For decades Hollywood (see entry under 1930s—Film and Theater in volume 2) had portrayed hoodlums and criminals as solitary figures who rose and fell largely because of their own actions. By the 1970s, however, criminals were more often depicted as part of a complex and impersonal social system dominated by organized gangs (see entry under 1980s—The Way We Lived in volume 5), the illegal counterpart to giant corporations. Such is the case in The Godfather (1972), based on the best-selling 1969 novel by Mario Puzo (1920–1999). The Godfather was the first in a three-film series directed by Francis Ford Coppola (1939–) that depicted the decades-long dramas and inner workings of the fictional Corleones, a ruthlessly powerful organized-crime family.

As portrayed in the trilogy, the Corleones are a family of flourishing Mafia (see entry under 1960s—The Way We Lived in volume 4) businessmen whose product is crime. They are like a...