About the Show
鈥淎merican Godfathers: The Five Families,鈥 executive produced and narrated by Emmy Award庐-winning actor Michael Imperioli is a three-part, six-hour documentary series exploring the inception, rise, and fall of New York City鈥檚 five Mafia families who over a fifty-plus-year period had a hand in every facet of organized crime in America from bootlegging and drug trafficking to extortion and gambling. Based upon Selwyn Raab鈥檚 New York Times best-seller 鈥淔ive Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America鈥檚 Most Powerful Mafia Empires,鈥 鈥淎merican Godfathers: The Five Families鈥 traces the extensive history of the Mafia beginning with its early ties to Sicily. The history and subsequent breakdown of the “omerta” code coupled with the ever-changing violent power struggles within each of the five families is vividly chronicled throughout each two-hour episode. Through investigative archival images, footage, audio recordings, and recreation as well as new, candid on-camera interviews with authors including Raab himself, historians, experts, law enforcement, witnesses, and former mafia affiliates, viewers will get an inside look at the inner workings of the most powerful criminal organization of the twentieth century.