Goodfellas (1990)

Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy.

Director:

Martin Scorsese

Writers:

Nicholas Pileggi (book), Nicholas Pileggi (screenplay),

Stars:

Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci

Top 250 #15 | Won 1 Oscar. Another 40 wins & 23 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert De Niro	...	James Conway
Ray Liotta	...	Henry Hill
Joe Pesci	...	Tommy DeVito
Lorraine Bracco	...	Karen Hill
Paul Sorvino	...	Paul Cicero
Frank Sivero	...	Frankie Carbone
Tony Darrow	...	Sonny Bunz
Mike Starr	...	Frenchy
Frank Vincent	...	Billy Batts
Chuck Low	...	Morris Kessler
Frank DiLeo	...	Tuddy Cicero
Henny Youngman	...	Himself
Gina Mastrogiacomo	...	Janice Rossi
Catherine Scorsese	...	Tommy's Mother
Charles Scorsese	...	Vinnie

Storyline

Henry Hill is a small time gangster, who takes part in a robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to climb up through the hierarchy of the Mob. Henry, however, is badly affected by his partners success, but will he stoop low enough to bring about the downfall of Jimmy and Tommy?

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Plot Keywords:

gangster | mafia | robbery | irish italian | cocaine | 

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Taglines:

Shooting people was 'No big deal'.

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Genres:

Biography | Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Italian

Release Date:

19 September 1990 (USA)

Also Known As:

GoodFellas

Filming Locations:

2409 Thirty Second Street, Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$46,836,394 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

146 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Joseph Bono has a small role as a gangster in both Goodfellas and Raging Bull. Guido, Bono's character in Raging Bull, only has a couple of lines. During the pool scene, Guido hears about a guy who was hitting on Vickie. He says, "That's the same guy..? I gotta break his legs... No, I'll catch him." In Goodfellas, Bono has a cameo as a mobster named Mikey Franzese, who appears briefly as the camera pans through the Bamboo Lounge near the start of the movie. Mikey's only line was: "I haven't saw that guy. Yeah, I wanna see him."

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Goofs

Early in the movie, when young Henry's father beats him with a belt, the boy clearly has some sort protective padding under his shirt.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Henry Hill: The fuck is that?

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Connections

Referenced in Stella Street (2004)

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Soundtracks

"Playboy"
Written by Brian Holland, Robert Bateman and William Stevenson
Performed by The Marvelettes
Courtesy of Motown Record Company, L.P.

User Reviews

The Definitive Film of the 1990s

"GoodFellas" may be the most important film of the 1990s in the fact that its incredible success led to some of the other great movies of the decade. Films like "The Silence of the Lambs", "The Crying Game", "Pulp Fiction", "The Usual Suspects", "Fargo", and "L.A. Confidential" would have likely never been made as well as they were without the influence of Scorsese's "GoodFellas". The film is an intense study of a Mafia family over a 30-year stretch. Ray Liotta plays the half-Irish, half-Sicilian kid from Brooklyn whose only dream is to be a gangster. Although Liotta's story is at the heart of "GoodFellas", it is the supporting cast that is the film's calling card. Robert DeNiro gives one of his greatest performances, Paul Sorvino is quietly effective, and Lorraine Bracco (in an Oscar-nominated role) does the best work of her career. However, it is Joe Pesci (in his well-deserved Oscar-winning turn) who steals every scene as the one who does the "dirty work". This is probably the definitive film in a decade that produced many film-noir styled classics. 5 stars out of 5.