The Godfather is that rare motion picture that satisfies the visceral desire for sensational entertainment, the emotional need for affecting drama, and the intellectual drive for art. Born from a mass market potboiler about the Mafia by an author desperate to make a few bucks, the resulting film version is one of the great American films about family - brought to life with vivid direction and craftsmanship and some of the best actors ever to appear on screen.

The movie premiered fifty years ago, on March 14, 1972 and has since remained atop many all-time favorites lists, with a profound impact not only on Hollywood, but on popular culture around the world. Francis Ford Coppola’s sweeping masterpiece about the Corleone family gave the world quotable lines and indelible images, a total package of a film that is essentially perfect from start to finish.

The film opened to blockbuster business and became a landmark, inspiring two sequels, imitations, book sequels, a computer game, parodies, and more cultural references and quotable dialogue than nearly any movie of the last half-century.