Conducted every 10 years, the Sight & Sound Best Movies of All Time poll is voted on by film critics, writers, professors and other experts in the field of cinema. A concurrent poll is open only to directors, and their results often vary wildly from the main poll. The Cosford Cinema will be showcasing ten selections from the filmmakers' list every Sunday over the summer from June 4-August 13.

THE GODFATHER (1972) | DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola. WITH: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton. RUNNING TIME: 2H 55M | RATED R for bloody violence, sexual content, nudity and language. | 4K DIGITAL PROJECTION

One of the most beloved films of all time, Francis Ford Coppola's sprawling saga about a crime family in 1950s New York became a seminal example of the artistic heights a Hollywood genre film can reach. The movie, which ranked third in the poll, was nominated for 10 Oscars and won three, for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.

When director Francis Ford Coppola and screenwriter-novelist Mario Puzo released "The Godfather" in 1972, the mobster had already been a stock figure in film for half a century. Their genius (and that of the film’s own godfather, producer Robert Evans) was to reinvent these criminals as a dysfunctional dynastic psychodrama.

"They took the figure of the ageing don as seriously as Lear, the careworn ruler of a secret American state-within-a-state. Stomach-turning flourishes of violence are juxtaposed with elaborate rituals of familial piety and respect, which generations of real-life criminals in the United States treated as how-to behaviour manuals for decades afterwards.

"These Italian-American gangsters do not complain about the bigotry heading their way, and are themselves casually racist and antisemitic. Extravagant gestures of romantic adoration and solemn respect for womenfolk are combined with casual sexual abuse; and women have to reconcile themselves to their role: a pretext for revenge.

"Coppola’s epic storytelling sweep is magnificent: there is an electric charge in simply the shift from New York to California to Sicily and back to New York. This is the top-down approach to gangsters, the “great man” theory of organised crime. Later movies such as Scorsese’s "Goodfellas" will emphasise the more ragged lower ranks and David Chase’s "The Sopranos" showed the Italian-American mob in decline." Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Tickets are $5 per screening or $40 for a series pass good for all the ten movies. UM students admitted free with Cane Card (use code UMSTUDENT).