Scorsese initially titled the filmWise Guy and postponed making it; he and Pileggi later changed the title toGoodfellas. To prepare for their roles in the film, De Niro, Pesci and Liotta often spoke with Pileggi, who shared research material remaining from writing the book. According to Pesci, improvisation andad-libbing came from rehearsals wherein Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines that he liked most and put them into a revised script, from which the cast worked during principal photography.
In 1955, teenagerHenry Hill becomes enamored by the criminal life andMafia presence inEast New York, a working-classItalian-American neighborhood inBrooklyn, New York City. He begins working for localcaporegime Paulie Cicero and his associates Jimmy Conway, anIrish-American truck hijacker and gangster, and Tommy DeVito, a fellow juvenile delinquent. Henry begins as afence for Jimmy, gradually working his way up to more serious crimes.
Throughout the 1960s, the three men excel at carjacking, stealing cargo trucks fromJFK Airport, and eventually commit theAir France Robbery. They spend most of their nights at theCopacabana nightclub, carousing with women. Henry starts datingKaren Friedman, a Jewish woman who is initially confused by Henry's criminal activities. She is soon seduced by Henry's glamorous lifestyle, and marries him, despite her parents' disapproval.
In 1970,Billy Batts, amade man in theGambino crime family who was recently released from prison, insults Tommy at a nightclub that is owned by Henry. In response, Tommy and Jimmy beat, stab and fatally shoot Billy. Realizing that the unsanctioned murder of a made man will invite retribution, Jimmy, Henry and Tommy bury the body inUpstate New York. Six months later, Jimmy learns that the burial site is slated for development, prompting them to exhume and relocate the decaying corpse.
In 1974, Karen harasses Henry's mistress Janice, and threatens Henry at gunpoint. Henry moves in with Janice, but Paulie insists that he return to Karen after collecting a debt from a gambler inTampa with Jimmy. Jimmy and Henry are arrested after being turned in by the gambler's sister, an FBI typist, and they receive ten-year prison sentences. To support his family on the outside, Henry has Karen smuggle in drugs fromPittsburgh, which he sells to fellow inmates.
In 1978, Henry is paroled and expands his cocaine business with Jimmy and Tommy, against Paulie's orders. Jimmy organizes a crew toraid the Lufthansa vault at JFK Airport, stealing six million dollars in cash and jewelry. After some members purchase expensive items against Jimmy's orders and the getaway truck is found by police, he has most of the crew killed. Only Henry and Tommy are spared, as Henry is making money through his Pittsburgh connection, and Tommy is about to become a made man. However, Tommy is killed when he arrives at the bogus initiationceremony, in retribution for murdering Batts, much to Jimmy's dismay.
By 1980, Henry has become a nervous wreck due to heavy cocaine use. He sets up another drug deal with his Pittsburgh associates but is arrested by narcotics agents and incarcerated. After bailing him out, Karen explains that she flushed $60,000 worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent FBI agents from finding it during their raid, leaving the Hills penniless.
Feeling betrayed by Henry's drug dealing, and realizing that he is a liability, Paulie gives him $3,200 and ends their association. Henry meets Jimmy at a diner and is asked to travel to a hit assignment, but the request makes him suspicious. Realizing that Jimmy plans to have him killed, Henry decides to finally become aninformant and enroll with his family in thewitness protection program. Henry gives sufficient testimony and evidence in court to have Paulie and Jimmy convicted, and moves to a neighborhood in an undisclosed location, in accordance with the witness protection program. Henry describes his unhappiness by leaving his exciting and turbulent gangster life, feeling condemned to live a boring, average life as a "schnook".
Henry remained in witness protection through the 1980s. In 1987, he was arrested for narcotics conspiracy, and received 5 years' probation, but has been clean since. Henry and Karen separated in 1989. Paulie died in prison in 1988, at age 73. Jimmy would served a 20 years to life sentence in Federal Prison, ineligible for parole until 2004.
Martin Scorsese, the director of the film, in 2010
Goodfellas is based on New York crime reporterNicholas Pileggi's bookWiseguy.[10] Martin Scorsese did not intend to make another Mafia film, but he saw a review of Pileggi's book, which he read while working onThe Color of Money in 1986.[11] He had always been fascinated by the mob lifestyle, and was drawn to Pileggi's book because he thought that it was the most honest portrayal of gangsters that he had ever read.[12]
After reading the book, Scorsese knew what approach he wanted to take: "To beginGoodfellas like a gunshot and have it get faster from there, almost like a two-and-a-half-hour trailer. I think it's the only way you can really sense the exhilaration of the lifestyle, and to get a sense of why a lot of people are attracted to it."[13] According to Pileggi, Scorsese cold-called the writer and told him, "I've been waiting for this book my entire life," to which Pileggi replied, "I've been waiting for this phone call my entire life."[14][15]
Scorsese decided to postpone making the film when funds materialized in 1988 to makeThe Last Temptation of Christ. He was drawn to the documentary aspects of Pileggi's book. "The [Wiseguy] book gives you a sense of the day-to-day life, the tedium, how they work, how they take over certain nightclubs, and for what reasons. It shows how it's done."[14] He sawGoodfellas as the third film in an unplanned trilogy of films that examined the lives of Italian-Americans "from slightly different angles".[16] He has often described the film as "a mob home movie" that is about money, because "that's what they're really in business for".[12] Two weeks in advance of the filming, the realHenry Hill was paid $480,000.[17]
Scorsese and Pileggi collaborated on the screenplay, and during the course of the 12 drafts that it took to reach the ideal script, the reporter realized that "the visual styling had to be completely redone... So we decided to share credit."[14][17] They chose the sections of the book that they liked and assembled them like building blocks.[3] Scorsese persuaded Pileggi that they did not need to follow a traditionalnarrative structure.
Scorsese wanted to take the gangster film and deal with it episode by episode, but start in the middle and move backward and forward. Scorsese compacted scenes, realizing that if they were kept short, "the impact after about an hour and a half would be terrific."[3] He wanted to use narration in a manner reminiscent ofFrançois Truffaut's 1962 filmJules and Jim, and use "all the basic tricks of theNew Wave from around 1961."[3] This is the first time sinceMean Streets that Scorsese is credited as a co-writer.[11]
The names of several real-life gangsters are altered for the film:Tommy "Two Gun" DeSimone became Tommy DeVito,Paul Vario became Paulie Cicero, andJimmy "The Gent" Burke became Jimmy Conway, after Burke's birth surname.[17][18] Scorsese initially titled the filmWise Guy, but he and Pileggi decided to change the title of their film toGoodfellas because two contemporary projects, the 1986Brian De Palma filmWise Guys and the 1987–1990 TV seriesWiseguy, had used similar titles.[3]
OnceRobert De Niro agreed to play Jimmy Conway, Scorsese was able to secure the money needed to make the film.[19]Ray Liotta, who played Henry Hill, had read Pileggi's book when it came out and was fascinated by it. A couple of years afterward, his agent told him that Scorsese was going to direct a film adaptation. In 1988, Liotta met with Scorsese over a period of a couple of months and auditioned for the film.[12] He campaigned aggressively for a role, althoughWarner Bros. wanted a well-known actor; he later said, "I think they would've rather hadEddie Murphy than me".[20]
To prepare for the role, De Niro consulted with Pileggi, who had research material that had been discarded while writing the book.[25] De Niro often called Hill several times a day to ask how Burke walked, held his cigarette, and so on.[26][27] Driving to and from the set, Liotta listened to FBI audio cassette tapes of Hill, so that he could practice speaking like his real-life counterpart.[27]
Madonna was considered for the role of Karen Hill.[22] To research her role,Lorraine Bracco tried to get close to a mob wife but was unable due to the insular nature of Mafia communities. She decided not to meet the real Karen, saying that she "thought it would be better if the creation came from me".[28]Paul Sorvino had no problem finding the voice and walk of his character, but found it challenging to find what he called "that kernel of coldness and absolute hardness that is antithetical to my nature except when my family is threatened".[29]
FormerEDNY prosecutorEdward A. McDonald appeared in the film as himself, re-creating the conversation that he had with Henry and Karen Hill about joining the Witness Protection Program. McDonald, who was friends with Pileggi, was cast on a whim; while a location scout was taking pictures of his office, McDonald casually remarked that he would be happy to play himself if needed. Pileggi called him an hour later asking if he was serious, and he was cast. The scene was unscripted, with McDonald improvising the line referring to Karen as a "babe-in-the-woods".[30]
The film was shot on location inQueens,Upstate New York,New Jersey and parts ofLong Island during spring and summer 1989, with a budget of $25 million. According to Scorsese, shooting wrapped up in August 14.[17] Scorsese broke the film into sequences andstoryboarded everything because of the complicated style throughout. The filmmaker stated, "[I] wanted lots of movement and I wanted it to be throughout the whole picture, and I wanted the style to kind of break down by the end, so that by [Henry's] last day as a wise guy, it's as if the whole picture would be out of control, give the impression he's just going to spin off the edge and fly out."[31]
He added that the film's style came from the opening scenes ofJules and Jim: extensive narration, quick edits,freeze frames and multiple locale switches.[13] It is this reckless attitude toward convention that mirrors the attitude of many of the gangsters in the film. Scorsese remarked, "So if you do the movie, you say, 'I don't care if there's too much narration. Too many quick cuts?—That's too bad.' It's that kind of really punk attitude we're trying to show."[13] He adopted a frenetic style to almost overwhelm the audience with images and information.[3] He also put plenty of detail in every frame because he believed that the gangster life is so rich. Freeze frames were used for certain scenes because Scorsese wanted to highlight that "a point was being reached" in Henry's life.[3]
Joe Pesci did not judge his character, but found that the scene in which he kills Spider hard to do until he forced himself to feel the way Tommy did.[12] Bracco found the shoot to be an emotionally difficult one because of the male-dominated cast, and realized that if she did not make her "work important, it would probably end up on the cutting room floor".[12] When it came to the relationship between Henry and Karen, Bracco saw no difference between an abused wife and her character.[12]
According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals wherein Scorsese let the actors do whatever they wanted. He made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines that the actors came up with that he liked best, and put them into a revised script from which the cast worked during principal photography.[25] For example, the scene in which Tommy tells a story and Henry is responding to him—the "Funny how? Do I amuse you?" scene—is based on an actual event that Pesci experienced. Pesci was working as a waiter when he thought that he was making a compliment to a mobster by saying he was "funny"; however, the comment was not taken well.[32][33] It was worked on in rehearsals at which he and Liotta improvised, and Scorsese recorded four to five takes, rewrote their dialogue and inserted it into the script.[34]
The dinner scene with Tommy's mother (portrayed by Scorsese's mother Catherine) was also improvised, with the only scripted line being "Did Tommy tell you about my painting?". Tommy's mother's painting of the bearded man with the dogs was painted by Nicholas Pileggi's mother and based on a photograph from the November 1978 edition ofNational Geographic magazine.[35] Pesci's character Tommy DeVito shared a name with (but was otherwise unrelated to[36]) a close friend and employee of Pesci's, musicianTommy DeVito.[37] The cast did not meet Henry Hill until a few weeks before the film's premiere. Liotta met him in an undisclosed city; Hill had seen the film and told the actor that he loved it.[12]
The long tracking shot through the Copacabana nightclub came about because of a practical problem: the filmmakers could not get permission to go in the short way, and this forced them to go round the back.[3] Scorsese decided to film the sequence in one unbroken shot to symbolize that Henry's entire life was ahead of him, commenting, "It's his seduction of her [Karen] and it's also the lifestyle seducing him".[3] This sequence was shot eight times becauseHenny Youngman messed up his lines.[38]
Henry's last day as a criminal was the hardest part of the film for Scorsese to shoot because he wanted to properly show Henry's state of anxiety and paranoia caused by cocaine and amphetamine use.[3] In an interview with film criticMark Cousins, Scorsese explained the reason for Pesci shooting at the camera at the end of the film: "Well that's a reference right to the end ofThe Great Train Robbery...and basically the plot of this picture is very similar toThe Great Train Robbery. It hasn't changed, 90 years later, it's the same story, the gun shots will always be there, he's always going to look behind his back, he's gotta have eyes behind his back, because they're gonna get him someday." The director ended the film with Henry regretting that he is no longer a wise guy, about which Scorsese said that "I think the audience should get angry at him and I would hope they do—and maybe with the system which allows this".[3]
Scorsese wanted to depict the film's violence realistically, "cold, unfeeling and horrible. Almost incidental".[19] However, he had to remove 10 frames of blood to ensure anR rating from theMPAA.[16]Goodfellas was Scorsese's most expensive film to that point, but still a medium-sized budget byHollywood standards.
It is also the first time that he was obliged by Warner Bros. to preview the film. At two preview screenings in California, audiences were "agitated" by the sequence depicting Henry's final day as a gangster, which Scorsese argued was his and editorThelma Schoonmaker's intention.[3] In the first test screening, forty audience members walked out in the first ten minutes.[34] One of the favorite scenes for test audiences was the "Funny like a clown? Do I amuse you?" scene.[3]
Although there is no incidental score in the film, Scorsese chose songs for the soundtrack that he felt obliquely commented on the scene or the characters.[16] In any given scene, he used only music contemporary to or older than the scene's setting. According to Scorsese, many of the non-dialogue scenes were shot to playback. For example, he had "Layla" byDerek and the Dominos playing on the set while shooting the scene in which the dead bodies are discovered in the car, dumpster and meat truck. Sometimes, the lyrics of songs were inserted between lines of dialogue to comment on the action.[3] Some of the music Scorsese had written into the script, while other songs he discovered during the editing phase.[34]
Goodfellas was released onDVD in March 1997, in a single-disc, double-sided, single-layer format that requires the disc to be flipped during viewing. In 2004,Warner Home Video released a two-disc, dual-layer version, withremastered picture and sound, and bonus materials such ascommentary tracks.[40]
In early 2007, the film became available on singleBlu-ray with all the features from the 2004 release; an expanded Blu-ray version was released on February 16, 2010, for its 20th anniversary,[41] bundled with a disc with features that include the 2008 documentaryPublic Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film.[40] On May 5, 2015, a 25th anniversary edition was released.[42] The film was released on 4KUltra HD Blu-ray on December 6, 2016.[43] The 25th anniversary release and subsequent releases include aMerrie Melodies andLooney Tunes collection with the shortsI Like Mountain Music (1933),She Was an Acrobat's Daughter (1937),Racketeer Rabbit (1946) andBugs and Thugs (1954).
Goodfellas grossed $6.3 million from 1,070 theaters in its opening weekend, topping the box office.[44] In its second weekend, the film made $5.9 million from 1,291 theaters, falling just 8% and finishing second behind newcomerPacific Heights.[45] It went on to make $46.8 million domestically.[46][4]
According toreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, 94% of 166 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 9.00/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Hard-hitting and stylish,GoodFellas is a gangster classic—and arguably the high point of Martin Scorsese's career."[47]Metacritic has assigned the film aweighted average score of 92 out of 100, based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[48] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of A− on a scale of A+ to F.[49]
In his review for theChicago Tribune,Gene Siskel wrote, "All of the performances are first-rate; Pesci stands out, though, with his seemingly unscripted manner.GoodFellas is easily one of the year's best films."[51] Both critics named it the best film of 1990. In his review forThe New York Times,Vincent Canby wrote, "More than any earlier Scorsese film,Goodfellas is memorable for the ensemble nature of the performances... The movie has been beautifully cast from the leading roles to the bits. There is flash also in some of Mr. Scorsese's directorial choices, including freeze frames,fast cutting and the occasional long tracking shot. None of it is superfluous."[52]
USA Today gave the film four stars out of four, and called it, "great cinema—and also a whopping good time".[13]
David Ansen, in his review forNewsweek magazine, wrote, "Every crisp minute of this long, teeming movie vibrates with outlaw energy."[53]
Rex Reed said, "Big, rich, powerful and explosive. One of Scorsese's best films!Goodfellas is great entertainment."[54]
In his review forTime,Richard Corliss wrote, "So it is Scorsese's triumph thatGoodFellas offers the fastest, sharpest 2½-hr. ride in recent film history."[55]
The film is ranked the best of 1990 by Roger Ebert,[56] Gene Siskel[56] and Peter Travers.[57] In a poll of 80 film critics,Goodfellas was named the best film of the year by 34 critics. Director Martin Scorsese was chosen as the year's best director in 45 of the 80 ballots.[58]
Goodfellas is 39th onJames Berardinelli's 2014-made list of the top 100 films of all time.[62] In 2014,WhatCulture included Joe Pesci's role in top "10 Most Convincing MoviePsychopath Performances".[63] In 2015,Goodfellas ranked 20th onBBC's "100 Greatest American Films" list, voted on by film critics from around the world.[64] The February 2020 issue ofNew York Magazine listsGoodfellas as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."[65]
Goodfellas was regarded as the second-best in the gangster film genre (afterThe Godfather).[70] In 2000, the United StatesLibrary of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in theNational Film Registry.
Roger Ebert namedGoodfellas the "best mob movie ever" and placed it among the ten best films of the 1990s.[71] In December 2002, a UK film critics poll inSight & Sound ranked the film No. 4 on their list of the 10 Best Films of the Last 25 Years.[72]Time includedGoodfellas in their list ofTime's All-Time 100 Movies.[73]Channel 4 placedGoodfellas at No. 10 in their 2002 pollThe 100 Greatest Films,Empire listedGoodfellas at No. 6 on their "500 Greatest Movies Of All Time,"[74] andTotal Film votedGoodfellas No. 1 as thegreatest film of all time.[75]
Premiere listed Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito as No. 96 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time," calling him "perhaps the single most irredeemable character ever put on film".[76]Empire ranked Tommy DeVito No. 59 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll.[77]
The film's two-and-a-half-minutetracking shot through the Copacabana nightclub, colloquially called the "Copa shot," is widely considered one of the greatest shots of all time, and is "one of the few shots in the history of cinema readily identifiable by name."[78][79] It is credited with popularizing the use of longSteadicam tracking shots in future productions, includingPulp Fiction,Boogie Nights,The Place Beyond the Pines, and theBuffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Body."[80]
Goodfellas inspired directorDavid Chase to make theHBO television seriesThe Sopranos. He toldPeter Bogdanovich, "Goodfellas is a very important movie to me andGoodfellas really plowed that ... I found that movie very funny and brutal and it felt very real. And yet that was the first mob movie that Scorsese ever dealt with a mob crew. ... as opposed to sayThe Godfather ... which there's something operatic about it, classical, even the clothing and the cars. You know I mean I always think aboutGoodfellas when they go to their mother's house that night when they're eating, you know when she brings out her painting, that stuff is great. I meanThe Sopranos learned a lot from that."[81] Indeed, the film shares a total of 27 actors withThe Sopranos,[82] including Bracco, Sirico, Imperioli, Pellegrino, Lip and Vincent, who all had roles in Chase's HBO series.[83]
July 24, 2010, marked the 20th anniversary of the film's release. The milestone was celebrated with Henry Hill hosting a private screening for a select group of invitees at theMuseum of the American Gangster in New York City.[84]
In January 2012, it was announced that theAMC Network put atelevision series version of the movie in development. Pileggi was on board to co-write the adaptation with television writer and producerJorge Zamacona. The two were set to executive produce with the film's producerIrwin Winkler and his son David.[85]
Luc Besson's 2013 filmThe Family features a sequence in which Giovanni Manzoni (De Niro), a gangster who is in witness protection for testifying against a member of his family, watchesGoodfellas.[86]
In 2014, theESPN-produced30 for 30 documentary series debutedPlaying for the Mob, depicting thepoint shaving scandal orchestrated by Hill, his Pittsburgh associates, and severalBoston College men's basketball players during the 1978–79 season. The episode was narrated by Liotta and contains references toGoodfellas.[87]
In 2015,Goodfellas closed theTribeca Film Festival with a screening of its 25th-anniversary remaster.[88]
In 2020,AMC began including a content warning when airingGoodfellas: "This film includes language and/or cultural stereotypes that are inconsistent with today's standards of inclusion and tolerance and may offend some viewers." By comparison,The Godfather gets a standard "viewer discretion" warning.[89]
^abcKaplan, Jonah; Altobellow, Stephen (Producer); Schwartz, Jeffrey (Producer) (November 19, 2004).Getting Made: The Making ofGoodfellas (Documentary short). Automat Pictures.Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. RetrievedMay 8, 2020.
^Godfrey, Alex (November 2013)."Whaddya want from me?".mrgodfrey.Archived from the original on September 4, 2014. RetrievedAugust 22, 2014.
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