Reception
The Godfather Part II ranks among the most critically and artistically successful films in movie history, and is the most honored sequel for excellence. Whether considered separately or with its predecessor as one work, it is widely accepted as one of world cinema's greatest achievements. Many critics compare it favorably to the original – although it is almost always placed below the original on lists of "greatest" movies when listed separately.
The Godfather Part II:
- Was featured on Sight and Sound's list of the ten greatest films of all time in 1992 and 2002.
- Is featured on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list, though Ebert's original review of the film granted it only three out of four stars.
- Is ranked #7 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "100 Greatest Movies of All Time".
- Is featured on movie critic Leonard Maltin's list of the "100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century".
- Received only one negative review on Rotten Tomatoes and a "98%" approval rating, 2 points less than The Godfather (although it does hold a higher rating average of 9.2/10 compared to the predecessor's 9.1/10) but 32 points more than The Godfather Part III.
- Is ranked #1 onTV Guide's 1998 list of the "50 Greatest Movies of All Time on TV and Video".
- Is ranked #3 on IMDb's Top 100 Movies of all time, with its predecessor The Godfather ranked #2.
Pacino's performance in The Godfather Part II has been praised as perhaps his best, and the Academy was criticized for not awarding him the Academy Award for Best Actor, which went that year to Art Carney for his role in Harry and Tonto. It has come to be seen by some as one of the greatest performances in cinema history. In 2006, Premiere magazine issued its list of "The 100 Greatest Performances of all Time", ranking Pacino's performance at #20. Later in 2009, Total Film issued "The 150 Greatest Performances of All Time", ranking Pacino's performance at #4.
In the chapter "The Speeches We Keep in Our Heads" from her 1998 book Simply Speaking, former television writer and Ronald Reagan's speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, analyzes "Lee Strasberg's great speech, given as Hyman Roth stood, weak and furious, before cold-eyed Michael Corleone" and explains what makes it powerful and memorable. She urges:
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- "Stop here and go out and rent The Godfather, Part II. In the middle of that movie, you will find a speech that is one of the most famous of our time, and that a lot of people keep parts of in their heads. (If I were making a compendium of great speeches of the latter half of the twentieth century I would include it.)"
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“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
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“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)