While we were off eating and drinking and making movie merry at SXSW last week, we missed an important anniversary: March 15th marked 40 years since The Godfather’s theatrical opening. Since it is basically your film editor’s favorite movie ever, you can surely understand my inclination to make this oversight right — and we couldn’t think of a better way to do it than to look at the picture’s peers among the great canon on American gangster films. (We kept it domestic for the sole purpose of keeping the list to a manageable length; for the same reason, we’ve tried to focus on films that are primarily gangster films, as opposed to movies like Reservoir Dogs that are heist movies or other genres with organized crime in the background.) After the jump, we’ll take a look at The Godfather within that canon: the film itself, the films that inspired it, and the films it inspired. To be fair, we’re doing it chronologically — and it’s all opinion, of course, so let us know what was unfairly skipped in the comments. … Read More