Image via Paramount Pictures
Published May 24, 2026, 5:43 PM EDT
Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.
Hear us out: what if there were a better version of The Godfather that hasn't been seen by most people? Everyone knows that Francis Ford Coppola's epic crime saga, based on the novel by Mario Puzo, is divided into three cinematic chapters, but the trio of films was also once presented in television form. The Godfather Saga was a four-part miniseries that aired on NBC in 1977, which was later revised after the release of Coppola's much-maligned third installment, The Godfather: Part III.
Most notable of all, this Coppola-approved cut was told in chronological order, drastically upending the dynamic of The Godfather: Part II and the entire framework of the Corleone saga. Coppola is often credited for elevating the artistic merit of Puzo's best-selling book, which meant that it wasn't entirely faithful to the original text. The Godfather Saga presents an alternate timeline where the director mirrored Puzo's structure, and the results still would've been legendary.
'The Godfather Saga' Cut the Series Into 4 Parts in Chronological Order
Short on cash during the over-budget and chaotic production of Apocalypse Now, Coppola returned to the well of his previous success to earn a quick buck in 1977. Edited by Barry Malkin, the writer-director supervised a made-for-television cut of The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II. Although Puzo never wrote a direct sequel to The Godfather, Coppola integrated Vito Corleone's backstory as an Italian immigrant-turned-local mob boss, the book's opening chapters that were excised from the first movie, into The Godfather: Part II.
The film switches from the present-day storyline of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) losing control of his family to the origin of his father's empire, with Robert De Niro playing the young version of Marlon Brando's Vito. The television format allowed for Malkin to include deleted scenes, such as Michael's reunion with his father after returning from Sicily and Sonny (James Caan) taking control of the family business after Vito's shooting. However, also because of the TV format, the graphic violence had to be censored. When it was released on VHS, The Godfather Saga was combined into one 539-minute movie.
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In The Godfather Saga, the entirety of Vito's backstory is spliced to the top of the miniseries, beginning with the slaying of his family in Sicily. This serves as an extended prologue to the entirety of 1972's The Godfather, which is then followed up by all the Michael segments in Godfather II, and finally concluded with The Godfather III. Watching all of De Niro's segments (which were divided into vignettes on the big screen) in continuation is jarring, but it's not without its appeal. The young Vito is a brilliant foil to Michael, as the former is shown as a noble outlaw providing for his impoverished family, while the latter succumbs to greed and deadly pride. Without the context of his son's corrupt soul, Vito is not as idyllic as we were initially meant to believe. In the end, the relatively straightforward backstory loses its luster without the juxtaposition of Michael's downfall.
'The Godfather Saga' Makes Francis Ford Coppola's Genius Trilogy Even Better
An NBC promo for The Godfather Saga refers to the miniseries as a "complete novel for television." This apt description best captures the epic grandeur of watching the first two movies or the entire trilogy as a whole. Coppola has always taken a literary approach to his filmmaking craft, evidenced by his own movies, such as Dracula and The Rainmaker, which credited their respective authors in their titles. The depth of family heritage coalesces to a seismic degree when the evolution of the Corleone family is tracked chronologically. The stark differences between Vito and Michael — the former stricter with his values, while the latter was driven by sheer wealth — are further emphasized in this cut. While each installment is full of Shakespearean grandeur on its own, The Godfather Saga cements the franchise as the definitive cinematic treatise on America in the 20th century.
On an emotional level, The Godfather Saga finds new realms of profundity. Watching Vito's demeanor and attitude remain constant from his youth to his old age is striking, despite all that has unfolded in his life. On the flip side, Michael's downfall from the idyllic World War II vet to the soulless monarch on top of a collapsed empire finds new layers of heartbreak in chronological order. The present-day segment might be tough to sit through without the palate cleanser of Vito's rise in New York, but it certainly shades Michael's burden with more pathos, as Al Pacino's haunting gaze and internal rage hit you like a ton of bricks. The Godfather Legacy is nearly impossible to watch in high quality, as its physical media representation never exceeded VHS. With the series as popular as ever, there's no excuse not to remaster it in 4K.
English (US) ·