“The Godfather” Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Screenplay by Coppola and Mario Puzo, based on Puzo’s novel. Running time: 175 minutes. Rated R (for language, violence, sexual situations and adult content). Playing Monday-Thursday, 4:20 and 7:30 p.m. at Railroad Square Cinema in Waterville.

You have to remember that they came to our country with their own dreams and traditions, rich histories and beloved families — just as we once did. They crossed seas and weathered storms to carve out their own piece of our country — and they did it violently, just as we once did. They rose to dark heights of power — first in the East, eventually in the West — and this hard-earned power was something they fought brutally to protect just as we once did, and have continued to do, with bloody wars.

Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola’s epic masterpiece, “The Godfather,” brilliant in its operatic sweep, recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a restored print, now showing in select theaters. Seething with love and betrayal, illumined with extraordinary performances, a film of mature intelligence, it launched careers and changed our culture.

Roslyn Targ, a literary agent in New York, a close friend of Puzo for more than 30 years (Targ’s husband edited the novel for Putnam), told me recently that even before “The Godfather” appeared in print, it “had everyone in the publishing world talking. Agents began looking for similar books, but, of course, there were no similar books at that time. Mario had written an original, the great Sicilian-American novel, and this town knew it. There was a moment, probably when every country in the world was bidding for foreign rights, when agents and publishers would have made a deal with the devil for a similar success.”

And what a success it was. In 1969, Puzo’s novel soared to the top of worldwide best-seller lists. His cinematic collaboration with 32-year-old Coppola was, for a time, the biggest box-office hit in movie history. The story about a reluctant war-hero son who succeeds his all-powerful Mafia don father touched not a nerve, but a collective nervous system. Perhaps because America’s roots are steeped so deeply in Italian history, when this history is wedded beautifully to a rich period film, the masses will come. And they did.

“The Godfather,” a film of post-war America, focuses solely on a closed society. That is why we come to empathize with its gangster characters, most of whom are essentially evil. Had the film depicted the mob in even one act of violence on an outsider, it would have devastated its appeal that relied on our empathy and understanding for its success.

The film features a large cast, two of whom deserve mention. The standout, obviously, is Marlon Brando. As Don Vito Corleone, Brando gives himself over to the material. His acting is subdued, less showy than in his youth, but restraint works. It builds an undercurrent of power that ignites on screen with a raised eyebrow, a subtle shrug, a held gaze that burns and sometimes damns. The movie is not entirely his, but without him, the film would have split its seams in its attempt to achieve the epic weight Brando brings so effortlessly to the screen.

Then there is Al Pacino, who plays Michael, the don’s youngest son. When we first see Michael, he is a good-looking war hero-college graduate in love not with a Sicilian, but with WASPish Kay Adams (Diane Keaton). Far more sophisticated than his brothers yet somehow refreshingly innocent, he is an intellectual who initially eschews the family business because it goes against his moral code. But as the film unfolds and circumstances propel him to head the family, his metamorphosis is at once profound and tragic. We know Michael will never be at peace with himself so long as he has the burden of being godfather.

Edited by the late William Reynolds, a longtime summer resident of Hancock Point, and featuring the nostalgic score of Nino Rota, who composed the music for many of Federico Fellini’s films, “The Godfather” became a blueprint for novelists and directors alike over the years. In its wake came a never-ending wave of popular books and films about the mob’s stronghold on our world. Some of these books and movies captivated, even fascinated, but none have come close to the legendary status “The Godfather” has enjoyed for 25 years.

Grade: A

Videos to Avoid

This week I encountered two films whose casts were so appealing, I rented them in hopes of including them as separate videos of the week. I cannot. Clint Eastwood’s “Absolute Power” and John Cleese’s “Fierce Creatures” are by definition bad filmmaking.

“Absolute Power” opens with a barely clothed Gene Hackman slapping around a barely clothed socialite for 10 straight minutes. Had he been slapping around a politician, this opening might have worked, but Hackman was playing the politician — in this case, the president of the United States — and he’s hardly convincing in the role.

As Luther Whitney, Clint Eastwood plays a thief who witnesses the murder of the socialite and moves to expose the presidential cover-up that predictably ensues. The film moves so slowly, and wants so desperately to become a character study instead of the thriller it promises to be, it’s doubtful even an injection of Ex-Lax could get it moving. A more appropriate title for it would be “Absolute Disappointment” or “Absolute Boredom.” But I’ll bet Paula Jones loved it. Grade: D

Christopher Smith, a writer and critic who lives in Brewer, reviews movies each Monday in the Bangor Daily News.