On the occasion of his daughter Connie's wedding, Vito Corleone hears requests in his role as the Godfather, the Don of a New York crime family. Vito's youngest son, Michael, wearing a Marine Corps uniform, introduces his girlfriend, Kay Adams, to his family at the reception. Johnny Fontane, a famous singer and godson to Vito, seeks his help in securing a movie role; Vito dispatches his consigliere, Tom Hagen, to Los Angeles to talk the abrasive studio head, Jack Woltz, into giving Johnny the part. Woltz is unmoved until he wakes up in bed with the severed head of his prized stallion.
In 1901, Corleone, Sicily, nine-year-old Vito Andolini’s family is killed after his father insults local Mafia chieftain Don Ciccio. He escapes to New York and is registered as "Vito Corleone" on Ellis Island.
"Pumpkin" (Tim Roth) and "Honey Bunny" (Amanda Plummer) are having breakfast in a diner, and discussing their life as robbers. They decide to rob the restaurant after realizing they could make money off the customers as well as the business, as they did during their previous heist. Moments after they initiate the hold-up, the scene breaks off and the title credits roll.
Henry Hill says, "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster", referring to his idolizing the Lucchese crime family gangsters in his blue-collar, predominantly Italian-American neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn. Wanting to be part of something significant, Henry quits school and goes to work for them. He is able to make a living for himself and learns the two most important lessons in life: "Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut", the advice given to him after being acquitted of criminal charges early in his career.
Leone "Léon" Montana (Jean Reno) is a hitman (or "cleaner", as he refers to himself) living a solitary life in New York City's Little Italy. His work comes from a mafioso named Tony (Danny Aiello). Léon spends his idle time engaging in calisthenics, nurturing a houseplant, and watching old films.
The film is presented in non-chronological order, from the 1920s to the 1960s, and it is largely told through flashbacks from the viewpoint of one person. The specific scenes and their order varies from version to version. The following section describes the full European cut of the film:
In 1980, Cuban refugee Antonio "Tony" Montana (Al Pacino) arrives in Miami, where he is sent to a refugee camp with his best friend Manny Ribera (Steven Bauer) and their associates Angel (Pepe Serna) and Chi-Chi (Ángel Salazar). The four are released from the camp in exchange for assassinating a former Cuban government official at the request of wealthy drug dealer Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia), and they are given green cards. They become dishwashers in a diner.
A deadly firefight and a fire aboard a ship docked in the San Pedro Bay leaves only two survivors: a Hungarian criminal named Arkos Kovaz hospitalized from severe burns, and a small-time con artist, Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey), a pathetic cripple. Separately, FBI agent Jack Baer (Giancarlo Esposito) and Customs agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) arrive in San Pedro, lured by reports of a large cocaine shipment, and Kujan's personal vendetta against Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a formerly corrupt police officer who has since given up his life of crime but who was supposedly involved in the massacre. While Baer is at the hospital attempting to get security for Kovaz, Kovaz begins yelling in Hungarian, and mentions the name Keyser Söze, which stops and stuns Baer. As Verbal later explains, Söze has a near mythical and vengeful reputation, having killed his own family when they were held hostage by a Hungarian gang and then killing all but one of the gang members before disappearing underground, keeping his true identity secret by insulating himself from his agents, who usually do not know for whom they are working.
In 1973, Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is a sports handicapper and Mafia associate who is sent to Las Vegas to run the Teamsters Union-funded Tangiers Casino on behalf of the Chicago Outfit. He hires old friend Billy Sherbert (Don Rickles) as his manager. In between, Ace and his friend, mob enforcer and caporegime Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro (Joe Pesci), narrate how the mob bosses control the Teamsters Union, which gives out money for casinos that they own, such as The Tangiers, and how they also drive off rival crews and get rid of cheaters. Ace becomes the Tangiers' de facto boss by taking advantage of lax gaming laws allowing him to work at the casino while his gaming license is still pending. He doubles the casino's profits, which are skimmed by the Mob before the records are reported to income tax agencies. The bosses are impressed with Ace's work and send Nicky to protect Ace and the whole business, along with Nicky's brother Dominick, Nicky's friend and subordinate Frank Marino (Frank Vincent), and the rest of Nicky's soldiers in his crew. Nicky, however, becomes more of a liability than an asset; his criminal activities- which he makes nearly no effort to conceal- and his violent and vicious temper quickly gets him banned by the gaming board from every casino, and his name is placed in the Black Book. In retaliation, Nicky gathers his own crew, opens a jewelry store and restaurant, begins running unsanctioned shakedowns and burglaries, and soon after is considered the mob boss of Vegas.
After stealing an 86-carat (17.2 g) diamond in a heist in Antwerp, Franky "Four-Fingers" goes to London to deliver it to diamond dealer Doug "The Head" on behalf of New York jeweller "Cousin Avi". One of the other robbers advises Franky to obtain a gun from ex-KGB agent Boris "The Blade". Unbeknownst to Franky, Boris and the robber are brothers and plan to steal the diamond from him before he can turn it over to Doug.
A gang of heavily armed men scour and finally narrow down on a house in Wasseypur. They surround the house and unleash a wave of bullets and grenades on it with the intention of killing the family inside it. After heavy firing on the house, they retreat from the crime scene in a vehicle, convinced they have killed everyone within. The leader of the gang then calls one JP Singh (Satya Anand) on his cell phone and reports that the family have been successfully executed but he is double crossed by JP Singh as a fire fight erupts between them and a police check post blocking their escape route. The scene cuts abruptly for a prologue by the narrator, Nasir.
Eight men eat breakfast at a Los Angeles diner before their planned diamond heist, most of them unknown to each other. Six of them use aliases: Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr. Brown, Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, and Mr. White. With them are mob boss Joe Cabot, the organizer of the heist, and his son/underboss, "Nice Guy" Eddie Cabot. During the course of the film, the major characters are sporadically introduced by subtitles (e.g., "Mr. White") and their character backstories are explored in subsequent, non-linear fashion.
Long-time friends and small-time criminals Eddy, Tom, Soap and Bacon put together £100,000 so that Eddy, a genius card shark, can buy into one of "Hatchet" Harry Lonsdale's weekly high-stakes three card brag games. The game is rigged however, and the friends end up massively indebted to Harry, who fully expects them not to be able to come up with the money before the deadline he gives them. He has his sights set on Eddy's father's bar as repayment, and sets his debt collector Big Chris (who is often accompanied by his beloved son, Little Chris) to work in order to ensure that some form of payment is coming up.
First-time crook Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino), his friend Salvatore "Sal" Naturale (John Cazale), and Stevie (Gary Springer) attempt to rob the First Brooklyn Savings Bank. The plan immediately goes awry when Stevie loses his nerve shortly after Sal pulls out his gun, and Sonny is forced to let him flee the scene. In the vault, Sonny discovers that he and Sal have arrived after the daily cash pickup, and only $1,100 in cash remains in the bank.
In West Texas, 1980, Ed Tom Bell laments the increasing violence in a region where, like his father and grandfather before him, he has become sheriff. Anton Chigurh, a hitman, strangles a sheriff's deputy to escape custody and steals a car by using a captive bolt pistol to kill the driver.