'The Godfather': 30 reasons why it's one of my all-time favorites

The Godfather

My girlfriend and I are kicking off a Godfather movie marathon (yes, even Part III).

We're eating pizza, drinking red wine and trying very hard no to quote the movie as its playing.

I love this film. It's definitely got a case to make for being the best film ever made and I always have a ball every time I revisit it. I might actually prefer Part II, but more on that later.

Here are just a few reasons why it's one of my all-time favorites:

1) We all desperately don't want to be our parents and then we all eventually become them -- kind of the theme of the movie but also very much the reality of life.

2) This may be the best cast movie of all time. Every scene is packed with acting titans and in some scenes you get to watch Brando, Caan, Pacino, and Duvall at once -- incredible.

3) The Kay character (Diane Keaton) is secretly one of the most fascinating in this series. She is a slightly snobby WASP who is almost bemused by the Corleone family and yet when push comes to shove she benefits from the very excesses she seems to abhor.

Marlon Brando's Godfather make-up

4) There are few movie moments that excite me more than when Brando erupts in his scene with the Sinatra stand-in and yells "You can act like a man!" Greatest actor of all time? He just may have been.

5) It's pretty audacious to start an epic blockbuster with an extended series of scenes at an Italian wedding. And yet none of its boring and it beautifully sets up this incredible group of characters.

6) The horse head scene. It still gets me every time even though I know it's coming. I can't imagine what it was like to have seen this moment for the first time in 1972 and how shocking it must have been. It's just a perfectly staged and edited scene just like virtually every other moment in this movie.

7) Right now, my girlfriend is telling me I should do a movie blog about "awesome movie lawyers" mostly due to Robert Duvall's subtle but brilliant work in this movie. Caan has the showiest part and Pacino has the sexy one but Duvall is the glue. They all were nominated for Oscars and they all lost that year to Joel Grey in Cabaret -- go figure.

8) Brando pretty much disappears for the middle third of this movie and yet its a testament to his performance that you feel his presence throughout.

9) It's not a particularly gory movie but when the violence does occur Coppola makes it so unusual and specific (the dusty blood in the execution of McClusky, the knife in the hand of Luca Brasi) that you never forget it.

James Caan in The Godfather

10) Poor pathetic Fredo, I love how intensely John Cazale screams "Papa!" after Don Corleone is shot. Such a great character actor, Cazale tragically died in 1978. Every film he appeared in was nominated for best picture.

11) I love the mafia movie convention of being super friendly and nice to someone right before you have them executed. It's so sociopathic, it's almost funny. "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." Perfection.

12) I am a Sterling Hayden fanatic. He's got that great booming voice and imposing manner. He's great in this but also he's my favorite character in Dr. Strangelove. Also he's awesome in The Killing, The Asphalt Jungle and The Long Goodbye.

13) This movie unabashedly wants to you to root for someone who personally commits and/or orders murders in cold blood and you feel good doing it.

14) I think Michael Corleone's Italian bride was the first woman whose boobs I saw in a movie (palest nipples of all time). And that glorious love affair continues to this day.

15) It should be offensive, but I actually appreciate the casual racism in these films because it's authentic and an honest depiction of the contempt that some felt for people of color (at least at that time).

16) The Sicily sequence is just so sumptuous. Pacino has never looked more handsome and the cinematography is just gorgeous. These scenes actually slow down the pacing of the film and yet they feel essential.

17) The Sonny beatdown of Carlo, just one of the greatest movie moments ever. I love that this is the scene that probably made James Caan a superstar. Also, Carlo is like otherworldly awful -- he cheats on and beats a pregnant woman.

Al Pacino in The Godfather

18) Remember with VHS tapes when it was a longer movie they'd split into two? I remember my first tape would end after they execute Sonny in a death scene that is still shocking to this day. Seems fitting. The scene that follows with Duvall and Brando is a master class in underplayed emotion.

19) "Look how they massacred my boy." With the voice and prosthetics this shouldn't be so moving but Brando invests the line with such genuine feeling, it's truly heartbreaking.

20) I love the way Simonetta Stefanelli says the days of the week, both sexy and adorable.

21) I've always loved the Brando speech where he says "if he should be struck by a bolt of lightening...I'm going to blame some of the people in this room." One of my favorite monologues in movie history.

22) I love how smart and strategic Vito Corleone (and later, Michael) is. He is one step ahead of his enemies (most of the time). It's so much more enjoyable to watch characters who are clever in crime films.

23) Moe Green is an awesome character. He's only on screen for like two minutes and he's unforgettable. Also, one of the best death scenes ever.

24) The Vito Corleone funeral scene is fascination, Pacino does incredible work with his eyes -- just watching and measuring the reactions of his enemies when they approach his father's casket.

25) Coppola gets a lot of crap for casting his kids in his movies but their appearances here don't bother me at all and I totally appreciate his desire to preserve footage of them at this precious age for all time.

26) Pacino gives such a quiet performance, it's such a departure from his other roles.

27) That montage of mayhem crosscut with the baby's christening -- need I say more?

26) "Can't do it Sally." Amazing how Duvall delivers this line to Abe Vigoda.

27) I would have loved to have played that scene where Michael tells Carlo that he's finished. And the death scene that follows brutal.

28) The music in this movie is of course legendary but also when Coppola decides to use it is masterful.

29) When Pacino explodes on Keaton in the end, it's such a chilling sign of where his character is going.

30) There are so few movies where just the last shot is iconic but this film has one.