Only 3 Drama Movies Are More Epic Than ‘The Godfather’

Released in 1972, The Godfather is one of the most defining triumphs not only of Hollywood but of the history of cinema at vast. The American crime epic follows a period of transition in the Corleone crime family, with the aging Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) hoping to hand over power to his reluctant son, Michael (Al Pacino). When rival gangs sense weakness, they launch a series of attacks on the Corleone family, forcing Michael into a hard decision and setting the scene for what is one of the most monumental and epic dramas ever made. The Godfather is, of course, epic for its 170-minute runtime, but also for its stunning grandeur, with the relentless brilliance of its filmmaking beauty and its fierce thematic journey that deals with ideas of corruption, power, and the corrosive nature of the American dream.

It is straightforward to make a case that The Godfather is the biggest, most substantial drama cinema has ever seen. Still, there have certainly been other movies, both before and since, that could rival Francis Ford Coppola’s Academy Award-winning crime classic in terms of sheer scale. Interestingly, all three of these movies center on war, using the terrible scope of conflict as a canvas to explore human morality while presenting some of the most iconic visuals in the history of the medium. Between an Old Hollywood classic, a ’60s masterpiece of epic cinema, and a ’90s triumph that remains one of the most emotionally overwhelming movies ever made, these three films can all rival The Godfather’s grandiosity in terms of both sheer runtime and captivating substance.

‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (1962)

Image via Columbia Pictures

Heralded by many as being the single most astonishing and awe-inspiring movie ever made, Lawrence of Arabia makes exceptional and groundbreaking employ of location-shot Super Panavision cinematography to present what is arguably the most defining epic experience cinema has ever produced. The biographical war drama follows the exploits of T. E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole), a lieutenant in the British Army who is tasked with uniting the warring Arab tribes to fight as one force against the Turks in WWI. The physical journey of the movie alone is epic, emphasizing both the beauty and hostility of the desert that Lawrence and the Arabs must brave. However, it also finds a piercing and powerful depth in the struggle Lawrence faces internally as he finds his loyalties divided between the British Army and his Arab companions.

As this latter point is emphasized, the monumental 227-minute film takes on an endlessly enticing psychological complexity. It explores Lawrence’s fragmenting psyche as he not only finds himself torn between two groups—a point that becomes an incredibly puncturing ideological and political one when the British betray the Arabs’ efforts to secure independence—but begins to be affected by the trauma of war as well. Lawrence of Arabia is, of course, a ravishing achievement of technical filmmaking defined by David Lean’s intensive illustration of the desert landscapes, Anne V. Coates’s faultless editing, and a litany of exceptional performances. Yet, it is also a fascinating and nuanced examination of the human condition under duress. Even 64 years on from its release, it remains one of the greatest feats cinema has ever seen, a timelessly gorgeous masterpiece that tackles wartime morality with astonishing depth while dramatizing one of the most impressive and complicated figures in current history.

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?
Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

????Parasite

????Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

????Birdman

????No Country for Old Men

FIND YOUR FILM →

01

What kind of film experience do you actually want?
The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.

ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I’m watching one kind of film and then reveals I’m watching another entirely.
BSomething overwhelming — humorous, depressed, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once.
CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I’m watching.
DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do.
ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Which idea grabs you most in a film?
Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?

AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity.
BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart.
CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back.
DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you’re still alive to watch it happen.
EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.

AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different.
BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride.
CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence.
DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I’m living it in real time, no cuts to safety.
ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?

AA system — concealed, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face.
BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most.
CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect.
DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance.
EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?

AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it.
BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess.
CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after.
DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I’m still thinking about it days later.
EBleakness — an candid refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Which setting pulls you in most?
Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.

AA gleaming current city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation.
BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person.
CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades.
DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap.
EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What cinematic craft impresses you most?
Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.

AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface.
BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience.
CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you’re watching.
DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them.
ESilence and restraint — what’s left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

What kind of main character do you root for?
The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.

ASomeone intelligent and resourceful who makes increasingly threatening decisions under pressure.
BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary.
CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other.
DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing.
EA tranquil, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.

NEXT QUESTION →

09

How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.

AI love a snail-paced build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal.
BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end.
CEpic runtime doesn’t scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours.
DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout.
EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.

NEXT QUESTION →

10

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?

AUnsettled — like I’ve just seen something I can’t fully explain but can’t stop thinking about.
BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto.
CHumbled — like I’ve been in the presence of something genuinely essential and overwhelming.
DExhilarated — like I’ve just seen cinema doing something it’s never quite done before.
EHaunted — like a chilly, tranquil dread that stays with me for days.

REVEAL MY FILM →

The Academy Has Decided
Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly humorous, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel essential without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses straightforward comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a up-to-date kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we employ to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is candid in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

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‘Gone with the Wind’ (1939)

A picture of profound ambition, Gone with the Wind is one of the truly quintessential Old Hollywood titles. This soaring, sweeping epic explores the tumultuous love affair of Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), a sheltered and manipulative adolescent woman residing at her family’s cotton plantation, and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a roguish profiteer who spies a fortune to be made in the American Civil War. Combining the abrasive complexity of the characters’ tumultuous romance with the ferocious scale of the war raging around them, the 1939 classic delivers a scorching tale of the crumbling of Southern society during the conflict from the perspective of those who benefit from it most.

It would be reckless to sing the praises of Gone with the Wind without recognizing the controversy that surrounds it, with its tale of the South amid the carnage of the Civil War, bordering on showing overt sentimentality towards an era of slavery. It is depressed, though understandable, that such an element has become such a focal point of the movie. However, Gone with the Wind still flaunts a sense of scope that is entirely entrancing, even with this sorry undercurrent in mind. The 220-minute epic is an enormous feat that broke up-to-date ground with regard to showing what technical and audacious heights cinema was capable of achieving. Considering that this astounding sense of spectacle is complemented by a story that is intently focused on ideas of survival, pride, and the sacrifice that comes with adjusting to insurmountable change, Gone with the Wind can only be considered one of the biggest movies ever made, even if it perhaps hasn’t aged quite so gracefully in every regard.

‘Schindler’s List’ (1993)

The girl with the red coat among a crowd in Schindler’s ListImage via Universal Pictures

With a runtime of 195 minutes, Schindler’s List is, quite amusingly, the shortest film on this list by some stretch. However, it is also the most powerful. A soul-shattering descent into the horrors of the Holocaust, the Steven Spielberg classic follows the efforts of German industrialist Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) as he uses his influence and favorable status with the Nazis to recruit prisoners in the Płaszów concentration camp as laborers in his factories, thus sparing them from almost certain death at the hands of the Nazi regime. As he exhausts his wealth on bribes of Nazi officials and resources, Schindler must also confront the relentless evil of the camp under the command of its sadistic commandant, Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes).

Complemented by its mesmerizing cinematic craft, Schindler’s List is a viewing experience that is best described as visceral. Violence is regular and disturbing, with Spielberg unflinching in his endeavor to showcase the inhuman treatment of the Jews in concentration camps. Every minute of the gargantuan epic is steeped in tragedy, terror, and tension, making it one of the most harrowing films ever made, particularly in mainstream Hollywood. It deftly combines an intense character-driven story of Schindler’s heroics and its imposing thematic precision concerning issues of evil, the cost of indifference, and the subtle flicker of hope with a monumental vision of one of the most heinous atrocities in human history. Schindler’s List is not only one of the most emotionally devastating and epic movies ever made, but it also stands as one of the most vitally essential as well.