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 PART II (1972) | DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola. WITH: Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, Talia Shire. RUNNING TIME: 3H 22M | RATED R for bloody violence, sexual content, nudity and language. | 4K DIGITAL PROJECTION

One of the first movies to use “Part II” in its title, and considered to be the greatest sequel ever made, “The Godfather Part II” alternates between the 1950s, when Michael Corleone takes over the reins of his late father’s crime family, and the past, when we see how the young Vito Corleone (played by Robert DeNiro) immigrated from Italy and began to build his empire.

The movie, which ranked 26th in the critics’ poll, won six Academy Awards in 1975, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (for DeNiro) and Best Screenplay.

“We shot all over the world from Hollywood and Miami to the Dominican Republic and Sicily, Rome, and China, to name just a few of the places. The structure of the movie was very unusual too, having it take place in two different times and so many different places, we tried lots of things to make it work. We experimented with it, trying different things.

“What The Godfather Part II did was show, not that there have been many since, that a sequel could be as good as, if not better than, the original. By the way, the ‘Part II’ in the title was controversial. The studio said, ‘You can’t call it The Godfather Part II. Nobody’s ever done that. You have to think of another title.’ But, Francis stuck with that. Now we have hundreds of films that are Part II or Part III or whatever. It made that OK.

“There’s a lot I miss about those days. Back then, you could let a film build and add theaters gradually. You can rarely do that anymore. You have to come out in all your theaters at once, and you live or die in that first week. There’s almost no chance now of building an audience little by little. A sequel rarely sits as well as the original if the original is a big hit.

“The fact that it hung in there and remains seen by so many so often is amazing. Plus, it was a long film, a very long film, which the studio was not happy about but they went with it. Because of the length, it meant theaters could have fewer screenings a day, which can affect the box office.” — co-producer Fred Roos