54 Years Later, The Godfather's Best Scene Is Still The Greatest Moment In Gangster Movie History

Aug 25, 2026 - 07:10

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54 Years Later, The Godfather's Best Scene Is Still The Greatest Moment In Gangster Movie History

Al Pacino sitting behind a desk in The Godfather

Published Aug 24, 2026, 9:30 PM EDT

Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.

Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor.

He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.

To learn more, visit his website at shawnlealos.net.

The Godfather remains the standard against which all gangster and mobster movies are based. This movie has so many iconic scenes that films in later years have copied and paid homage to, and there might not be a better scene than the one toward the end of the movie. The film opens with Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) running his family, but by the end, Vito and his son Sonny are both dead, and Michael Corleone has taken over the family business.

Al Pacino plays Michael, and The Godfather trilogy is about his rise and eventual fall as the new don of the mafia family, something that tears him away from his own family. This movie influenced every mob movie that followed, and TV shows like The Sopranos wouldn't exist if not for this brilliant movie trilogy, which showed the merging of blood family and mafia family, and how the two sides rarely combined.

The Godfather won the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay, and the second movie repeated the Best Picture win, along with wins for Best Director (Francis Ford Coppola), Best Supporting Actor (Robert De Niro), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Dramatic Score. While Pacino never won, this is the role that defines his career.

The Godfather's Baptism Of Fire Scene Explained

The scene in question is the baptism scene toward the end of The Godfather. This is the scene that shows that Michael Corleone, who opens the movie as a war hero and the good son who escapes the family's life of crime, is violently pulled back in. Things started violently earlier when Michael, who didn't want to be part of this world, was sent to kill a corrupt cop and a drug baron to protect his father.

Vito has already died of natural causes at home, and because Sonny was gunned down and killed earlier in the movie, Michael ends up as the new Don of the Corleone family. Michael attends his nephew's baptism to be anointed as his godfather at a large church, and then the unthinkable happens. After years of Don Vito working hard to keep peace between all the mafia families, Michael undertakes a hostile takeover.

While Michael is in the church witnessing the baptism, his hitman carries out the simultaneous assassinations of Moe Greene (Alex Rocco) and the heads of the other New York crime families. Every murder was followed by a scene from the church, showing the horrors of Michael's new vindictive role. After the baptism scene, Corleone then has Tessio (Abe Vigoda) killed for his betrayal, and then he has Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo) killed for Sonny's death.

The Godfather's Baptism Scene Is Gangster Filmmaking & Storytelling At Its Best

The murders during the Baptism Scene in The Godfather

The Godfather's baptism scene was one that showed gangster filmmaking and storytelling at its best. That is because it showed the conflict between these often highly religious Catholic families and the brutality and crimes that they often committed. The juxtaposition between Michael witnessing the holy vows and the violence of the murders is clear, as Michael renounces Satan while his men carry out horrific killings.

This shows the dual life of Michael, something that plays out in the trilogy, as the new godfather struggles to hold on to his blood family while attempting to keep his mafia family on top of the world. The cutting back and forth between the church and the murders was masterful, and the editing of the scenes opens slowly as the baptism ceremony begins, and then it speeds up to an almost unbearable level by the end.

This montage was something that no other movie has matched, because these were the scenes that told the entire story of what this movie was about, with the only dialogue being from the priest who was delivering the vows while intercutting with the death scenes. It mixed solemn, peaceful moments and sacred organ tunes with violent assassinations in broad daylight to show the power Michael now holds in the city.

More than anything else that happens in The Godfather, it is this one montage scene that shows Michael changing in real time from the golden boy war hero into the monster he once claimed he would never become. This is the moment that started his eventual downfall.

The Godfather 1 & 2 Will Probably Never Be Beaten

Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part 2

The Godfather shows how the good and honorable Michael Corleone becomes the godfather and a monster who will kill even those closest to him for his power. The Godfather Part II shows Michael continuing his descent to hell, as he even has his own brother killed, while the movie compares his rise to that of his father, who is played by Robert De Niro in scenes from the past.

This is a brilliant storytelling decision. While the first movie shows the start of Michael's downfall, the second contrasts how he builds the family with how his father did so many years before. It shows the difference between the father and son, where the father was honorable, and the son is willing to cross lines his father never even considered. It helps show Michael becoming a monster in an even bigger way.

The Godfather is a masterpiece, while The Godfather Part II is the first sequel to ever win the Oscar for Best Picture. It is rare to see a movie and its sequel both win a Best Picture Oscar, and it is even rarer for the two films to stand the test of time among the best movies of all time. There is almost no chance that any franchise ever matches what these two gangster films accomplished, and The Godfather and its sequel will always be recognized as the best in history.