The Movie David Duchovny Has 'Seen A Million Times'

The weekends on All Things Considered series Movies I've Seen A Million Times features filmmakers, actors, writers and directors talking about the movies that they never get tired of watching.

The movie that actor David Duchovny, whose credits include the television shows The X-Files and Californication, and the films Return to Me and Phantom — currently playing in theaters— could watch a million times is Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather.

Interview Highlights

On why he loved The Godfather from the very first time that he watched it

"I think it was just the seamlessness of the storytelling, of the camerawork, the script, the acting, the music. You know, aside from that, the story that it's telling is operatic, you know, it's like a soap opera. Big things happen — big betrayals in families, life and death, bad guys and good guys — it's all in there."

On what the movie is really about

"Historically it's kind of about the history of the mafia in a way, of a certain strain of organized crime in this country that we come to call the mafia mostly because of these movies. I mean, I know people who can basically just talk in dialogue from The Godfather all day long. But aside from that, it's really the story of family and allegiance to family that supersedes any kind of morality, you know, the highest morality being your loyalty to your family rather than to a sense of right or wrong or abstract good."