Don Vito Corleone, a Mafia boss known as the Godfather, conducts business in his office, during a backyard wedding reception for his daughter, Connie. With him are his oldest son, Sonny, and his adopted son and family lawyer Tom Hagen.

        Vito arranges a meeting with Sollazzo a drug trafficer. Sonny and Tom support

the idea of expanding the family business, but Vito cannot overcome his initial

skepticism  about the scheme and his  distaste for drug trafficking. Vito rejects

the offer and orders his bodyguard, Luca Brasi, to investigate Sollozzo.

Luca Brasi is murdered, and sent to sleep with the fishes. Sollazzo orders a hit on

Vito for turning him down.  Vito survives the shooting but is badly hurt, and Sonny

temporarily takes control of the family business.

            Unlike Sonny and Tom, Michael (Vito’s third biological son) is a “civilian” who has vowed never to get involved in the family business. While visiting his father in the hospital, however, Michael discovers that the guards who were supposed to be protecting Vito have disappeared, leaving Vito vulnerable to another assassination attempt. Michael hides his father and pretends to be a gangster holding a gun to scare off the assassins. He grills a crooked cop named Captain McCluskey about whereabouts of the men who should be guarding Vito, and McCluskey punches him. Michael is knocked unconscious. Days later, after receiving advice and a gun from members of the family, Michael arranges to meet at a quiet Italian restaurant with Sollozzo and McCluskey to negotiate a peace. At the meeting, Michael kills both men. He then flees to Sicily, where Vito was born.

Vito Corleone returns home from the hospital and is disappointed to learn that Michael has participated in a Mafia killing. Sonny is killed on the roadside while he was on his way to help his sister who was beaten up by her husband Carlo.

While Michael was in Sicily, Vito assembles a meeting of the five main Mafia families. He announces that he will forgo vengeance for Sonny’s murder on the condition that Michael is allowed to return to New York unharmed.

Since Sonny is dead, Michael becomes head of the family. Vito serves as Michael’s advisor, but old age starts to take its toll on him and he eventually drops dead while playing with Michael’s young son, Anthony, among the tomato plants in his backyard.