On 14 March 1972, the iconic crime epic The Godfather premiered in New York. With its haunting score, its subtle, evocative cinematography, its endlessly quotable dialogue and its powerhouse performances – which served to revive Marlon Brando's career and make a star of a young Al Pacino – it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.

Accused of glamorising crime and the Mafia before it was even released, it went on to be seen by many as the definitive gangster film. But not by its director. "I've always felt The Godfather was really less about gangsters, than about power and powerful families, and the succession of power, and the Machiavellian way that real power works in the world," Francis Ford Coppola told in 1991.