In celebration of its 50th anniversary, Paramount has remastered and re-released Francis Ford Coppola classic The Godfather Trilogy and you can see them all at HOME this month.
The original film was an adaptation of Mario Puzo’s best-selling 1969 novel of the same name and despite a challenging production with major doubts over the casting of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, Francis Ford Coppola’s film became one of the most critically acclaimed of all-time, sweeping the Oscars and making a follow-up inevitable.
The Godfather Part II is arguably cinema’s greatest sequel, cleverly telling the stories of father and son Michael (Al Pacino) and Vito (Robert De Nero) Corleone at the same age with both actors nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars with De Nero taking home the prize. Coppola and the cast all bring their A-game to create a sequel which many insist surpasses the original.
The final film in The Godfather Trilogy was much-maligned on release and has since been revisited, recut and even renamed by Francis Ford Coppola. The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone has been reimagined to be closer to Coppola and Puzo’s original vision for the finale. How successful Coppola was in reviving the final film in the trilogy is debatable, but it makes for a fascinating, if not entirely satisfying end to the saga.
