The epic crime masterpiece Godfather 2 (The Godfather Part II, 1974) masterfully intertwines two parallel stories that explore the rise and moral fall of the Corleone lineage. In the past, we follow the young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro), who after the tragic escape from Sicily at the beginning of the 20. for centuries, he arrives in non-Italian Little Italy, where, with the murder of a local blackmailer, he gradually rises to a powerful and respected mafia godfather, for whom the family always comes first. In the present, in the late fifties, however, the story follows his son Michael (Al Pacino) as the new leader, coldly expanding the family empire to Las Vegas and Cuba just before the Casturo revolution. As Michael struggles with his business rivals, Senate investigations, and painful betrayals within his own family – especially the tragic discovery of his brother Fred – he increasingly loses his humanity. His path leads him to absolute power and sinister triumph, but at the same time to complete personal loneliness and the collapse of his own marriage, which stands in sharp and tragic contrast to his father's building of family cohesion.