The films that make up The Godfather trilogy are among the most acclaimed works of American cinema. Taken together, they provide a perspective on almost a century of American life and culture as refracted through the conventions of the crime genre. Five original chapters illuminate the form and significance of Coppola's achievement. Together they demonstrate the complex ways that cinema aesthetics, cultural ideologies, creative personalities, and the circumstances of the American studio system came together to produce an epic vision of an American criminal dynasty.