Family Drama, Gangster Film, Immigrant Experience Film

Family Matters

The Godfather is a family drama because it doesn't just deal with a mafia "family," but with an actual family, the Corleones. We get to see how their conflicts and struggles all play out: which brother will succeed the patriarch when he dies, how they'll handle the family business, how their marriages and relationships will work out.

We learn that Connie's husband beats her and we see Michael's first wife literally explode; we discover that Fredo is feckless and that Sonny is a cheater. The Corleones don't just have extreme crime problems—they have common, everyday problems as well.

Tommy Guns on an Epic Scale

Secondly, The Godfather is a gangster film because it involves… gangsters. But it's more than just street-toughs making a bid for more money. It depicts the mafia as an illicit business enterprise, intertwined with the destiny of America itself, while commenting on the dark side of the American Dream.

This set the pattern for later mob movies like Goodfellas and TV series like The Sopranos. It elevated the gangster movie from being a relatively simple cops-and-robbers thing into the sort of epic that might involve Roman emperors.

Old World Meets New

Finally, The Godfather has to do with the experience of immigrants—though it's not a very accurate portrayal of the Italian-American experience, since the vast majority of Italian-Americans weren't involved with the mafia (a negative stereotype). But the parts of it that don't involve killing people speak to the broader themes of struggling to find your place in a new land and figuring out how to negotiate the family business and get by.

Most people don't murder their personal enemies—but a lot of people do struggle with trying to retain Old World traditions and keep the past alive in modern America. The Godfather Part II would make this theme even more obvious, depicting Vito's trials and travails as a young immigrant.