I was recently flicking through the TV when I came across this film. It’s up there with my favorite films of all time and I recommend you watch it if you have not already done so.

Goodfellas is a masterclass in filmmaking—a relentless, exhilarating, and brilliantly crafted immersion into the seductive, brutal world of organized crime that remains one of the greatest American movies ever made.Martin Scorsese’s 1990 adaptation of Nicholas Pileggi’s nonfiction book Wiseguy follows the rise and eventual unraveling of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), a half-Irish, half-Sicilian kid from Brooklyn who grows up idolizing the local mobsters and eventually becomes one of them. From the opening freeze-frame and that iconic line—“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster”—the film announces its confidence and energy. It never lets up.

What elevates Goodfellas above almost every other crime film is Scorsese’s electrifying direction and the seamless collaboration with editor Thelma Schoonmaker. The camera is constantly alive: tracking shots that glide through the Copacabana in a single unbroken take, freeze-frames that punctuate Henry’s narration, and rapid-fire cuts that mirror the characters’ high-wire lifestyle. The famous long take through the back entrance of the nightclub is pure cinematic joy—glamour, status, and danger all distilled into one fluid movement. The film’s pacing is propulsive yet precise, shifting from exhilarating highs of easy money and loyalty to the paranoid freefall of the later years without ever losing the audience.

The performances are uniformly outstanding. Ray Liotta gives Henry Hill a magnetic everyman quality; you understand exactly why the life pulls him in even as you watch it corrode everything around him. Robert De Niro’s Jimmy Conway is cool, calculating, and quietly terrifying—a masterclass in restrained menace. Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito is unforgettable: volatile, hilarious, and explosively violent in equal measure. His “Funny how?” scene remains one of the most perfectly calibrated moments of tension and dark comedy in cinema. Lorraine Bracco brings real emotional weight as Karen Hill, grounding the story in the personal costs of this lifestyle, while Paul Sorvino’s Paulie Cicero radiates quiet authority and paternal menace.

The screenplay, co-written by Scorsese and Pileggi, is razor-sharp. The voice-over narration feels conversational and confessional rather than explanatory, pulling the viewer into Henry’s perspective so completely that the moral compromises register as almost inevitable. The dialogue crackles with authenticity—streetwise, funny, and often casually cruel. Scorsese never romanticizes the violence, but he also refuses to look away from the intoxicating pull of power, money, and belonging that the life offers.

The soundtrack is legendary. Scorsese’s needle-drops—ranging from Tony Bennett and Cream to the Rolling Stones and Sid Vicious—function almost as additional characters, underscoring mood, era, and emotional undercurrents with uncanny precision. Combined with Michael Ballhaus’s rich cinematography and the meticulous period detail, the film feels fully lived-in and alive.

Goodfellas is more than a crime story; it is a study of ambition, loyalty, betrayal, and the American Dream twisted into something dangerous and irresistible. It captures the intoxicating rush of the early days and the inevitable decay that follows with equal clarity and style. Three decades on, it still feels fresh, urgent, and unmatched in its energy and craftsmanship.

Five stars out of five.

A few years ago, there was a documentary about what happened to Nicholas Pilegg after the film ended. He ended up going back to the life while in witness protection. What a legend.