Characters / The Godfather - Corleone Family

Main Character Index Corleone Family | Corleone Family Associates | Other Crime Bosses

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The family founded by Don Vito Corleone and their close ones.

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Don Vito Corleone

"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."

"My name is Vito Corleone. And this is for you!"

Portrayed by: Marlon Brando (old), Robert De Niro (young), Oreste Baldini (child)

Dubbed by: Michel Duchaussoy (European French, first dub), José Luccioni (European French, second dub)

"Bonasera, Bonasera, what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, this scum who ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by some chance an honest man like yourself made enemies they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you."

The first Don of the Corleone family and its patriarch. Born Vito Andolini in Sicily, he emigrated to the USA to escape the massacre of his family by local crime boss Don Ciccio, and patiently built his criminal empire from the ground up.

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• The Ace: As the founder and Godfather of the Corleone crime family, Vito uses all of his considerable talent to lead the family. He's also an exceptional Chessmaster. Throughout the trilogy as a whole, he is considered the ideal Don that none of the others, not even Michael, can ever live up to.
• Accidental Misnaming: When he arrived at Ellis Island, his information was given to the clerk as "Vito Andolini from Corleone". The clerk misheard and wrote down Corleone as his surname.
• Affably Evil: Vito behaves like — and, in some ways, is — a family-oriented leader of his community, doing favors for the weak and punishing the wicked (so long as it doesn't interfere with business). In some ways this is an enforced Invoked Trope, that he's unusually nice for a Mafia Don. People are expected to treat Don Vito the same way — like a treasured and respected friend. During his first scene, he chides Bonasera the mortician for not being more sociable with him and only visiting when he needs a favor.
• Animal Lover: Is shown petting and holding a cat in his lap in the opening scene while talking with Bonesera.
• Anti-Villain: Vito has no pretensions about his business, and makes no apologies for the decisions he has made in life, but he is not a needlessly cruel man. When not running a fearsome crime family, he's an absolute gentleman who loves spending time with his family and friends.
• Arch-Enemy: Vito had several enemies throughout his life, but Don Ciccio is the worst of all. The fact that Vito murders him in a particularly brutal way certainly cements this.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He is an intimidating mob boss in impeccably elegant suits.
• Benevolent Boss: Compared to Michael and Vincent, Vito is extremely forgiving. He even publicly admits to other Dons that he will not seek revenge for Sonny's death. Although this can be interpreted as more of a case of Exact Words.
• Character Tics:
  • Scratches his face softly - giving him some pensive pause - before making some important statement.
  • Points his index finger and waves his hand in the air to give additional weight to his words.
• The Chessmaster: Especially in the book where it is more obvious that Michael's purge of the Five Families was orchestrated by Vito years before, at his negotiations to bring Michael home from Sicily.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Godfather is certainly a corrupt businessman, despite being a mob boss. And those businesses, casinos, are slightly shadier than others but its the official rule that violence is an accepted form of competition that leads to the worst of it. Despite this, the Godfather is important enough to be recognised and accepted by senators and other politicians. The novels highlight that his company "Genco's Imports" is an actual olive oil business that grew to be very successful due to the Don's strongarming tactics (basically intimidating groceries all over New York into only stocking the Genco brand).
• Crazy-Prepared: After Fanucci's murder Vito smashes apart the revolver he used and disposes of the pieces down different chimneys and vent pipes. Although this was before people even considered things like forensics, he ensured there was no physical connection likely to be found between him and the murder.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Vito’s father and brother were killed by the vicious mob boss of his hometown. When his mother took him to beg for her son’s life, she was forced to sacrifice herself to save him, leaving Vito alone and poor, hunted by the mafia.
• Decoy Protagonist: Both of the films he appears in initially appear to be about him, but end up being more about Michael, and both times Vito eventually drops out of the narrative.
• Deuteragonist: Of Part I and Part II. He's the character with the most focus after Michael in the former while latter spends much of its first half on Vito's origins and his rise to power.
• The Don: Trope Codifier and still the most iconic cinematic example. He is the original Godfather and the Don of a New York crime family. He's the trope image for a reason.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Politely implied when he refuses to accept the basket of food that a heartbroken Signor Abbandando gives to Vito as severance and genuine gift after Don Fanucci's nephew takes Vito's job. Vito is like family, but the handout does not sit well with his pride or his self-governing nature. Subsequently, Vito finds his own ways to provide for his family and petty crime ensues. Alternatively, Vito knew that Abbandando and his family couldn't really afford to give him the severance package, and cared about them too much to take advantage of the generosity, despite his need.
• The Dreaded: As the Don of a powerful crime family, Vito's mere reputation is usually enough to get people to comply with his wishes.
• Education Mama: Gender inverted, but in The Family Corleone, it's mentioned that he has his children's lives planned out to a T: Sonny would be a captain of industry and Tom would be a lawyer who would later become a politician. Fredo, Michael, and Connie were too young at the time, but it was mentioned Vito would do the same to them when they got older, seeing as how Vito evidentially wanted Michael to be a politician as well.
• Establishing Character Moment: One of the most famous in cinema history to the point where it's been parodied to hell and back for decades. An associate comes to Don Vito on the day of his daughter's wedding and asks him to conduct a hit on a pair of men that had severely beaten and attempted to rape his daughter. Vito refuses to have the men murdered and then is quick to point out that his associate has never once treated him like a friend and only seems to view him as a force of nature for vengeance. However Vito ends up agreeing to help him anyway, even turning down money for the job and instead simply asking for a favor some day. A day that "may never come". Vito is an immensely powerful and feared crime boss, yet he values family and camaraderie over monetary wealth and as long as you are a good friend to him he will take care of you.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He believes that his political connections, which regard gambling as "a harmless vice", will abandon the Family in a heartbeat if they learn that hard drugs like heroin are being sold. Even after they agree to the trade, the Dons refuse to allow the drugs into schools or to be sold to children.
  • In the original novel and a deleted scene of Part I he is completely disgusted when he learns that Jack Wolz raped and savagely beat a child actress, giving his strongest insult toward the movie producer.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: To Michael. Vito figured early on that the hot-headed Sonny would end up following his path, and Fredo... well... He wanted something better with Michael. The expression on his face when he's told that Michael killed Sollozzo and McCluskey is one of pure heartbreak.
  • The Family Corleone expands on this to include all of his kids, to the extent that he has their lives planned out for them so the family can go legit.
  • At the meeting of the Dons: "None of us want our children to follow in our footsteps. It's too hard a life."
• The Exile: He makes America his new home out of necessity when he has to flee from Corleone, Sicily after Don Ciccio refuses to spare his life.
• Family Man: Vito is rather strait-laced and conservative when it comes to sex. When his friend at the theater asks for his thoughts on his hot new actress girlfriend, Vito only politely says that she is very beautiful, but he has eyes only for his beloved wife. Vito is a very devoted family man and frowns on extramarital sex among his followers. Michael and Connie (to her detriment) inherited these values. Sonny, Tom, and Fredo... not so much.
• Family-Values Villain: Vito firmly believes and teaches that blood is Thicker Than Water. But unfortunately, some inner tensions within the family soon explode not long after his death.
• A Father to His Men: Treats everybody that works for him with sincere respect. In return, his subordinates, some of the most feared and dangerous criminals around, would die for him and worship him.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Starts out as an orphaned kid stuck in an unknown country. Later becomes one of the most powerful Mafiosos in history.
• The Ghost: Marlon Brando was supposed to reprise his role as "old" Vito for the 1941 flashback at the end of Part II, but when he failed to turn up for the shoot, the scene was rewritten to keep him offscreen.^note  Accounts vary as to why, but the most widely accepted reason is that Marlon Brando hadn't been paid fully for acting in Part I. Paramount offered him the same exact salary he had made on Part I for doing, basically, a walk-in cameo with no lines. The actor came very close to accepting until he asked for the pending Part I salary and Paramount refused to pay it. Brando eventually sued.
• Go Out with a Smile: When he dies, he dies playing with his grandson. In the novel, his last words are "Life is beautiful".
• Good Parents: He genuinely and deeply loves his children, and his children love him unconditionally.
• Happily Adopted: Implied, as he says in the second movie that Genco's father took him in after he fled Sicily and treated him as one of his own. That same speech shows how grateful Vito is towards him.
• Happily Married: With his wife Carmela.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Ran away from a Mafia Don in Sicily, only to become one himself.
• Hidden Eyes: Brando's strong brow coupled with the lighting often casts shadows over his eyes. It adds to Vito's pensive nature and serves to give him an air of intimidating mystery.
• Honor Before Reason: In the novel, it's made clear that Vito is no happier than Sonny is about how Carlo treats Connie, but his traditional values prevent him from interfering in matters between husband and wife.
• Horrifying the Horror: In the movie, even Luca Brasi is scared shitless of him and can't even give a simple blessing without flubbing his line.
• Hypocrite: A sympathetic example. Vito turns to a life of crime to avoid the machinations of men stronger than himself. In turn, he wishes for his son to become a powerful man so he will be the one manipulating others instead. See I Did What I Had to Do for his reflection on the matter.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Wanted to turn the family legit and go into politics.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • Vito has no illusions that the things he's done in his life were crimes, but he rationalizes that he did what he had to do to take care of his family - otherwise he'd still be a poor immigrant being pushed around by powers bigger than himself. He neither condones nor condemns the things he's done: he felt he did the only thing he could to survive. Even so, he must still have been uncomfortable with them in the back of his mind, because he always hoped that when he grew up Michael wouldn't have to be involved in a life of crime to be a powerful man.
  • His reflections on his life:
  Vito: [to Michael] I worked my whole life. I don't apologize for taking care of my family. And I refused to be a fool, dancing on a string held by all those big shots. I don't apologize. That's my life, but I thought that when it was your time, you would be the one to hold the strings.
• Immigrant Parent: He was born in Sicily and moved to the USA as a child when his life was threatened by Don Ciccio. His sons Sonny, Michael and Fredo were born in the USA, as was his only daughter, Connie.
• An Immigrant's Tale: He arrives at Ellis Island from Sicily in 1901.
• Klingon Promotion: In the first movie, despite his reputation and intimidating nature, we never see him personally kill or intimidate, save for a Noodle Incident mentioned by Michael. In Part II we see how he rose to the ranks by killing Don Fanucci and Don Ciccio.
• Made of Iron: Shot five times by Sollozzo's men; everyone is astonished that he nonetheless survives. Played down in that he is still severely injured, and spends months incapacitated in the hospital - but still, five times!
• Manly Tears: When he learns of Sonny's death, and then later when he takes the corpse to the undertaker. Also at the hospital when he realizes Michael is taking his role in the family business.
• Misery Builds Character: After running away to America alone as an orphaned child, he builds up his reputation on the streets.
• Mood-Swinger: Typically very soft-spoken, which makes the moments he suddenly shouts all the more jarring.
  Vito: "YOU CAN ACT LIKE A MAN!"
• Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters: By the standards of the setting, he's downright noble. He's incredibly polite, treats those under him like family, is generally against revenge killing, and is very reluctant to introduce drugs into the community he oversees (and when he does finally cave, he refuses to have it sold to children).
• Nice Guy: A ruthless mobster, yes, but he cares about his family and takes care of the people in his community.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: A Composite Character based on several real-life Mafia bosses, most notably Frank Costello, Carlo Gambino, Joe Bonanno, Raymond Patriarca, Santo Trafficante Sr., Sam DeCavalcante, Frank Balistrieri and Lucky Luciano.
• Noble Demon: Vito believes the punishment should fit the crime. When Bonasera implores him to kill the men who disfigured his daughter, Vito states that this would not be a fair retaliation, as his daughter is still alive. He does agree to make them suffer, but draws the line at a revenge killing.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: The Trope Namer. Coined by Michael to illustrate how Vito reached an agreement with a band leader to release Johnny Fontaine from a contract.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His son Santino (Sonny) dies at 32, while he's in his mid-50s.
• Papa Wolf: He shows hints of this towards his own children, especially for his youngest son, Michael. When arranging Michael's safe return from exile with the other heads of the crime families, he makes it clear that anyone who messes with his son will regret it.
• Parental Abandonment: Both of them were killed in Sicily by the local Mafia. His older brother Paolo got himself killed trying to avenge their father.
• Parental Favoritism:
  • Towards Michael, meant for a higher purpose. The original novel tries to explain why Sonny is the heir exempt from Evil Parents Want Good Kids because Sonny chose a criminal life after witnessing Vito murdering Don Fanucci (Part II disregards this).
  • In the novels, Fredo accuses him of showing favoritism towards Tom. Though nothing really comes from the accusations, Vito does compare Sonny unfavorably to Tom (in regards to being responsible, practical and such) to an extent where even Sonny can't help feeling a little resentful.
• Parental Substitute: Unofficially adopts Tom Hagen after he was found by Sonny as a homeless orphan. He doesn't formally adopt him because he doesn't want to disrespect Tom's birth parents, but Tom considers Vito to be his true father and Vito does treat him as one of his own. It's implied that this was him paying it forward: In Part II, he says that Genco Abbandando and his family took him in and gave him a job at his grocery store when he was himself an orphan immigrant with absolutely nothing, giving him a livelihood, and even after Fanucci forces Signor Abbandando to fire him he says he won't forget what they did for him.
• The Patriarch: Of his family and crime family. In Part I, he's already at an advanced age, but that doesn't stop him from being an intimidating mob boss.
  Women and children can be careless, but not men.
• Pet the Dog: Considering how insular, xenophobic and racist the American Mafia is, Vito's complete acceptance of Tom (who is German-Irish) as a son, even if it's not in name, is an exceptionally magnanimous gesture of kindness.
• Posthumous Character: In Part II. His story is told throughout a flashback since he already passed away in the first film.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Part II details his journey from Sicilian immigrant to mob boss.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Don Vito does not oppose the drug trade because of any moral opposition to drugs, but because he fears that it will destroy their political connections.
• The Quiet One: As a child he hardly ever talked, which made his family think he was dull-witted. This is later shown to not be the case. The book elaborates, saying that in actuality, he was an observer and not a talker; it also says that what cemented his friendship with Peter Clemenza was that Clemenza was a storyteller and Vito was a listener to storytellers.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Is shown to really like gardening.
• Revenge: Against Don Francesco Ciccio for killing his parents and brother Paolo. And in the recut, against the capos that were looking for him before he escaped too. It should be noted that this is the only time Vito killed someone out of pure and simple revenge rather than for business reasons.
• Right-Hand Cat: In the first scene, he's shown holding a cat in his lap while discussing life-and-death business.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: His reason for why he refuses to enter the narcotics business with Sollozzo.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Part of what makes the Corleones perhaps the single most powerful crime family is that Vito has cultivated relationships with judges and politicians. Sollozzo wants him to use this influence to aid him in the drug trade, but Vito counters that, unlike relatively harmless vices like gambling, drugs are a dirty business and those judges and politicians wouldn't be nearly so willing to turn a blind eye to them.
• Self-Made Man: He comes to America as an orphaned child with nothing and scrapes by for years before setting up an olive oil business and starting a criminal empire.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: He lives an honest life in America for years. Petty crime only ensues after he's fired, and he only becomes a killer when Fanucci threatens his livelihood once again. After that it gets downplayed almost to subversion levels, in that Vito is not that evil by the standards of the story. He's a Friendly Neighborhood Gangster who for the most part is pitted against people who are more evil. All things considered, his worst known in-universe deeds during his time as Don boil down to having a horse killed just to intimidate its owner, and making An Offer You Can't Refuse to a band leader after a failed negotiation, and that loses some effect by being Offstage Villainy.
• Speech Impediment: His raspy voice is the result of a characterization decision by Brando, who felt Vito the gangster was shot in the throat. Part II RetCons this with a straight young Vito having already had that voice, hinting it comes from his feeble health as a child. Word of God has not addressed this in the movies.
• Street Smart: Despite the fact that he's someone brought up in Perpetual Poverty, he nevertheless creates a vast criminal enterprise with limited resources, and happens to be incredibly smart, cunning, compelling, and very good at reading and dealing with people. The fact that he has highly developed emotional intelligence certainly helps.
• Sympathetic Murderer: The assasinations of Don Fanucci and Don Ciccio endear him to the audience, as he does the world a favor by removing those two scummy villains.
• Tranquil Fury: Probably the reason why the other guys in the neighbourhood recognise Vito as a leader.
• Villain Protagonist: The secondary main character after his son Michael. Part II's flashback segments reveals how he became an Affably Evil Anti-Villain.
• You Killed My Father: The beginning of Part II tells or shows that Vito's father, mother and brother are murdered by a Sicilian Mafia boss, Don Ciccio, when Vito is a child. He escapes to America, becomes an influential crime boss there, and eventually returns to Sicily to take revenge on Don Ciccio.
• Younger Than They Look: He's about fifty-three during the first film but looks like he's ten to fifteen years older with Marlon Brando undergoing intense make-up despite only being a few years younger. It's implied that the stress of his line of work has made him look older than his age.

Don Michael Corleone

"Keep your friends close; but your enemies closer."

Portrayed by: Al Pacino

"If there's one thing that's certain in this world, if there's one thing history has taught us, it is that you can kill anybody."

The youngest son of Don Vito Corleone, he doesn't want to join the family business, initially. When Sollozzo and McCluskey make another attempt on his father's life, he is forced to join the family business and kills them. He becomes the new Don at the end of the first movie. By the second movie, Michael becomes a full-fledged crime boss, and is FAR more amoral and ruthless than his father. In the third movie, he strives to become legitimate, but his past finally catches up.

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• Affably Evil: In Part III. In his old age, Michael has become more genuinely friendly, cheerful and kind, even if he still is nominally the most powerful Mafia Don in the country.
• All for Nothing: In Part III. After almost thirty years, he's apparently one step from finally extricating the Corleone family from organized crime, but then it turns out that his sizable investment in the Immobiliare puts his interests in opposition to that of many powerful criminals and corrupt politicians. When he realizes that there's nothing he can do to prevent the situation from escalating further, he tries at least to extricate only himself from crime, which he does, but at the end, just after he manages to finally reconcile with his ex-wife and his children, a hitman attempts to kill him but instead kills Michael's daughter, Mary, leaving him broken, alone and damned forever.
• Anti-Hero: Initially an anti-heroic, not-so-evil character, but during the events of Part II, he's a straight up Villain Protagonist.
• The Atoner: He desperately tries to do good, going so far as to assure the protection of Pope John Paul I, only to fail. He even confesses in church for his crimes; this is how badly he wants to become good.
• Author Avatar: Like Mario Puzo, he's the son of Italian immigrants, he married a WASP woman, served in World War II and had a son named Anthony.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: At the start of the first movie, Michael was completely uninterested in the Family Business. Then rival families went after his family.
• Awesome by Analysis: By observing a single Cuban rebel commit murder-suicide, Michael is immediately able to gain a deeper appreciation of the true political situation in Cuba than people who have been operating there for years.
• Badass Bookworm: He was a decorated Marine in World War II and also an Ivy League student.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: His own ruthless style of leadership eventually becomes a much bigger threat to the Family than Sollozzo, Barzini, or Hyman Roth ever were.
• Being Evil Sucks: He justifies his descent into mob villainy as being done for the well-being of his family, but by the end of the second movie he starts to realize that it has destroyed it. By the end of the third movie almost all the people he cared for are dead or driven away as a result of his choices.
• Cain and Abel: With Fredo. As the film goes on they swap roles — Fredo becomes less Cain and more Abel, and Michael less Abel and more Cain, then even more Cain still by having Fredo killed.
• Character Tics: His body language is quite economic, but in Part II he touches his face covering his eyes a lot, a signal of his growing tiredness while battling adversities.
• The Chessmaster: He proves himself to be this at least twice during Part I, and continuously throughout Part II, using devious and brutal schemes to keep the Corleone Family strong, despite their (numerous) ups and downs.
• Chest of Medals: The ribbons on his Marine Corps uniform are the Silver Star, the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and the Purple Heart on the top row, and the Asiatic/Pacific Campaign Medal with a service star and an arrowhead, the European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with a service star, and the World War II Victory Medal on the bottom row.
• Chronic Villainy:
  Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.
• Cool Uncle: In Part III, he acts this way toward Vincent, and becomes his Consigliere like his father was to him, and practically to all his nephews, even his adopted brother's Tom Hagen's children, who love him unconditionally, and he has become a Parental Substitute to all them.
• Cop Killer: He has to hide out in Sicily for years to escape retribution for killing a corrupt police captain who was in the pocket of another family.
• Corrupt the Cutie: He starts as a principled war hero firmly detached from the family business, only to be gradually dragged into the criminal world and ending up as the new Don, cold and ruthless, alienated from his family.
• Cradle To Grave Character: Michael is shown as an infant in the early flashback sequences of The Godfather Part II, and in old age and death in The Godfather Part III.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Feels near-violent rage at the mere thought of another man "possessing" Apollonia. Apparently a symptom of being "struck by the thunderbolt", since he doesn't behave this way in his relationship with Kay.
• Crusading Widower: The moment he officially takes action is when his first wife, Apollonia, is killed in a car bombing meant for him.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Two events in the first film serve as the motivating factors in changing Michael from a heroic retired Marine into a mob boss. The first is the attempted murder of his father, after which he is willing to discard his scruples and become a criminal in order to protect his family. The second is the murder of his first wife in a car bombing meant for him, turning him into the ruthless up and coming Godfather of the final act. What was left of Captain Corleone died in that car with Apollonia. Don Michael was what remained.
• Death Wail: His scream when Mary dies was supposedly so primal and intense that a good bulk of the audio had to be cut from the movie.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of The Don:
  • Part II shows how incredibly ruthless one has to be to run a criminal organization, to the extent that it will make you paranoid over time and cost you your family, friends, partners, and loved ones. It's certainly a stressful, unglamorous life.
  • Part III further emphasizes this point, particularly from the perspective of someone from the classic American Mafia like Michael. He is fully aware that times have changed; the American Mafia is in constant decline and many businesses that the classic Mafia ran are now legal, so legalizing would be the best way to ascending to a higher level. Clearly, people like Michael are stuck in the past. It certainly doesn't help that the most powerful "criminal" figures are not strictly gangsters, but rather white-collar criminals operating (mostly) within the law.
• Despair Event Horizon: After Mary gets killed.
• The Don: After Vito dies in 1955, Michael officially becomes head of the Corleone crime conglomerate.
• The Dutiful Son: It's the reason why Michael gets involved in the family business. After the death of Sonny, Michael takes even more of an active leadership role.
• Dying Alone: In the 1990 cut, he dies alone in a Sicilian villa. In stark contrast to Vito.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: He fought in the Marines in World War II and shows up to the wedding in full uniform, complete with medals.
• Empty Shell: The Director's cut removes the physical death in the final scene and he keeps lingering seated in his villa, with the implication that he's going to have a long lifespan (cent'anni) while already dead inside.
• Establishing Character Moment: He's introduced at the wedding, having just come back from the war, still in his uniform, and telling Kay about the story with Johnny Fontaine and his old band leader with a degree of admiration before half-heartedly reassuring Kay that that's his family, not him. This establishes that Michael has worked hard to give off a good impression of being the good son and the only respectable member of his family but isn't as far removed from his family's nature as he'd like others to believe and shows his slide into taking over.
• Et Tu, Brute?: His natural reaction when he discovers that his brother Fredo had been talking to Johnny Ola about his and Hyman Roth's plans to move against him.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Specifically delays his revenge on Fredo until after his mother passes away, because he knew she would be devastated if anything happened to him.
• Evil Genius: He proves himself to be this using devious and brutal schemes to keep the Corleone Family strong, despite their (numerous) ups and downs. The Chessmaster and Manipulative Bastard tropes are on full effect here.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Michael refuses to have his daughter Mary involved in the business and does whatever he can to keep her out of the loop.
• The Exile: He is forced to take refuge in Sicily to avoid the heat of the Mob War that ensues due to his actions.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: His hair goes from loose and boyish in the beginning of the first movie to slicked back when he's older and more ruthless later in the film and in Part II.
• Face–Heel Turn: He goes from being the one person in his family that could possibly go legit into a cold-blooded Mafioso who can lie to his wife's face and feel no remorse.
• Fatal Flaw: His extreme ruthlessness and merciless nature proves to be his undoing, as it destroys his relationships and life.
• Fate Worse than Death: He doesn't physically die in the The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, but ends up dead inside.
  Coppola: For his sins, he has a death worse than death
• Faux Affably Evil: In the first two movies, he's polite, icy and ruthless. He sweet-talks Kay to make her believe he's not going to be a criminal while his revenge plans are already in motion. He invokes a false veneer of amicability by keeping his friends close but his enemies closer.
• Foil: To Vito. During the events of Part II, Michael proved to be far more evil than Vito ever was: he has an innocent prostitute murdered as a business move to blackmail a senator, leads the family with iron fist, sends one of his own henchmen on a suicide mission to assassinate Roth and has his own brother murdered at the end when Fredo is utterly repentant for his accidental betrayal. Despite the fact that Vito was also a mob boss, his methods were more methodical than brutal and he never murdered innocents for the sake of business.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Responsible to Sonny and Fredo's Foolish.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Michael went from being a captain in the United States Marine Corps to the most ruthless and cunning mafia don around.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Michael plays both roles to get information from people who betray him. He will act polite, friendly, like all is forgiven if they just tell him the truth. Then as soon as he gets the information he needs, he becomes Bad Cop.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: A subtle example. At the wedding, his hair is shorter and parted at the side, emphasizing his innocence. After shooting Sollozzo, he never has his hair like this again. When he returns to America, he has his hair slicked back, like the stereotypical mafia don image.
• Handicapped Badass: By Part III, in his advanced age, he is now a diabetic, and not only has a (relatively) mild spell when he confesses his sins to the cardinal, but suffers a full-on stroke after Joey Zasa's culling of the Mafia leaders. However, even with this he's still the ruthless manipulator he always was.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The reason he got into the Corleone family business in the first place was to do his part in protecting his family. But he ends up just as monstrous as his enemies and worse than his father.
• Heartbroken Badass: In Part III, he starts crying when his son sings a Sicilian ballad that reminds him of Apollonia.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: It becomes the focal point for the final movie in the trilogy. Michael Corleone tries to repair the relationship with his wife and children now that he's legit in the eyes of the public (which was his ultimate goal for the family). He goes to a priest, Cardinal Lamberto, and confesses his greatest sin of having his older brother Fredo killed. He finds a worthy successor to take over the business when he's gone. And just when things are looking up, his daughter gets killed by his enemies, breaking him for good.
• Heel Realization: By Part III, Michael has this about all the horrible things he's done in life. Especially his killing of Fredo.
• Hypocrite: In Part III, Michael tries to push Tony to complete law school so that he can become a lawyer, and gets upset when Tony instead pursues his dream to become a singer. Michael himself resisted his family's push to become a politician, and instead chose to enlist. In his defence, however, he eventually realises he is in the wrong and gives Tony his blessing, and says he is proud of him.
• I Am Not My Father: "That's my family Kay. It's not me." Subverted, as he turns out to be similar and arguably even worse.
• Ignored Epiphany: In the novel, he comes to realize during his time in exile that the Mafia had been the ruin of Sicily, and further realizes that if the Mafia, including specifically "his father's empire" is allowed to grow, it will be the ruin of America too. Needless to say, this does not stop him from taking over his father's empire and continuing to spread its corruption.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Attended Dartmouth College. We're never really told how good a student he was.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Especially by Part III. Michael is a ruthless man, but he cares about his family and did most of the horrible things he did for their sake.
• Jerkass Realization: The entirety of Part III is him realizing he failed his family and trying to reconnect with his children and patch things up with Kay.
• Keeping the Handicap: He initially chose to keep his jaw wounded by Police Brutality, distrusting the doctor he lived with in Sicily and, even after, wanting to keep his image until his wife Kay convinces him otherwise.
• Kick the Dog: He has a prostitute who had no involvement at all in the business murdered just so he could blackmail Geary.
• Kiss of Death: After he finds out that Fredo betrayed him.
• Knight Templar Parent: Don't you ever go against the family. It gets even worse in the second movie.
• Lonely at the Top: By the end, he is the most powerful Mafia Don in the country, has secured the Corleone Family's power and prosperity, and eliminated all his enemies, but he has alienated those who love him and relinquished his own happiness in the process.
• Love at First Sight: When he meets Apollonia, he falls in love instantly. His Sicilian bodyguards comment that "he was hit by the thunderbolt".
• Meaningful Name:
  • Michael is an archangel and it's supposed to symbolize that the youngest Corleone son will turn out different than his family. But he doesn't.
  • The Archangels were God's most vicious warriors and Archangel Michael was the deadliest one of all. Suddenly the Godfather having a son named Michael makes perfect sense.
• The Mentor: To Vincent.
• Motive Decay: It's become less about the welfare of his family and more about the welfare of the family business; and by the end of the second film, the greatest enemy of Michael's family is clearly Michael himself.
• The Mourning After: He never got over losing Apollonia. By Part III, decades after she died, a song that reminds him of her moves him to tears. Even at the end of his life he couldn't forget about her, spending his last moments in the place she died.
• My God, What Have I Done?: At the time of Part III, it's clear he feels deeply remorseful for having Fredo killed. In fact, when he confesses his sins to Cardinal Lamberto, the future Pope John Paul I, the murder of his brother is the one crime that Michael seems to feel real guilt about, and which causes him to break down.
• Naïve Newcomer: Subverted. Michael initially distances himself from the business and is laughed at by other members of the family when he proposes a hit against Sollozzo and McCluskey. They consider him ignorant and too trigger happy. Michael deliberately continues to project this image to some degree through most of Part I.
• Neutral No Longer: He's pulled into the family business when his father is almost killed by a rival who will keep on trying. Ironically the United States abandoning its neutrality after the attack on Pearl Harbor is the event that makes Michael declare his own neutrality away from the path of his father; he joins the Marine Corps the day after.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: He is loosely based on Bill Bonanno, the son of Joe Bonanno. Like Vito Corleone himself, Joe wanted his son to go legitimate, but he ends up becoming the Bonanno family's consigliere. Personality wise however, Bill proves to be more like Fredo than Michael, as many of the street guys viewed him as a mob prince who lacked the street cred his father earned years earlier; Bill also did not possess the ruthlessness of Michael, or even that of his own father for that matter. The fact that Bonanno promoted his attention-seeking son to such a high position rankled many in the Bonanno family, triggering an internal war in the 1960s.
  • Michael also has some elements of Thomas Gambino (son of Carlo Gambino) and Santo Trafficante Jr.
• Non-Action Guy: Subverted. His brothers and the caporegimes see him as this in the first film, despite his meritorious service in the Marines, because he never wanted to get involved with the family business. When he offers to shoot Sollozzo and McCluskey, they all laugh at him. Of course, Michael proves that he isn't joking at all.
  Sonny: What are you gonna do? Nice college boy, didn't want to get mixed up in the family business. Now you want to gun down a police captain. Why? Because he slapped you in the face a little? What, do you think this like the Army where you can shoot 'em from a mile away? No, you gotta get up like this and, badda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit!
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: He was chosen to negotiate with The Turk because he had no known connections to his family's criminal empire. Michael kills The Turk and Captain McCluskey and he just gets worse from there.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He deliberately projects the image of a weak boss and even his capos start to doubt his leadership. Not-So-Harmless Villain ensues.
• Odd Name Out: Unlike his parents and his blood siblings, he's the only one not to have an Italian name.
• Oh, Crap!: Has this reaction when he realizes that another assassination attempt against his father is about to be carried out at the hospital.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Michael is so calm and calculating, even when he's menacing, that the few points when he shouts in anger are startling, and a huge signal that something has truly rattled him to his core. After two movies of buildup, this climaxes at the end of Part II, when Kay announces she's leaving him and taking his children, and they get into a shouting match. Finally, Kay drops the revelation that she didn't have a miscarriage, but an abortion to deny Michael another son: he gapes in wordless rage, then lunges across a chair to strike her in the face, knocking her down, shouting that she will not take his children. For such a calm character it's like a nuclear bomb going off.
• The Paranoiac: In his mind, all the problems the family faced in the first movie came down to them not being respected or feared enough, which is why he is so ruthless and why he can't make the family go legit, as their enemies would see that as weakness; he probably hoped Kay would just one day accept that. He thinks protecting her and the kids is the main reason he is doing this, which is why he goes ballistic when she turns on him too.
• Passing the Torch: To Vincent.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: The entire series is all about Michael Corleone's transformation from White Sheep of a crime family to its ruthless leader, and subsequent doomed attempts to atone.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Especially towards the end. He is the most powerful Mafia Don in the country, has secured the Corleone Family's power and prosperity, and eliminated all his enemies, but he has alienated those who love him and relinquished his own happiness in the process. Even Michael himself seems to feel his victory empty at the end of the movie.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The cold hearted Blue Oni to Sonny's Red.
• Redemption Rejection: In Part III. As his priest puts it, while Michael can be forgiven for his sins, as long as Michael himself does not believe he can earn forgiveness, he will never truly change his ways.
  Cardinal Lamberto: Your sins are terrible. And it is just that you suffer. Your life could be redeemed, but I know you don't believe that. You will not change.
• Resignations Not Accepted: He tries to avoid joining the Family in the first film, discusses his attempts to leave it in the second film, and conclusively fails in the third film.
• Returning War Vet: He starts off the first film having recently been discharged from the Marines, wearing his dress uniform to Connie's wedding, which according to the novel is a few days before the Japanese formally surrender.
• Semper Fi: Michael enlisted in the Marines during World War II and saw combat in the Pacific. As a testament to his bravery, he received a battlefield commission and left the service as a Captain. He also received the Navy Cross, the second-highest award a Marine or Sailor can receive behind the Medal of Honor.
• Sketchy Successor: Zig-Zagged. While he surpasses Vito in every way on the business front, he fails miserably at taking care of his family, something Vito was legendary for. The final scene of 2 highlights this with a juxtaposition between Michael being alone in the present and Vito having a surprise party thrown for him by his loved ones in the past.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: After returning from Sicily and with Sonny gone, Michael embraces his fate and gradually becomes his father's son, planning his revenge for years. He marries Kay in the middle of his transformation, the son of a criminal who claims to be struggling for legitimacy. In a natural, magnified but equal iteration of his first evil act, he becomes a full-fledged Don by killing all of his underworld rivals. The real descent comes in that he crosses lines that Vito never crossed, alienates his family and becomes callous in his personal life, thereby leading to his Pyrrhic Victory by the end of Part II.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Barely raises his voice, even when he speaks threateningly.
• Start of Darkness: Apollonia's death is the ultimate trigger.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Subverted. In Part I, he has killed and ordered others to kill in his name, but after Sonny's brutal murder and the accidental killing of Apollonia, it's not hard to feel like those victims had it coming. However, during the events of Part II, his actions are much more morally questionable than before.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Part II, Michael grows a heart of stone (and arguably far worse as he has a completely innocent prostitute killed for the sake of the business) yet personality-wise he is not unprovokedly abrupt until the final part, when he offends Tom Hagen for no reason. This is somehow inverted during the two decades gap and by Part III Michael has mellowed out and is now The Atoner. Kay is now the one who is abrasive towards him and on a high horse, despite that he voluntarily gave up custody of their children to her.
• Tragic Villain: He starts as an independent minded War Hero, but he is gradually dragged into mob life to protect his father and his family. He fought his perceived enemies with cold ruthlessness for years while he struggles to achieve legitimacy, and by the time he gets there, he admits that it's too late and that he is too tired and past redemption, and passes the torch to a new Don.
• Tranquil Fury: He inherited this trait from his father. While Michael is certainly capable of raising his voice the times when he becomes very quiet are when he's truly enraged.
• Turn Out Like His Father: Despite his early attempts to avoid it, he ends up in the exact same role as his father.
• Unexpected Successor: Vito never wanted this for Michael, but alas, with Santino dead, Michael becomes the only viable heir.
• Verbal Tic: You're not going to forget Diane Keaton's character's name is "Kay". He says it in almost every sentence of his dialogue with her.
• Villain Protagonist: He's the main character of the series. He starts out as somewhat of an Anti-Villain in Part I, but he's very solidly villainous in Part II.
• War Hero: Detective Phillips specifically says to Capt. McCluskey: "He's a war hero." Michael's deeds earned him several medals, including the Navy Cross, Silver Star, Purple Heart, and LIFE magazine ran a photo layout story on him.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He claims, and to an extent believes, that he is doing what he does for the sake of his family, and only against those who deserve it. This justification gradually erodes over the course of the movie.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Not even Vito would have gone as far as he did to secure the power of his empire. He gets called out on this twice, by his sister and later by Kay.
• White Sheep: He was raised to be the white sheep; he was supposed to begin the family's shift into respectability. Vito expresses regret shortly before his death that he ended up being the one to succeed his father, since he'd wanted him to be "Senator Corleone" or "Governor Corleone," and Michael reassures him that "we'll get there."
• Yank the Dog's Chain: By the end of the 3rd movie, Michael seems to be on a steady path to redemption. He's passing leadership of the Mob down to Vincent, is reconciling with his family, and it's looking like he and Kay might get back together. Then Mary is killed and he spends the rest of his days as a sad loner.
• Young Conqueror: Is Don by default after Vito's passing.
• Youngest Child Wins: He manages to subdue all of the family's enemies and secures his position as Don... of course, was it really worth it?

Santino "Sonny" Corleone

"Goddamn FBI don't respect nothin'."

Portrayed By: James Caan

"I want Sollozzo, if not, it's all out war, we go to the mattresses!"

The eldest child of the family and the hothead.

---

• Ax-Crazy: Immediately launches a savage gang war by having Bruno Tattaglia whacked after Michael foils a second hit on their father Vito (getting his jaw broken in the process). He also has no problem letting the war escalate. And let's not forget his savage beatdown of Carlo Rizzi...
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • He launches into one of the most epic No Holds Barred Beatdowns in film history against his brother-in-law after he finds his sister with a black eye. The enemy family Barzini later uses this instinct against Sonny by paying Carlo to deliver a savage beating to his wife in order to easily set up an ambush for Sonny.
  • He has a minor one with Michael too, when they are planning out the hit on Sollozzo, he threatens that someone better be good at providing Michael the gun.
    Sonny: Hey listen, I want someone good and I mean really good to plant that gun. I don't want my brother to come out of the toilet with just his dick in his hand.
  • He also insists that bodyguards accompany Michael when he goes into the city, despite the commonly held mob doctrine of not harming civilians, even during wartime.
  • Sends his other brother Fredo to Las Vegas for his protection when the gang war is about to explode.
• Big Prick, Big Problems: Played straight and then Subverted in the book. His Gag Penis negatively affects every other sexual relationship Sonny has, in his youth it's mentioned he visited "houses of ill fame" where even the most "hardened and fearless putain" demanded double price to sleep with him. His wife comments their sex is painful and not very enjoyable for her. But then he finds a Distaff Counterpart in Lucy Mancini, a woman whose vagina is also overly large (this isn't simply a size variance, but is actually the result of a weak pelvic floor, which prevents her from enjoying sex with any man who isn't as big as Sonny, and which needs surgical correction to avoid even more serious medical problems in the future). When Sonny's wife finds out he's cheating on her, she's actually relieved that she doesn't have to have as much sex with him anymore. This plot is Adapted Out of the movie except for a brief Continuity Nod that shows Sonny's wife visually describing to some friends the size of his equipment.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Less blatant in the film than in the book, where it is deconstructed as the size makes the sex extremely uncomfortable to his partners except to Lucy, who has an abnormally large vagina.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: In Part I, Sonny is the most violent and hotheaded of the brothers, but most of his violence is directed at those who hurt his family. Like Vito, his acceptance of Tom as a brother also shows that he is not as racist as most Sicilian mafiosos.
• The Brute: Despite doing his best to fill the roles of underboss (read: general), and later acting Don, the only thing Sonny is ever really good at is violence (well, outside the bedroom that is...). It's during these times that Tom's importance as Sonny's advisor really becomes significant
• The Casanova: Downplayed. He has sort of a macho attitude and engages in several extramarital affairs. In Part III Michael mentions that his brother was good with women, when talking with Vincent.
• Chick Magnet: A handsome man who attracts the attention of a lot of ladies.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He inflicts an absolutely savage one on Carlo, beating him within an inch of life with Carlo helpless to even try and defend himself. It's very satisfying to witness.
• Didn't Think This Through: He's so consumed with rage when he discovers that Carlo has beaten Connie again that it doesn't occur to him that driving off alone without his bodyguards in the middle of a war would likely end badly. It turns out to have been premeditated by Don Barzini and Carlo.
• The Dragon: Officially Vito's right-hand man. Until his death, he's present in every scene that Vito is in, lurking in the background. However, Tom fills the role much better than Sonny.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Becomes acting Don after Vito is shot and wounded.
• Fatal Flaw: Sonny's Hot Bloodedness combined with an overzealous Big Brother Instinct allows Carlo to lure him to his death.
• Evil Virtues:
  • Despite his rage and tendency towards violence, Sonny also firmly believes in honor and refuses to fight anyone who cannot fight back. The traitorous Carlo uses this against Sonny when he subjects his brother-in-law to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown for beating Connie. While Sonny does beat the snot out of Carlo, Carlo makes it a point to be as passive as possible during the beatdown and never hits back, leading Sonny to eventually back off as he decides that Carlo is Not Worth Killing.
  • In the book, it's explicitly stated that despite his violent temper, he has never and would never hit a woman or a child.
• Gag Penis: Actually a minor plot point in the book.
• Generation Xerox: Like his grandfather Antonio and uncle Paolo, Sonny was proud, hot-tempered, and stubborn. All three of them ended up dead because of those traits.
• Good Parents: Despite all his flaws, Sonny was a loving father who spent as much time with his wife and children as he could, and continued to love his wife despite his infidelities.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Easily one of his most defining characteristics. It ultimately gets him killed.
• Hidden Depths: He's generally regarded as far less diplomatically subtle than his brothers Michael and Tom, but the films display him as being skilled at convincing an enemy or traitor that he suspects nothing, then setting him up to get whacked. Part I has a scene where he seems genuinely concerned for Paulie's health (the man who helped set up his father Vito's attempted assassination), only to instruct Clemenza to murder Paulie swiftly, with extreme prejudice.
• Horrible Judge of Character: What exactly he saw in Carlo that would make him a good match for Connie is never explained.
• Hot-Blooded: The most impulsive, aggressive and violent of Vito's sons.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: What he did to Carlo after beating up Connie.
  • Played with in the book in that him speaking the threat actually releases the tension, since everyone knows that if he could do it, he wouldn't say it. But he can't go against Vito's will (any more than he already has), and so he makes frustrated threats.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Downplayed. Sonny is at the beginning of the story set to inherit the family business by virtue of being the firstborn son of Vito. While Sonny certainly has the guts to be the leader of a crime syndicate, his explosive temper, impulsivity, and lack of patience are all set to work against him. Even Vito (his own father) states that Sonny was "a bad Don".
  • In the book, he's entirely aware of it, though he does point out (correctly) that while he's no strategist, he may actually be a better tactician than Vito.
• Ironic Name: Santino means "little Saint". Though he's a loving family man and protective of his siblings Sonny is still far from a saint.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a violent thug with a bad temper who openly cheats on his wife but also a genuinely loving husband, father, and brother and has a soft side, especially for Connie.
  • At the heart of the gang war, when tensions are high and nerves are razor-thin, he lashes out at his adopted brother and consigliere Tom Hagen, stating that if he'd been a "wartime consigliere" (like Vito's Sicilian Genco) he wouldn't be having these problems. After seeing that Tom is deeply hurt by this insult, he immediately apologizes.
• Kick Them While They Are Down:
  • After Sonny gives Carlo a massive beatdown for abusing Connie, he kicks him one last time for good measure after warning him not to touch her.
  • After being riddled with bullets by hitmen, Sonny is given an extra few rounds once he falls to the ground, and kicked in the head for good measure.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Savagely beats Carlo after he beats Connie while she was pregnant. This trait ends up being his downfall.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Sonny Corleone's Gag Penis makes sex with him painful and unsatisfying to most women he sleeps with, including his wife Sandra who openly gossips about it to the other mobster wives. In his youth, he even had to pay double to get prostitutes to sleep with him. The fact he doesn't seem to care much about hurting them speaks poorly of his character. It's only when he finds a Distaff Counterpart in Lucy Mancini, a woman whose vagina is also overly large, that he finds a partner who can enjoy sex with him, and Sandra is actually relieved when he takes Lucy as a lover since it means she herself doesn't have to sleep with him anymore.
  "My God," Sandra had giggled, "when I saw that pole of Sonny's for the first time and realized he was going to stick it into me, I yelled bloody murder. After the first year my insides felt as mushy as macaroni boiled for an hour. When I heard he was doing the job on other girls I went to church and lit a candle."
• The Match Maker: In a bit of irony it is revealed in the flashback at the end of "Part II" that he was this for his sister Connie and Carlo.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He shows he's interested in Sollozzo's deal, despite his father saying he wants nothing to do with drugs. As this shows internal dissent in the family, Sonny is reprimanded for this cock-up, and it leads directly to the attempt on his father's life, Sollozzo having assumed that if he gets rid of Don Corleone, he can make a deal with Sonny.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: He inflicts one of the most famous in film history on Carlo, utterly destroying him in full view of his neighborhood. See it here in all it's glory.
• Oh, Crap!: Sonny realizes that he's been played seconds before the ambush at the tollbooth.
• Pet the Dog: In a business full of racists, Sonny is the one who brings Tom Hagen into the family from a young age out of more-or-less pure compassion despite his being Irish, and treats him no different from his blood relations.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Downplayed. Unlike his father and brothers, he isn't above dropping racial slurs in conversation, using derogatory terms against African-Americans and Japanese at different points in the first two movies. On the other hand, Sonny has no problem accepting the non-Italian Tom Hagen as his brother, and he generally seems to be casually bigoted as might be expected from someone of his background and era rather than a malicious racist.
• Rambunctious Italian: A loud, passionate, aggressive Italian-American.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The hot blooded Red Oni to Michael's Blue.
• Revenge Before Reason: Is fully committed to engaging the Corleone crime family into a full-blown war with the other families to avenge his father's murder, despite the huge amount of bloodshed and collateral damage. His consigliere and adopted brother Tom calls him out on this several times.
• Sacrificial Lion: Sonny's death marks one of the turning points in Michael's Protagonist Journey to Villain, as the younger Corleone becomes much more ruthless to protect his remaining family and avenge Sonny.
• Spiteful Spit: He spits on the identification of an FBI Agent who is posted outside of Connie's wedding.
• Tranquil Fury: By comparison when it comes to Sonny. When Connie hysterically calls him after Carlo has beaten her again he goes very quiet. Prior to his storming out you can tell he's overflowing with rage.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: The novel mentions that Santino Corleone, despite his temper, was a truly kindhearted soul, and that it was just his fate to be born into a violent lifestyle that made him a Blood Knight.
• Unstoppable Rage: Carlo's messing with Sonny's sister causes him to pummel the man well into submission.
  • The attempt on his father Vito's life drives Sonny into multiple retaliatory attacks on rival gangs, eventually embroiling everyone into a full-on war.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Him showing interest in Sollozzo's deal, despite his father's opposition to said deal, is what spurs Sollozzo into plotting the attempt on his father's life, and everything that happens as a result of it.
  • In Part II, it's revealed that he's the one who invited Carlo to Vito's birthday and introduced him to Connie, setting up their eventual wedding. Which is doubly painful in that Carlo turns out to be an abusive husband, and that Sonny's violent retaliation against Carlo leads to Carlo staging a fight with Connie to set up Sonny's assassination.
• Wife-Basher Basher: "You touch my sister again and I'll kill ya."

Frederico "Fredo" Corleone

"I can handle things! I'm smart, not like everybody says, like, dumb! I'm smart, and I want respect!"

Portrayed By: John Cazale

Dubbed By: Francis Lax (European French, first dub)

"Fredo has a good heart, but he's weak... and stupid."

— Michael Corleone

The middle son of the family. He is the stupid one, but has a warm heart. "Fredo" has now become shorthand for "weak link".

---

• Adaptational Wimp: In the book the reader is informed that Fredo was a tough guy who just took his eye off the ball during the attempted assassination of Vito and then suffered from being corrupted by the inevitable Hookers and Blow that went with running the Family business in Vegas. None of this shows up in the movies, where he comes across as an incompetent boob. Given that any toughness or competence on Fredo's part was certainly an informed ability, perhaps that was for the best.
• Affectionate Nickname: He's "Fredo" to family and close friends. He is mostly known as "Fred" or "Freddie" by everyone else.
• Ambiguously Bi: He's frail, flamboyant and meek. His drink of choice is a banana daiquiri. He is practically giddy at a live sex show featuring a man with a Gag Penis. In The Godfather Returns he is explicitly stated to be bisexual.
• Ascended Extra: Appears only in a few scenes of the first film, but he gets a bigger role in the second film.
• Bad Liar: He reveals himself as The Mole by pretending in front of Michael that he's never met Johnny Ola and then, hours later at most, blithely shouting that it was Johnny Ola who told him about the sex show. If he ever figures out how he gave it away, we don't see when. An almost comical example happens earlier: in bed with his wife Deanna, he answers the phone to have a whispered conversation full of lines like "You guys lied to me!" and then, when she asks who it was, just says, "Wrong number."
• Butt-Monkey: He's generally ignored, if not outright disrespected, by nearly everyone in the first two movies. His closest family members treat him like an afterthought (his own mother joked about him being adopted from gypsies), his wife grossly disrespects him at a family function, and Moe Greene freely admits to slapping him around whenever Fredo "got out of line". And of course he is murdered by his own brother in the end.
• Cain and Abel: With Michael. Ironically, after Michael has Fredo killed, Michael remembers how Fredo was the only one who spoke up for Michael's decision to drop out of college and join the Marines.
• Calling the Old Man Out: He has an outburst of anger against the arrangements made by his father Vito and continued by Michael, who is his kid brother but is to all effects a second father figure; the Godfather.
• Cool Uncle: Ironically, he is this to Tony and Mary, Michael's kids, especially Tony. He reveals his secret fishing tips to Anthony (spoiler: shortly before his death). In fact, the reason why Anthony eventually resents his father mostly is because he discovered that Michael ordered the murder of Fredo, his favorite uncle.
• Digging Your Self Deeper: It's implied that the angry outburst Fredo gives to Michael about his selfish, ambitious and resentful motives (coupled with his not revealing crucial information about the senator in Roth's pocket until the very end of the conversation) is what makes Michael decide to cast him out for good.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: Fredo's older than his brother Michael but proves to be too weak, feckless, and far too incompetent to take over for Sonny after his murder. Thus, Michael has to usurp his place in the family hierarchy.
• Disowned Sibling: His younger brother Michael, Godfather, patriarch and head of the family, effectively puts Fredo on the receiving end of it, disowning him altogether.
  Michael: Fredo, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do. I don't want to see you at the hotels, I don't want you near my house. When you see our mother, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be there. You understand?
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: At the end the reason why he betrays Michael for Hyman Roth is not for ambition or greed, or even true hate for his brother Michael, but for the need to be respected and valued as member of the Family.
• Fatal Flaw: Envy and resentfulness is ultimately what does Fredo in. He hates being viewed as Michael's foolish older brother, and then he betrays Michael out of spite.
• Good Is Dumb: He's generally considered the dumbest and least capable of Vito's three sons, but he is also considered the most approachable and friendly out of all of them. Unfortunately, "dumb" wins out over good, and he makes a shortsighted deal with Roth out of resentment towards being seen as inadequate by the rest of the family.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He knows he screwed up in betraying Michael to Hyman Roth, and tries to earn forgiveness during the later half of Part II. He's even seen being genuinely kind to his nephew Anthony as the two fish on Lake Tahoe. Unfortunately, Michael is NOT in the mood to forgive anyone at this time...
• Henpecked Husband: To Deanna in Part II.
• Inadequate Inheritor: He may be the second child of Vito, but he is pretty much excluded from the line of inheritance (at least of the criminal enterprise) because of his dimwitted nature.
• Kavorka Man: Nowhere near as badass as Sonny, and definitely not as smart as Michael, but Moe Green complains that he's "banging cocktail waitresses, two at a time". Of course, being a member of a powerful crime family (and Boss of your place of work) will help in making a person more attractive. In the novel, it's stated that Fredo's promiscuity greatly displeased his father, as Vito was always very straitlaced about sex and marital fidelity.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: All he inherits from Vito is his softness, but not the spine to keep it from turning him into a pushover. He also has the same slicked-back hair and pencil mustache as his father which may be a deliberate attempt to resemble him. But while Vito looks strong and dignified, the same style is very unflattering on skinny, jumpy Fredo.
• The Load: He is the only brother to be completely out of step with the rest of the family, and does have a troubling penchant for seeing things from the enemy's point of view...
• Middle Child Syndrome: Fredo has this in spades. Sonny has the brawn, Michael has the brains, and Tom Hagen plays the traditional middle child role of mediating between them. While introducing Kay to his family during the novel's opening sections, Michael acknowledges that Fredo serves almost no purpose in the Corleone family.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: He cites being displaced by his kid brother and only trusted with minor and distant business as a reason behind his behavior.
• Momma's Boy: Described in the first novel as the son every Italian mother longs for. Not so in the film, as they allude to Mama Corleone jokingly saying he was a Gypsy child.
• Motive Rant: Fredo gives one to Michael when the latter confronts him about his betrayal. It unfortunately might have been what pushed Michael to have him killed later.
• Nice Guy: People outside the immediate Corleone family consider him to be the most likable. While Sonny has a hair-trigger temper, and one always has to be on guard with Tom and Michael for subtle nuances and double meanings, Fredo has the distinction of being both friendly and harmless, the most easily approachable of the Corleones for a drink and casual conversation. It makes it all the more shocking when he betrays Michael out of resentment towards his position in the family.
• Pet the Dog: He's the only member of the Corleone family to openly support Michael's decision to enlist in the military. This makes Michael's decision to have Fredo killed all the more tragic.
• Redemption Equals Death: His betrayal is laid bare and Michael is seemingly compelled to forgive him at Connie's desperate urging; he spends the rest of his screentime bonding with Michael's son and conducting himself with some rare dignity. He's then murdered by an unforgiving Michael anyway.
• The Resenter: Though he never showed any real aptitude for the family business, he gets sick of being treated as a gofer and an errand boy, while his younger brother becomes the Don. This leads him to his ill-fated deal with Hyman Roth.
  "Send Fredo off to do this, send Fredo off to do that! Let Fredo take care of some Mickey-Mouse nightclub somewhere! Send Fredo to pick somebody up at the airport! I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!"
  • In the novels, he tells Tom (while in a drunken rage) that he always felt jealous of him because he felt that Tom was one of Vito's favorite children growing up. They make up rather quickly, but it's obvious that Fredo was holding that in for years.
• Saying Too Much: He claims he never met Johnny Ola, but during the sex club scene excitedly talks of how Ola introduced him to the place. Michael's shocked expression says everything as he realises his own brother has betrayed him.
• Straight Gay: Mainly discussed in the original book and the Mark Winegardner follow-ups:
  • Many of the personality conflicts he has with Michael and other Made Men are because of his issues dealing with his extremely repressed sexuality, occasionally leading to drunken one-night affairs, and his overcompensation by cultivating a reputation as a Vegas ladies' man. This gives him the impression of being inconsistent, flighty, and unreliable, all traits that attract the wrong kinds of attention and are liabilities for a man looking to make himself useful in the family business.
  • Subtly referenced in Part II. In Cuba, Michael gives Fredo the task of arranging entertainment for his visiting guests, all VIPs and politicians he hopes to win over and expedite his investment in the Cuban hotel industry. Fredo's choice of venue is a seedy club hosting a sex show, starring 'Superman'. While all the guests are laughing in good-natured disbelief at the size of Superman's more-powerful-than-a-locomotive, there is a two-second shot of Fredo staring, unblinking and almost trembling.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Ugly Guy to Deanna's Hot Wife in Part II.
• The Unfavorite: His parents did not think highly of him. In the first film Vito dismissively references having no expectations for Fredo. The second film Fredo alludes to Carmela sarcastically saying he was a Gypsy child.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Tries everything he can to please Michael, but it just doesn't work out.

Constanzia "Connie" Corleone

"Michael, I hated you for so many years. I think that I did things to myself, to hurt myself so that you'd know - that I could hurt you. You were just being strong for all of us the way Papa was. And I forgive you."

Portrayed By: Talia Shire

Connie: Michael. Now they'll fear you.
Michael: Maybe they should fear YOU!

The youngest of Vito Corleone's children and his only daughter.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: While her confrontation with Michael immediately after Carlo's murder is much the same in the book, she quickly gets over it and even remarries before the "year of respect" is over. In the movies, her anger at Michael lasts years.
• Alliterative Name: Constanzia "Connie" Corleone.
• Ascended Extra: Connie is the least important of the Corleone siblings In-Universe (what with being a woman and all that), however, by Part III with Fredo, Tom and Sonny out of the way she temporarily replaces Michael as family boss when he falls ill in the middle of a gang war. She basically acts as Michael's unofficial Consigliere throughout the third movie, as well as nephew Vincent's biggest booster.
  • Her role in part III is particularly significant, as she acts as Vincent Mancini's biggest advocate, advises Michael as his unofficial "wartime consigliere", alongside Al Neri, sanctions the hit by Vincent on Joey Zasa (without Michael's knowledge), and is the one who kills Big Bad Don Altobello with poisoned pastries.
• The Baby of the Bunch: The youngest in the Corleone family.
• Break the Cutie: Goes from the beloved only daughter of a loving family to being beaten regularly by her husband, even while she is pregnant with their child, with her family doing nothing to intervene. When her older brother Sonny does try to stop Carlo, he is murdered, after which her husband stops abusing her and their marriage becomes somewhat loving. Then her husband is murdered by her brother Michael.
• Calling the Old Man Out: She aggressively confronts Michael (her older brother and head of the family by this point) in the aftermath of the Carlo situation. She later (at the end of Part II) confesses to Michael that she behaves badly in order to get back at Michael and hurt him.
• Corrupt the Cutie: In Part I Connie is (an informed) civilian who marries well before her husband treats her like crap and is murdered; in Part II she turns to leeching off Michael (while doing things to spite him) but staying out of the business; in Part III she is an active player in family affairs.
• Daddy's Girl: She's Vito's favourite child next to Michael and is one of the few people able to convince her father (and later, her older brother Don Michael) of any other course of action other than his own, as seen when she comples Michael to have corrective surgery to fix his broken jaw.
• Domestic Abuse: Experiences this at the hands of Carlo.
• Love Martyr: Despite the constant brutal abuse she gets from her husband, Carlo, she remains devoted to him. She even confronts and briefly despises her brother, Michael, for rightfully having her husband murdered^note not only for abusing her, but more importantly for being behind Sonny's death. She eventually accepts and understands the reason why Michael did what he did.
• Mafia Princess: The archetypal example of this. By the end of the first film however, when her abusive husband is murdered by her brother Michael for his role in setting up the murder of the oldest sibling Sonny, Connie finds herself quite jaded and goes into a downward spiral of debauchery and drinking to punish her brother Michael, wasting money on failed marriages and neglecting her children. It takes the death of her mother Carmela to get her to clean her act up, at which point she convinces Michael to reconcile with turncoat brother Fredo. By the third film, she's been upgraded to full-blown Godmother and has taken the role of adviser/Corleone Family mentor to Sonny's illegitimate son Vincent, who has followed his father's footsteps into organized crime.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Has shades of this in Part III, being more ruthless in wanting Joey Zasa dead then Michael, and flat out supports a hit on him and his men behind his back.
• Older and Wiser: She was practically The Load in her younger years since the business is not female-friendly, but she evolves and by Part III she is Lady Macbeth.
• Spiteful Spit: She tries this when confronting Michael about Carlo's death, but she's too distraught to work up any saliva.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Part III, becomes Michael's de facto consigliere, ordering hits without his permission. She even assists in killing Altobello, who is her godfather, with poisoned cannoli during the final parts of Part III.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Don Barzini orchestrates a plot to have Carlo deliberately beat her in order to ask Sonny for help, in order to enrage Sonny enough to draw him out into the open to be assassinated. She unknowingly plays her part perfectly.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: There's no mention of what happens to her after the climactic night of Part III.

Tom Hagen

"I have a special practice. I handle one client."

Portrayed By: Robert Duvall

Dubbed By: François Chaumette (European French, first dub)

"A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns."

— Vito Corleone

An orphaned childhood friend of Sonny's, Tom was unofficially adopted by Don Vito. He's the family's lawyer and Consigliere.

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• Abusive Parents: Tom's father was a violent alcoholic and his mother (who was described as 'moronic and slovenly') was completely neglectful towards him.
• Affably Evil: He serves a major crime family and oversees criminal activities and other shady activities but Tom is nonetheless a very friendly, polite and reasonable guy who cares deeply about his adopted family.
• Affectionate Nickname: In the novels (mainly The Family Corleone), his family calls him Tommy.
• Always Someone Better: In the novels, it's revealed that he was this to both Sonny and Fredo, as he was not only far more responsible and levelheaded than Sonny, but Fredo always felt that Tom was one of Vito's favorite children compared to him.
• Amoral Attorney: A dignified mob lawyer. He actually considers it to be the lesser of two evils. According to the novels, after graduation he got a job working for an auto company, where he was asked to do a cost-benefit analysis of a vehicle recall, weighing the cost of the recall against the cost of paying death benefits to the families of the projected casualties. He submitted his report along with his resignation and went to work for Vito the next day, where any screwing over he had to do would be on those who took their chances and had it coming.
• Badass Bookworm: A lawyer by profession and undoubtedly one of the most intelligent members of the Corleone family, he also killed two people in The Godfather Returns strangling one with his belt and shooting another. Then, in the same book, there's his ease in putting Fredo on the ground when attacked in a fit of anger. (Fredo later compliments him on his reflexes. Tom's response: "lots of coffee".)
• Bus Crash: The central story of Part III was going to be a full-on war between Michael and Tom, but Tom was dropped from the final film and his recent death is mentioned briefly in a scene with his son. Robert Duvall thought it was unfair for him to receive only a fifth of Al Pacino's salary and Coppola didn't have enough traction to amend it.
• Child of Two Worlds: Tom was born into a German-Irish family but raised by Sicilians. As an adult, he often acts as a buffer between the Corleones and their WASP colleagues.
• The Consigliere: Trope Codifier. Close to a Unbuilt Trope in that Tom, though well-meaning, isn't a particularly good Consigliere during wartime. He admits it to himself in the book after Sonny dies. Michael replaces him with his father, although he still listens to him until he grows unhappy with Tom in Part II.
• Consummate Professional: He's always impeccably dressed, well-mannered and polite in his business dealings. This even extends to people who are yelling slurs at him like Jack Woltz.
• Cool Big Bro: The Family Corleone reveals that growing up, Michael looked up to Tom and wanted to be like him.
• Cool Uncle: To Michael's kids. When Michael is away in Cuba, Tom buys his son a toy car for his birthday.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Before being taken in by Vito, Tom came from an abusive, dysfunctional family and was orphaned from a young age. He was almost put in an orphanage but wound up running away and nearly dying on the streets from sickness and starvation. Even in adulthood, he has nightmares of he and his children going through that experience.
• The Dragon: To Vito.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Despite his integral role in the first two films, his death is only briefly mentioned in passing at the beginning of Part III. In the books, he is drowned in the Florida Everglades by Nick "Ace" Geraci, as part of Geraci's plan to bring down Michael's support structure en route to taking over the family.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He is disturbed with how ruthless and bloodthirsty Michael gets. He also makes a point of saying that he thinks Fredo is telling the truth that he didn't know about the hit on Michael, implying that Tom wished for Fredo to be spared.
  • In the novel he is truly astonished when he learns how incredibly petty and vindicative Jack Woltz is, closing Hollywood doors to Johnny Fontane just for having an affair with a young actress that Woltz groomed and desired. He's later disgusted when he sees that Woltz has savagely beat and raped a child actress, which is only worsened upon witnessing her mother's complete lack of care and concern for her, wondering how Johnny could really want become a part of this world.
• The Good Chancellor: Spends most of the films urging caution over bloodshed.
• The Handler: He's consigliere to Don Vito.
• Happily Adopted: Although the Don never formally adopted him, he treated him just like his birth children and Tom thinks of Vito as his true father. The Corleone children think of him as another sibling and not just Sonny's friend who came to live with them. Even after his death, his wife and children still attend family events where they are treated as family and Michael still calls him his brother.
• Heroic BSoD: In the original novel, he suffers a very minor breakdown when he learns that Sonny has just been murdered, and needs a stiff drink before plucking up the courage to tell Vito. Vito lampshades this to Tom, but permits him to finish his drink before saying what he's afraid to say.
• Honest Advisor: Vito encourages him to be one: "Not even a Sicilian consigliere always agrees with the boss."
• I Need a Freaking Drink: He needs a drink before bringing himself to tell his Don the news about Sonny.
• Inadequate Inheritor: He often compares himself unfavorably to Genco Abbandando, Vito's previous consigliere, and he's not wrong. While he's definitely good at handling the business aspects of a Family that's trying to go legit (which, to be fair, Genco probably couldn't have done), he's not particularly good in wartime, and the consequences are dire. In a heated moment Sonny criticizes Tom's performance as a wartime consigliere and he says 'Pop had Genco and look what I got!', though he apologizes immediately.
• Liminal Being: He's an American man of German-Irish descent who was adopted by a Sicilian family, so he has a foot in multiple cultures. His heritage and lack of blood ties to the Corleones technically make him an outsider in the mafia, but his role as a trusted consigliere paradoxically makes him an insider.
• Meaningful Name: In the medieval German epic poem Nibelungenlied, Hagen is the name of King Gunther's chief advisor, who is fiercely loyal to his liege lord and carries out every order with absolute determination, even if it involves cold-blooded murder — a relationship that's very similar to that between Tom and Vito Corleone.
• Must Have Caffeine: In the books, he's said to have at least two cups of coffee on his person so that he won't have to depend on others to get him refills.
• Non-Action Guy: In the movies, anyway. This fact is lampshaded by Virgil Sollozzo:
  I know you're not in the muscle-end of the family, Tom, so I don't want you to be scared.
• Not So Stoic: The one person who consistently gets under his skin and causes him to display his impatience is Sonny. Just about every conversation they have ends with Tom raising his voice, something he hardly ever does with anyone else.
• Only Sane Man: Finds himself playing this part when Sonny or Michael start getting too bloodthirsty.
• Parental Abandonment: Mother died from an unknown sickness and an eye infection, father drank himself to death shortly afterwards.
• Parental Neglect: Whereas his biological father was a violent drunk, his mother never gave him any affection, physical or otherwise.
• The Stoic: Insults, threats, betrayals, Tom takes them all with calm equanimity.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Tom's a very serious guy at heart, but he can be surprisingly warm-hearted towards friends and family.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the sequel books, Tom kills two people and later easily subdues Fredo when the latter attacks him in a fit of anger, while in the original book and in the movie adaptation he is very much a Non-Action Guy.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Eggplant Parmigiano in the novels.
• Undying Loyalty: To the Corleone family. It's telling that for all his paranoia and cutting ties with anyone he sees as a liability, the idea that Tom could ever betray or turn on him never even occurs to Michael.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Swiftly (but calmly) calls out his adopted brothers Santino and Michael when they question his legitimacy (as a family member) and/or loyalty, even when, at these two points in time, both are at least acting Godfathers of the family.

Kay Adams-Corleone

"Is it true?"

Portrayed By: Diane Keaton

Dubbed By: Perrette Pradier (European French, The Godfather Saga redub)

Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man who's responsible for other people, like a senator or a president.
Kay: You know how naive you sound?
Michael: Why?
Kay: Senators and presidents don't have men killed.
Michael: Oh. Who's being naive, Kay?

Michael's long-time girlfriend that he meets at college. She is somewhat of an outsider from the beginning and symbolizes Michael's initial desire to live a more Americanized life — viewing her as a way of breaking away from the family business. He eventually falls out of love with her but proposes to her years later in order to start a family. She becomes his second wife and they have two children but their relationship is not a happy one.

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• Amicably Divorced: With Michael in Part III, surprisingly enough. But it takes years to get there.
• Artistic License – History: Kay meets Michael at Dartmouth College in 1945, but Dartmouth didn't accept women until 1972.
• Babies Make Everything Better: The book mentions that Kay's acceptance into the family was made much easier by the fact that she became pregnant immediately like a proper Italian wife. Also inverted in that her final break from the family comes via an abortion.
• Betty and Veronica: Looks like the Betty but is the Veronica while Apollonia is the Betty who looks like the Veronica.
• Convenient Miscarriage: Subverted. Kay apparently suffers this trope, only to be revealed later that she aborted the child because she can't stand the idea of another child being raised into his criminal life.
• Converting for Love: Subverted. Kay was a Baptist, but she wasn't pressured into converting to Catholicism in order to marry Michael. She decides to convert a few years into their marriage, so she can pray for the soul of her husband like Carmela Corleone does for hers.
• Cool Aunt: In the novels, she's said to be close with Sonny's daughters.
• Cynicism Catalyst: She enters a relationship (and later marriage) with Michael with her eyes mostly open, and is willing to overlook and/or downplay the heinous things Michael's family (and later Michael himself) have done and continue to do. But it isn't until Michael orchestrates the murders of all the familiy's enemies at the end of Part I (and bold-faced lies to her about it) that she starts to rethink her choices. And the attempted assassination at the beginning of Part II serves as the final nail in the coffin.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has developed much more of a biting wit by Part III, as seen in her interactions with Michael.
• Death Wail: Delivers a horrifyingly painful one when her daughter Mary is shot in the climax of Part III. Only Michael's succeeds in overshadowing it.
• First Love: To Michael. He ends up marrying her after his first marriage doesn't pan out.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted.
  Kay: It was an abortion Michael. Just like our marriage is an abortion. Something that's unholy and evil.
• Naïve Newcomer: In the first movie. Zigzagged as she is aware of some of the nasty things but Michael tries to downplay the criminal side of his family.
• Only Sane Woman: By the second and third movies, she's the only main character with anything like a normal audience member's sense of right and wrong, as the bloodshed and mayhem that the family exists in becomes more and more horrifying to her.
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: She is this to provide a contrast between a "normal" American in The '40s and the Corleones, though as stated above, she later converts to Catholicism.

Deanna Dunn-Corleone

"Never marry a wop, they treat their wives like shit!"

Portrayed By: Marianna Hill

A Hollywood actress in decline and Fredo's wife. Divorced him before his death.

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• Alliterative Name: Deanna Dunn
• Amicably Divorced: More so on her part than Fredo's in the novel.
• Dumb Blonde: So much it's actually painful, completely ignorant of wedding traditions and etiquette.
• Foil: To Kay. Like her, she's a blonde, all-American wife to a Corleone man. But in accordance to each brother's character and taste in women, while Kay is classy, mild-mannered and at least respects Michael, Deanna is vapid, a loudmouth and despises Fredo.
• Gold Digger: The impression she gives, and how the Corleone family views her.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Book only. While she's heavily promiscuous (so far as to having being caught by Fredo having sex with a film co-star), she did show Fredo some affection. She gave him bit parts in her films and bought a large headstone for him when he died.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: While Fredo is plain-looking, she is a gorgeous actress.

Carmela Corleone

"You can never lose your family."

Portrayed By: Morgana King (elder), Francesca De Sapio (young)

Vito's religious and traditional wife and the mother of Sonny, Fredo, Michael and Connie, as well as the adoptive mother of Tom.

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• Adaptational Intelligence: In the novel she speaks with a stereotypical thick Italian accent. In the films her English is perfect.
• Alliterative Name: Carmela Corleone
• Cassandra Truth: The last thing she does before she dies is warn Michael that family is the most important thing and therefore he cannot afford to lose any of his family members. Michael does not listen to her and has Fredo killed shortly after her death. In the end, however, Carmela's words prove true, because this fratricide permanently ruins Michael's relationship with Kay and Anthony.
• Easily Forgiven: She is seemingly able to swiftly reconcile Vito going from a nice quiet man to a brutal crimelord. It's shown when Carmela asks her friend to go to Vito for help. She does make it a priority to pray for his soul everyday, however.
• Foil: More transparent in the novel, but she is this to Kay. Especially in the novel's conclusion where Kay comes to devoutly pray for Michael's soul everyday, like Carmela did for Vito. In the films, they both see their husbands transform into crimelords. The difference is that Carmela can accept it and Kay cannot. But in Kay's defense, Michael becomes a far more ruthless crimelord than Vito, so the amount of lies, pain and silence that Kay has to endure is much more than that Carmela had to deal with.
• Happily Married: To Vito.
• Hidden Depths: In the novel and Part II she shows her wisdom from time to time as well as having a passive aggressive attitude to Connie's behavior.
• Housewife: A traditional Sicilian woman, taking care of her family is her first priority. However, when Vito isn't around, she often makes snarky comments behind his back to Kay.
• Lady Macbeth: A rather benign example. She is the one who prompts Signora Colombo to seek help from Vito, inaugurating Vito persuasive style of reasoning and his role as a favor-dealer, becoming an alternative power coopting the established one.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Shows nothing but disdain for Merle Johnson and Deanna (Connie's boyfriend and Fredo's wife), snarking disdainfully to Tom that the two are a perfect match for one another right in front of them. Averted with Kay, who she forms a very close relationship with even before she and Michael marry.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Carmela is most often known as "Mama Corleone".

Apollonia Vitelli-Corleone

Michael: "She was wonderful, beautiful. I loved her. And then she died. My trusted bodyguard planted a bomb in my car. She drove it before I did."

Portrayed By: Simonetta Stefanelli

Shortly after Michael arrives in Sicily following his escape from New York, he meets a young local woman named Apollonia. Michael falls deeply and passionately in love with her (which is described as being "struck by the thunderbolt"). After a brief period of courtship, Michael marries her and she becomes his first wife. His relationship with her is what helps him reconnect with his Sicilian roots and find out where he truly belongs.

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• Age-Gap Romance: About a ten year one between her and Michael.
• Babies Ever After: Subverted. Michael and Apollonia wanted this to happen since they had sex every night. Apollonia finds out she is expecting and Michael is overjoyed, but she is murdered during her pregnancy, thus their child dies too.
• Foil: To Kay. Apollonia represents traditions and Italian life whereas Kay represents modernity and mainstream American life.
• Forbidden Fruit:
  • To Fabrizio. He was instantly attracted to her when he first saw her, but trying to make a move on her after Michael married her would be a death sentence.
  • She also started off as one to Michael. Given how traditional Sicilian culture was during that time, Michael pretty much had to court her entire family in addition to Apollonia herself. It was only then that Michael was given approval to marry her.
• Friendly Target: Via car bomb. Michael, however, was the intended target..
• Going Native: Somewhat downplayed, but after marrying Michael, Apollonia begins adopting American mannerisms such as styling her hair in different ways, smoking, and driving.
• Gold Digger: Downplayed, but the book makes it clear that an important consideration in their courtship is that Michael is a rich man (he actually makes a minor faux pas by bringing gifts for her and her family that are too expensive for the early stage of the courtship), and marrying him will assure her future. Sadly, it does, but not in the way anyone meant.
• Happily Married: With Michael. Their marriage brings Michael back to his Sicilian roots.
• Hidden Depths: We sadly don't get to see many of them, but they are there. For example, the book makes clear that her stumble against Michael during the stroll with her family was very much deliberate: she was as agile as a mountain goat and knew those paths like the back of her hand, but this was the only way to get a bit of physical contact with Michael before they were married (which, not coincidentally, encouraged him that little bit more to hurry up and marry her).
• The Ingenue: Averted, though her family presents her as such and Michael believes her to be one until their wedding night, when she makes it clear that no, she is - as the book puts it - a "young, full-blooded girl", and eager to get on with being Insatiable Newlyweds.
• Insatiable Newlyweds: Her and Michael. Implied in the movie, stated outright in the book.
• Language Barrier: Has trouble communicating with Michael as she only speaks Italian and he primarily speaks English with only a little Italian; they end up having a loving relationship despite this obstacle.
• Lost Lenore: To Michael.
• Meaningful Name: Her name is derived from the Greek god, Apollo (god of light and the sun). This symbolizes how Apollonia is the light - the happiness and innocence of Michael's life. Thus her death is also the loss of this innocence and Michael's Start of Darkness.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: She absolutely is not. She remains a virgin until wed, and thereafter focuses her (apparently very strong) sex drive entirely on her husband. Her father, Michael (in his thunderbolt-stricken need to be the only man to "possess" her) and even the narrative focus on this to the point that it can seem like her only character trait.
• Nature Adores a Virgin:
  • A huge deal is made about her purity and how Michael must marry her before diving into his carnal desires.
  • That said, Apollonia does what little she can within the bounds of Sicilian propriety to communicate that she has carnal desires as well, and would very much like it if he would marry her so they could get on with diving into them.
• Nice Girl: She was a sweet woman who Michael loved more then anything.
• One True Love: What Michael sees her as. Decades later, Michael dies in the same place her life was taken.
• Second Love: To Michael, and also his greatest love.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Despite her small role, her death sets Michael's ruthless rise to Don in motion.
• Teen Pregnancy: She was only 17 when she died, and in the novel, it states she was pregnant with their first child.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She does not appear much and we know little about her, but her death is what leads to Michael's Face–Heel Turn.

Vincent Mancini

"Love somebody else."

Portrayed By: Andy García

"I am your son. Command me in all things."

Sonny's illegitimate son and Michael's nephew. He is a hothead like his father, but under Michael's tutelage becomes a more reasoned, calculating crime boss.

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• Canon Foreigner: He wasn't in the book at all. In fact, Sonny's mistress was explicitly stated to have not gotten pregnant by him.
• Composite Character: Vincent was described by Francis Ford Coppola as an amalgamation of the five Corleone men, having Vito's cunning, Sonny's temper, Fredo's sensitivity, Michael's ruthlessness, and Tom's absolute loyalty.
• Fake Defector: Michael puts him under the tutelage of Don Altobello. Michael takes some precautions to avoid an obvious identification of the trope.
• Friendly Neighborhood Gangster: Vincent is shown to be genuinely concerned for his local neighborhood, which is evidently reciprocated given how said neighbors voluntarily ask him to get rid of Joey Zasa.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: At the start of Coda/Part III, Vincent Mancini is a relative small fry, whose claim to notability being that he runs what's left of Genco's Imports, and that he's Sonny's bastard child with his mistress Lucy Mancini, with only Connie vouching for him. By the end, he ascends to the family's leadership as Don Vincent Corleone.
• Generation Xerox:
  • Although from all indications, he would probably be a better Don than Sonny could have been.
  • Specifically, to Michael. He steps in when a rogue gangster almost has the current Don killed, murders the gangster in broad daylight, and proceeds to adopt his predecessor's traits to become the new Don.
• Heroic Bastard: Goes by his mother's last name, since he was born out of wedlock.
• Hot-Blooded: Must run in the family.
• Impersonating an Officer: Dresses up as a mounted police officer to kill Joey Zasa.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's impulsive and hotheaded, but loves his family deeply and is very protective of them.
• Kissing Cousins: With Mary, but it doesn't last.
• Meaningful Rename: Michael eventually orders him to call himself "Vincent Corleone".
• Rambunctious Italian: He takes after his father in this regard, though he doesn't seem to be as ruled by his emotions.
• Shoo the Dog: At Michael's request, he tells Mary that he cannot be with her since his business is too dangerous for them to be together. This ends up being his last words to her.
• Undying Loyalty: To Michael and the Corleone family.
• Unstoppable Rage: Picked up Sonny’s temper and this results in moments of extreme violence: biting off a piece of Joey Zasa’s ear, mercilessly killing two assassins sent to kill him, gunning down Zasa during a festival, and overall genuinely thinking violence is always the best solution.

Mary Corleone

"I'll always love you."

Portrayed By: Sofia Coppola

"I would burn in Hell to keep you safe."

— Michael Corleone

Michael's daughter and the youngest of his two children.

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• Canon Foreigner: Kay and Michael have two boys in the novel.
• Daddy's Girl: No good comes of it for her.
• Death by Irony: She dies just after his father swore to God, on the life of his children, therefore on hers too, that he would have sin no more and then, albeit indirectly, he sins again by tacitly approving the new godfather's decision to kill the family's enemies.
• Kill the Cutie: She is shot with a bullet meant for Michael near the end of Part III.
• Kissing Cousins: With Vincent, and it ends tragically.
• Mafia Princess: She is legitimately oblivious to her father's corrupt ways, also striking a romance with her cousin Vincent. The poor kid ends up shot to death as a result of her father's crimes coming back to bite him in the ass, since an assassin sent to murder Michael after her brother's opera debut shoots her instead by mistake; she dies in Michael's arms, and he's pushed to the Despair Event Horizon.
• Naïve Everygirl: Has no knowledge of what her father has done as Don.
• Nice Girl: She runs a charity organization and is close with her father
• Older Than They Look: Mary was born in 1953 so should be 26 or 27 by the time of Part III meaning she was actually older than Michael was at the start of the first film, but she looks and acts much younger. Some of this comes from casting the 18 year old Sophia Coppola in the role but the writing still presents her as very young and innocent rather than someone nearing 30.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Michael is adamantly opposed to her marrying Vincent.

Anthony "Tony" Corleone

"I'll always be your son, but I want nothing to do with your business."

Portrayed By: Franc D'Ambrosio

Michael's oldest child and his initial heir apparent. Anthony, however, has different ideas and by Part III, is openly refusing to become a part of his father's criminal empire, instead opting to become an opera singer.

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• Calling the Old Man Out: He delivers a particularly devastating one to Michael at the beginning of Part III.
• Heel–Face Turn: Initially in Part II, right after his parents' separation, the young Anthony is portrayed as being cold and distant towards his mother, seemingly blaming her for the breakup. By the third film, however, it is Michael that he resents, mostly because he discovered the truth that Michael ordered the murder of Fredo, his favorite uncle.
• Nice Guy: Wants nothing to do with the criminal empire and is sweet, polite and loves his family.
• Please Wake Up: A mild example, but the toddler Anthony is the only other person present during Vito's death.
• White Sheep: Anthony wants nothing to do with his father's business and wants to becomes a opera singer, although by Part III all Michael wants is for Anthony to graduate from law school.

Carlo Rizzi

"Come on, all you Corleones are murderers anyway."

Portrayed by: Gianni Russo

Connie's husband. An inept and short-tempered man, he takes out his frustrations on her, leading quickly to tension with Sonny.

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• Abusive Parents: Before his child is even born, no less. Carlo is such a bastard he has no issue beating Connie while she is pregnant with his child.
• Asshole Victim: After spending much of his time in the movie physically beating Connie over minor stuff (or for no reason at all as implied in some scenes) and being responsible for Sonny's death by luring him into a trap after whipping Connie with a belt in her bathroom, he gets choked to death from behind the car seat that he thought was going to send him to the West Coast. The scene was so brutal that you can see Carlo desperately struggling, and he even reflexively kicks and breaks the front windshield of the vehicle as he struggles to escape the choke.
• Break the Haughty: He puffs up his chest considerably when he thinks that Michael is finally going to make him a more integral part of the Corleone family operations. This utterly evaporates when Michael confronts him about Sonny's murder and Carlo is reduced to a sniveling, pathetic, cowardly mess who can only beg for mercy from an uninterested Michael.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He's brutally strangled to death and takes an agonizingly long time to die from it, kicking and desperately trying to save himself.
• Dirty Coward: Beats Connie senseless, but runs away when Sonny confronts and whimpers like a puppy after being cornered as he gets beaten up by Sonny. He is so cowardly he doesn't even participate in the ambush that killed Sonny, instead staying far away as safe as possible. This is not even counting how he actually lies about having nothing to do with Sonny's death and denying being involved with the other Mafia family's operations when Michael confronts him at the end of the first movie and then begs for his life to Michael to spare him after being busted as a lying bullshitter.
• The Exile: Michael tells him that his punishment is being exiled from the family. He is indeed being exiled. Exiled from this mortal coil, that is.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Nobody in the Corleone family likes him. Aside from all of them not appreciating how blatant of a Gold Digger he is, Carmela and Vito don't like him due to him being a hoodlum and not a full blooded Sicilian (his mother was from Northern Italy), and Sonny, Tom, Fredo, and Michael all hate him due to how horribly he treats Connie.
• Gold Digger: Carlo marries Connie for her status, but he is only given "a living" by Vito, not a position in the family, which makes Carlo disaffected. Years later, Michael does elevate Carlo with an actual role within the family, but it's only a ruse.
• Hate Sink: He's not the worst villain in the trilogy, but there's absolutely nothing to like about him. Just an abusive, inept Dirty Coward who beats up his pregnant wife and even takes advantage of this to lure his brother-in-law Sonny into a death trap.
• Hollywood Healing: All told, in the film, it's pretty remarkable he healed from that beating as quickly as he did, without any signs of scarring no less.
• Hope Spot: He puffs up considerably when Michael makes him think he's about to be made a significant part of the family business, as a ruse to keep him close until the plan to wipe out the leaders of the other families is enacted, at which point Michael takes revenge for Carlo's betrayal of Sonny. There's a second moment as well when Michael confronts Carlo about Sonny's death, and he says he'll merely kick Carlo out of the business and exile him to Vegas if he admits his guilt. Which is, of course, a lie and Carlo is garroted by Clemenza in the car after admitting it was Barzini who approached him.
• Implied Death Threat: On the receiving end of one in the book. After Sonny's death, he gets a call from Tom Hagen informing him of what's happened, telling him to break the news gently to Connie and to bring her out to stay with her parents for a while. The call ends with "And don't worry, nobody blames you." Carlo gets the message loud and clear that he's an inch away from death.
• Jerkass: Beating the mother of your unborn child definitely qualifies you for this trope.
• Karmic Death: He helped conspired to have one of his brothers-in-law murdered. He ends up getting killed himself by the orders of his other vengeful brother-in-law.
• Kick the Dog: He's an absolutely awful husband to Connie, even when he's not outright beating her as he abuses her emotionally as well, rubbing his various infidelities in her face.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: In the book, when they're still friends, Carlo mentally compares himself to Sonny, and thinks about how he himself would need to summon all of his will and courage to kill, while Sonny is a casual killer. He considers this a sign of his own weakness and Sonny's strength, but the book takes a break from its Sympathetic P.O.V. to remind the audience that, as much as we love Sonny, and as much as we hate Carlo for being an abusive, cowardly, incompetent, traitorous scumbag, this makes Carlo a better person than Sonny.
• Lysistrata Gambit: In the novel, he didn't dare to abuse Connie physically after the beating he received from Sonny, at least not until he gave her the beating that he used to set up Sonny's murder, so he used one of these to abuse her emotionally instead. It's no sacrifice to him, since he was cheating on her pretty much from day one...which he lets her find out about as part of the abuse.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Not that he didn't have it coming, but he is easily convinced to betray Sonny after he brutally beats him in public.
• Oh, Crap!: He has this reaction shortly after beating Connie when he sees a very pissed-off Sonny running towards him. Has another one when Michael reveals he knows about Carlo's involvement in Sonny's murder.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Was given a chance to prove himself by running an Illegal Gambling Den and immediately screwed it up.
• The Resenter: He's shut out of the family business except for minor living to enable him to support Connie and his family, and consequently stews with bitterness about this. This leads to him beating Connie and, along with Sonny beating him in retribution, is implied to lead him to make a deal with Barzini.
• Stupid Crooks: The book shows that the "living" Don Corleone set him up with was a numbers racket... which he is absolutely terrible at; the first day he runs it, he accidentally sets up a situation where the gamblers can't possibly lose, and after that Vito makes sure two of his men are at the numbers joint to correct Carlo's work so it doesn't happen again.
• Too Dumb to Live: He honestly believed Michael was going to spare him after killing Sonny.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Implied that after when Michael, as the new Don, allows him to become an active member of the family business (unaware that it's a plot that Michael and Vito set up for the upcoming assassination of Carlo) he becomes more mellowed out and even treats Connie with more dignity, opting to merely be stern with his wife rather than outright hostile (or violent) when he's displeased with her.
• Villains Want Mercy: When Michael reveals he knows about his part in Sonny's murder, he desperately begs for mercy. Michael at first pretends that he is willing to grant him it, but it turns out to be a lie.
• Would Hit a Girl: A Domestic Abuser who is physically abusive to Connie.

Johnny Fontane

"Oh, Godfather, I don't know what to do..."

Portrayed by: Al Martino

Vito Corleone's godson. He is a very famous singer, whose musical career ended due to a sore throat, and who seeks to relaunch his career in Hollywood, only to be antagonised by the movie producer Jack Woltz, prompting him to request his godfather's help.

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• Acquired Situational Narcissism: It's clear that his fame and fortune have gone to his head, with him often acting spoiled and irritable, leaving his first wife and children to become a womanizer, and enjoying hanging out with other famous people. However once his fortune goes down with him losing his singing voice, his second marriage being a disaster and Jack Woltz trying to chase him from Hollywood for having slept with one of his fetish actresses, he becomes desperate and cries upon telling his misfortune to his godfather. Vito is utterly disgusted with the self-pity, slapping Johnny and telling him to act like a man.
• The Casanova: His physique, fame and singing talent gives him a lot of success at attracting women and he doesn't hesitate to use it. He's surrounded by screaming girls the moment he arrives at the wedding, who get even louder when he sings.
• Childhood Friend: With Don Corleone's children, with him being especially close to Sonny. Averted with Tom Hagen as the two have never truly gotten along, with Johnny being especially irritable toward him.
• Good Parents: For all of his flaws as a man and husband Johnny loves deeply his daughters with his first wife Ginny, and is very affectionate to them.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He is very obviously based on Frank Sinatra, who too was a very famous singer with many connections with mobs who helped his career, with some details of his life being also based on events in Dean Martin and Tony Bennett's lives.
• Spoiled Brat: His fame and success as a singer (and later as an actor and director) are largely due to Don Corleone's support, with Vito having threatened his original bandleader Les Halley to force him to release Johnny from his band, and later frightening Jack Woltz into casting Johnny as the main role in his film by having his favorite horse's head being cut and put in Woltz's bed. As such he often acts entitled and irritable, something Jules Segal calls him out on.

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