly the members of other crime families in retribution for various trespasses and wrongs. Neither is right, but in their world reasons make a difference.

I don't know of a major line of critical analysis that contends this is glorifying violence. The acts are depicted with realistic brutality (for the time). They are not softened to be "palatable". The Corleones are shown honestly for what they are: criminals, thugs, murderers. The Corleones acknowledge it themselves. No one anywhere in Parts I and II offer anything other than an "eye for an eye" justification for what they're doing.

So ... no ... I don't think the film can be really criticized for "glorifying" violence or the organized crime element. Shows it pretty much for what it is and I for one never come away thinking they're cool or enviable.

But to your point, should we criticize The Godfather because the criminals appear to prosper from their crimes. Mixed bag here. Don Vito dies quietly in his garden. Sonny dies in a hail of bullets. By the end of Part II, Michael sits alone in the garden, his family gone.

You'd have to admit that movies where the bad guys get their comeuppance are pretty common. In fact, so much so that, once you've watched a lifetime of movies, you can predict the ending because the bad guy has to get caught, die, or suffer some other retribution in the end. I think we have to be able to tolerate a break in the cliche when the story is strong enough to sustain it. Yeah, Michael doesn't deserve to be anywhere but jail at the end of both movies, but I don't think any of us would say he's living the kind of life we'd like to live.

We have plenty of similar outcomes. Chigurrh walking away at the end of No Country for Old Men (now there's a guy who deserves some jail time and that one does get under my skin). Likewise: The Usual Suspects; Basic Instinct; Primal Fear. All pretty well reviewed movies. Yeah, I feel it's "right" when the bad guy/gal gets their just reward. But the world would be pretty boring if I could guess the ending to *every* movie.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

This is a terrific idea.

My candidates (top 20 most overlooked, for the top 10 of all time):

Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein
Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov
Limite 1931 Brazil Mário Peixoto
Day of Wrath 1943 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer
Stray Dog 1949 Japan Akira Kurosawa
Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu
Journey to Italy 1954 Italy Roberto Rossellini
The Music Room 1958 India Satyajit Ray
Touch of Evil 1958 USA Orson Welles
The Naked Island 1960 Japan Kaneto Shindô
La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker
Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô
Alphaville 1965 France Jean-Luc Godard
Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean-Luc Godard
Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 France Dominique Benicheti
Stranger Than Paradise 1984 USA Jim Jarmusch
Taipei Story 1985 Taiwan Edward Yang
Landscape in the Mist 1988 Greece Theodoros Angelopoulos
Vive L'Amour 1994 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang
Uzak 2002 Turkiye Nuri Bilge Ceylan

More than half of those are in my top 20 of all time, including I think the whole of my top 5, and with the possible exception of one or two, there's no or next to no chatter about them in these kind of circles.

Maybe "glorify" isn't the right word for its violence. "Make mundane" maybe? They use violence to get ahead, although I remember it always having some purpose other than, "You offended me." It was "I don't see another way to accomplish this."

Bear in mind I've only seen the movie twice, and the second time was about 13 years ago, so I'm hazy on details.

So near as the ending conundrum, where they don't get their comeuppance despite being villains, I can see how it's a turn of the norm and maybe fresh? Most films, at least with a story conclusion, the good guys beat the bad guys. Empire Strikes Back the bad guys win, except the story hasn't ended. Just that piece of it. That's just an example. At the end of Godfather, it feels like Michael Corleone is thrust into a spot he doesn't necessarily relish but accepts, so could he be a victim of circumstance? I remember he kills those guys in the restaurant and escapes to Sicily because he was the lowest profile of the brothers and they thought he could escape long enough it'd blow away (please pardon if I recall incorrectly) (it's been a while). I fail to remember why he killed them, but I remember it being for the family and a "last resort" sort of thing.

So it could be like a "necessary evil" thing, in their eyes? I personally won't kill my competition to get ahead. Then again, I'm not in the Mafia. You clearly know the film better than I do, so your knowledge holds more weight.

All of this talk about the movie has made me curious to watch it again. Maybe when I have fewer DVDs out from the library I can get to it. That sounds like a good plan.

Having sat through many operas, long ago I realized that they are really cheesy stories decorated with great music and sometimes stunning, in-person performances. I don't really care why that clown is weeping if he does it with a great song and the audience yells Bravo....."and, as the curtain closes and the stage is littered with bodies", etc.

The GF movies are like opera but without the singing. Like opera, the sketchy part of it is how the plot movie-fi-cation makes the characters seem less like thugs and more like tragic, star-crossed characters.

It's interesting to see just where the line is drawn. The GF movies made fictional anti-heroes out of murderous organized crime characters. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you probably liked the Corleone family. So far the movie world has not done the same thing with murderous dictators, but who knows.

This sounds like a roundabout "yes" to my actual question: you feel it glorifies what they do. In that case, I think this is a very unusual opinion, definitely misreads the intent, and is at odds with a lot of what the film does. The film clearly condemns their actions, in ways large and small, obvious and subtle, and then it hits us over the head with a sledgehammer in the final act (both of this film and of the trilogy) just to make sure it comes across.

And to whatever degree you "like" them is, in fact, part of that condemning, because then the audience themselves is forced to participate in their rationalization initially, before it's made abundantly clear they've been manipulated into it.

Yes, I think this gets to the core of it for me. There are a lot of movies where the gangsters live high on the hog. Party hard, abuse women, maim or kill for pleasure. And their lavish lifestyle can be held up as something some viewers might lust after. But the Corleones live well, but they don't live large and lavishly. My criteria is this: At the end of it all, are they living a life that you'd like to live. In the case of Michael at the end of both movies, he's lost a lot of what was valuable to him. In Part I, he's now thoroughly trapped in a life he didn't want. In Part II, he's lost most of what was dear to him and he's alone. Not a cliched comeuppance of the criminal in cuffs being led to the gas chamber. But nothing we admire or glorify.

There was an earlier comment that the violence was a theme. I still submit the theme is family. Michael steps in when it becomes clear to him his father could no longer lead the family and he was the only one who could step in and protect them. He even had vague, and some would say completely unrealistic, aims of "going legit." Again, unlike the more extreme gangster films, this isn't a story about criminals who revel in their violence. Violence was a tool to achieve their aims.

Do, please, have a second look at least at Part I. I always have the feeling I shouldn't be enjoying some of this as much as I do. But the acting and direction is splendid. Soundtrack ... it will stick in your head for days. It also contains one of my most memorable scenes ... and it happens completely without words. When Michael and the poor florist who comes for a visit to the hospital have succeeded in scaring off the would-be assassins, Michael learns something very important about himself. See if you can spot it.

Glorifies, not exactly, but romanticizes, definitely yes. Ironically, by making them into operatic characters it's weird because so many operatic characters are villains or morally compromised. It's their failings that make the melody soar. Nobody wants to see either an opera or a gangster movie that doesn't feature villains, but, compared to a movie like Goodfellows, the GF villains are far more operatic.

Like operatic villains, it's important that their moral weaknesses lead them into existential gloom, a lot like how Michael starts out wanting to escape the family fate, but ends up worse than most of them. He's not happy with his success, but sees his impending moral doom and you can see it on his face. The characters seem to have come right from ancient Greek and Roman dramas where most of the characters end up in Hell, kinda like Odysseus, who's completely gone for 20 years, comes back and slaughters all of his wife's suitors.

By Coppola's own admission, the theme as it is explored in both of the original movies is closer to family in the face of capitalism.

Vito Corleone did not want to be a criminal. He was just a little kid when he saw his whole family murdered by the Italian mafia. He fled to America in search of a new start, and tried to earn an honest living... but even here, the forces of the mafia made it all but impossible to be a lawful citizen. He turned to a life of crime out of desperation, and the desire to provide for his family. He had grown up watching violence around him all of his life; eventually, he just came to the conclusion that there was no getting around it. It was what he had to do, to provide for his wife and kids.

But by the time we get to Michael Corleone - he ends up destroying his own family because of all of the greed and corruption that is around him and the effect it has on his closest ones - mainly, Fredo and Kay. It is, in effect, capitalism that ultimately proves Michael's undoing.

Remember the scene in Part II with Michael and his mom?

"Did father ever fear that, in protecting your family, you could also lose your family?"

"But Vito, you can never lose your family..."

"Tempi cambi...."

It's bad because it romanticizes the m, even though it depicts their "moral doom" and sends them to Hell? I'm afraid I still don't follow the logic there.

As I said, the film makes it condemnation of the characters obvious. It's unclear why you feel it being like an opera counteracts this. The implication of what you're saying would seem to be that it's impossible to depict villainy in drama because drama inherently romanticizes things. But even that sidesteps the point about how any romanticization only amplifies the horror of the conclusion.

Both genres (GF movies and ancient tales) have similar roots in classical tragedy, where heroes end up being corrupted into villains, not unlike the Darth Vader character in Star Wars, who started out as a Jedi ands up as Darth (don't miss how close that name is to Dark and all that black stuff he wore). Shakespeare did the same thing in his tragedies, which followed the classical tradition. Like those classical tragedies, the story often starts out in the middle, and goes to a conclusion with flashes back to an origin story or has a prequel. That's standard movie stuff, but it started out with the ancients.

We all secretly find the villains to be much more interesting than the heroes.

I like your approach and I wish I could say something relevant and challenging to you about The Godfather, but I can't. I can't because I've only seen it once and that was some years ago. As a result I don't remember any of the details and all I can say is very broad comments about why I don't personally levitate towards movies like The Godfather.

What I do remember of The Godfather is that it was very well made and well cast with talented actors. The movie was well crafted in that it made these people three dimensional and explored their inner relationships with each other and their power struggles, their conflicts and their friendships & loyalties. That's why people say it's like a crime soap opera as it's about the character's relationships much more than the action itself. I've noticed a lot of MoFos seem to not like movies about human inter relationships and the term 'soap opera' gets tagged onto movies they don't like. Myself I like well made soap opera type movies as I find character development and inter relationships way more rewarding than constant action. Hence I don't watch pure action films as usually fare.

The amount of violence in The Godfather came up earlier in this thread. I recently used IMDB's advance search to generate a long list of 1990s movies that I considered watching for our countdown. I read through way more than a 1000 synopsis and was surprised at how many movies involved murder as part of their plot. If it wasn't murder it was rape or something violent. So no, The Godfather is no more violent than other movies, I'd say less, as it doesn't dwell on killings as 'cool' or as the main draw.

The reason why I don't personally enjoy The Godfather is that I don't like movies about the mafia or organized crime. Something about their complete control over innocent people makes for an uncomfortable viewing for me. So while I can see The Godfather being called one of the great movies, for me it's never going to be a personal favorite.

Indeed, I always remember that first line, "I believe in America."

Don't disagree with your take on this. But personally I've always taken the "capitalism did it" as an over-intellectualization to detour the discussion. The Italian mafia was corrupt in Vito's Italy without capitalism. Why would that change in America? The problem I see with this interpretation is that Coppola and critics are using a rationalization for the movie that isn't reflected in much dialog or revealed motivation in the actual film. It feels like something overlaid later when everyone wanted a trendy and convenient explanation of why they like it. Not because it's an extremely well acted and directed portrayal of an American crime family. It's actually an expose of capitalism!

Michael does indeed go too far, take whatever "code" he thinks he's following from his father too far. It ends in ashes. But he didn't set out to do that. I never sensed his motivation was to become fabulously wealthy and live the high life. (Remember how he dismisses the room full of working girls in that first meeting with Freddo in Las Vegas?) The harder he tried to cling to his ideal of protecting the family, the more he crushed it.