Content and Trigger Warning Guide: The Godfather

Note: This guide may contain spoilers.

Synopsis: The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son. (Source: IMDb)

MPAA Rating: R

Estimated Self-Censored Rating Using Full Guide: PG-13

Watch On: Amazon, Showtime

Content Warnings

• Nudity/Sexual Content (2)
  • Two characters are shown having sex against a door. No nudity is visible as they are shown from the chest up and are fully clothed. 23:08-23:32.
  • Apolloina takes off her undershirt revealing her chest from 1:52:20-1:52:38.
• Blood (11)
  • A man wakes up covered in blood from a severed horse head under his sheets 33:30-34:08.
  • A small trickle of blood is shown from where Luca is stabbed in the hand, 43:54-43:56.
  • Don Vito is shown bleeding from his gunshot wounds and 45:30-45:32. We later see him bleeding from the mouth at 46:09.
  • From far away we see a driver shot in the head and when the camera shows him up close, there is a prominent bullet hole in his head, which is bleeding down his face 57:39-58:13.
  • Blood sprays out from one man as he is shot in the head, and another man is splattered with his own as they are shot at 1:29:18-1:29:40.
  • Black and white photos of dead bodies covered in blood fade in and out of the scene from 1:30:50-1:31:10.
  • Sonny is shown very bloodied as he is shot with machine guns 1:57:43-1:58:48. His corpse is shown, still bloody, for a brief moment at 2:02:50.
  • Blood is consistently shown from 2:40:48- 2:41:55
    • Blood spills out from behind Moe’s glasses where he was shot in the eye 2:40:48-2:40:53.
    • A man is trapped in a revolving door and is shot with blood and wounds visible 2:41:00-2:41:09.
    • A man and woman are shot with machine guns in bed showing small amounts of blood 2:41:12-2:41:16
    • Blood is shown spilling from the heads of two men on the ground. Another man is shot in the back with blood spurting out. 2:41:23-2:41:34.
• Graphic Violence (7)
  • Luca is stabbed in the hand and then choked out using a wire from 43:30-43:50, he is seen struggling and moaning.
  • Don Vito is shot at several times in the back with visible gunshot wounds at 45:18-45:46.
  • We see two men shot point-blank in the head and die from 1:29:18 – 1:29:40.
  • Carlo, a domestic abuser, is brutally beaten up as revenge from 1:48:11-1:49:24.
  • Sonny is shot down by multiple men with machine guns. His wounds are viable and bloody from 1:57:43-1:58:48.
  • Multiple people are shot and murdered from 2:40:37-2:41:55.
  • Carlo is strangled by wire in a moving car and is shown struggling and kicking out the front window from 2:48:16-2:48:37.

Trigger Warnings

• Sexual Abuse (1)
  • Reference to attempted rape, subsequent beating, and aftermath in the opening monologue from 1:47 to 2:20.
• Domestic/Child Abuse (3)
  • From 1:47:18-1:47:53, Connie is shown bruised after being hit by her husband, the assault does not happen on screen.
  • Connie, in hysterics about her husband’s abuse and infidelity, is yelled at by him and hit repeatedly by his belt. She wields a knife in self-defense and he knocks it away threatening to kill her and is heard off-screen beating her from 1:54:44-1:56:06.
  • Michael yells at his wife, Kay, and slams his hand on a desk at 2:51:07-2:51:10. He then lies to her shortly after.
• Drug/Alcohol Abuse (1)
  • Mentions of drug deals and drug moving are prevalent throughout the movie but not seen.
• Animal Abuse (1)
  • A very bloody and severed horse head is seen from 33:30-34:08.
• Slurs (3)
  • Derogatory remarks and slurs against Black people are made 1:36:16-1:36:32 and 2:10:00-2:10:16 
  • A movie producer consecutively uses an anti-Italian slur and then an anti-German slur at 29:00-29:10
  • Anti-Italian slurs are used throughout the movie.

This guide was completed by Mackenzie Marrow, a content reviewer in Nebraska.