1. The Godfather
It is rare that a story, cast and director all fit perfectly together but it happened with The Godfather. Even if Part III fails to close the trilogy adequately, almost every gangster film since has been influenced at least in part by Francis Ford Coppolas masterpiece of story-telling. Caan, Pacino and Duvall give their best ever career performances and anyone trying to compare to a Marlon Brando performance (apart from De Niro in Part II, of course) is fighting a losing battle from the start. The gangster genre is still alive and well so, please, leave the greatest of them all alone. Why would you ever want to recast such a perfect ensemble, unless of course you wake to find a horses head in your bed...