Picking a single scene from The Godfather is a matter of personal choice, because it is-without a doubt-a perfect motion picture.  There are 40 scenes you could make an argument for, and I’ve written an article where I picked the five best (and it was still impossible to choose).  The film chronicles Michael Corleone’s (Al Pacino) descent from the one good son in a mafia family to a cunning monster.

There are lots of moments when you can say Michael crossed the Rubicon, but the moment you realize the depths of evil to which he can sinks is when he has every threat to his mob ascendency assassinated during the baptism of his godson (whose father he also has killed).  The scene is a disturbing juxtaposition of the rite of baptism in a holy setting with the unholy tide of murders, edited with intensity and brilliance.  The scene is one of the best edited sequences in film history and The Godfather’s culmination of Michael’s Luciferian fall from grace.