Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard S. Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, Al Lettieri, Diane Keaton, Abe Vigoda

Based on a novel by Mario Puzo. The entire Godfather trilogy boils over with food scenes and meaning, structurally (big banquets and ceremonies marking life transitions are interspliced with or followed by mass killings) as well as thematically. Aside from ethnicity, one of the most vivid food-enhanced themes is the tragic path of Michael (Pacino) from beloved son to abandoned Don: he learns how make sauce for ten men in the first movie, lives ascetically in the second (1974), and cooks for himself in the third (1990). The Godfather was also a pioneer in Hollywood's (now often) obsessive attention to culinary accuracy, thereby increasing the food value of American movies as a whole.

(by Rebecca L. Epstein)