Douglas Knox (contrafilms)

In my humble opinion, the best movie ever made. Pacino's performance is his best ever along with the rest of the cast. This is an amazing Shakespearean tragedy parallelling the lives of a young Don Vito Corleone's (Robert DeNiro) rise to power in New York and his son's slow descent into deception and betrayal several decades later. This is a film that far superceeds rthe ambitions of the original and is genrally overlooked because people assume the sequel can't be as good as the original. They are way wrong. If you have to see only one movie this entire year, make it this one. Want to truly appreciate this film? See it with me. :)

Considered by man one of the greatest films of all time, I actually find it a close second to its sequel. Brando's performance coupled with the superb supporting cast make this less of a gangster film and more of a study familial love. Francis Ford Coppola was at the top of his game, but I point to the script, the cast and the production team a sbeing the real reasons this film became the legend it is.