🎬 Movie🏛️ Adults · Ages 18+Modern Drama

Goodfellas (1990)

Name: Goodfellas
Released: 1990

About This Movie

Henry Hill grows up idolizing the mobsters in his Brooklyn neighborhood, rises through the ranks of organized crime, and discovers that the glamour of the life masks a paranoid, violent reality that devours everyone it touches. Scorsese filmed with a kinetic energy that matches Henry's intoxication with the life, using tracking shots, freeze frames, and a wall to wall jukebox soundtrack that makes crime feel like rock and roll. The final third, fueled by cocaine and paranoia, is among the most intense sequences in American film.

Why It's a Classic

The Copacabana tracking shot, where Henry takes Karen through the kitchen and into the club in a single unbroken take, is cinema's most famous long take and a perfect visual metaphor for the seductive bypassing of normal rules that organized crime offers. Ray Liotta narrates with the breathless enthusiasm of someone who still cannot believe he got to live this life, and his gradual disillusionment carries the audience through the same arc. Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito, who can pivot from comedy to murder in a single sentence, earned a deserved Oscar and created one of cinema's most unpredictable, terrifying characters. The 'funny how?' scene, entirely improvised by Pesci and Liotta, demonstrates how humor and violence are inseparable in this world. Scorsese used popular music instead of a traditional score, placing each scene in its exact cultural moment and making the film feel like a time capsule of American criminal life from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Fun Fact

The 'funny how?' scene was improvised by Pesci based on an experience he had as a young waiter when he accidentally complimented a mobster. Scorsese told the other actors not to react naturally to heighten the tension. The Copacabana shot required eight takes, and the maitre d' who greets Henry was the actual maitre d' of the real Copacabana. Henry Hill, the real person the film is based on, was placed in witness protection and lived under an assumed name until his death in 2012.

Parent Note

The violence is graphic and frequent, including shootings, beatings, and a particularly disturbing murder scene. Drug use is depicted extensively in the final act. Strong language is constant, with an estimated use of the F word over 300 times. The film glamorizes criminal life deliberately in order to undermine that glamour in the final act. Rated R. This is essential American cinema but unquestionably for mature audiences.