Marlon Brando was in a film.
Marlon Brando . ; Mark Antony in Joseph L. Mankiewicz 's 1953 film adaptation of Shakespeare 's Julius Caesar ; and Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver in Sayonara ( 1957 ) , an adaption of James Michener 's 1954 novel . Brando took a four-year hiatus before appearing in The Missouri Breaks ( 1976 ) . The Godfather is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Albert S. Ruddy , based on Mario Puzo 's best-selling novel of the same name . It stars Marlon Brando and Al Pacino as the leaders of a fictional New York crime family .