What The Godfather Part III Had To Change To Remove Its NC-17 Rating
Released in 1972 and 1974, respectively, director Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II” are known for many things, including the legendary performances of Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert De Niro; as well as the films’ two Best Picture Oscar wins at the Academy Awards. Among the two films’ most riveting scenes are the executions carried out by the Corleone crime family, whether it be through Michael Corleone (Pacino) ordering hits on the heads of his rival crime families in the original film or the young Don Vito Corleone (De Niro) brutally exacting revenge on his father’s murderer in the sequel.
Despite the legendary status of the first two “Godfather” chapters, film censors at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — the governing body that determines film ratings — were intent on making Coppola follow their stringent set of standards when he was preparing “The Godfather Part III” for release in 1990. And while the film contained violent mob hits like its two predecessors, there was one particular scene of excessive violence that earned the film an NC-17 rating, a new “adults only” delineation that replaced the movie industry’s X rating in 1990 (via the Los Angeles Times). However, since the X rating had generally been viewed by the public as pornographic films, the rebranding to NC-17 — a rating that only allowed audiences 17 years old and above — still carried a stigma so strong that theater chains were reluctant to book any movie rated with it. Worse yet, then-dominant rental chains like Blockbuster Video refused to carry NC-17 titles (via Time).
