LogFAQs > #924376412

#21. Goodfellas
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7b/Goodfellas.jpg
Dir: Martin Scorsese
Genre: Drama, Crime
Year: 1990

I've seen Goodfellas more times than any other movie in this top tier, and I don't think it's particularly close. I can watch it at any point--from the very beginning or any scene thereafter--and get hooked. I can half-watch it while cooking or doing work at home, or I can sit with my wife and a bottle of wine and watch it intently on the couch. It's so incredibly versatile and endlessly fun to watch that I am tempted to throw it on TV as I am typing this.

Goodfellas may seem like your typical epic crime story, just told masterfully well, but it was actually completely groundbreaking when it was released. I can't even begin to count the number of movies, some good and some bad, that completely knocked it off over the next decade+. The pacing, the long shots, the narrative voice were all copied and modified after it, but nothing ever came quite as close to matching the smoothness of Goodfellas.

Justifiably so, I think the first thing that comes to mind for most people about this movie are the soundtrack and the performances. The former needs no further explanation--I defy you to listen to the end of "Layla" and not think of bodies on meat hooks or "Atlantis" and not think of stomping a dude in a bar drenched in red light. DeNiro and Pesci likewise get all the praise they deserve, but I want to specifically shout out Ray Liotta for delivering my favorite of the three main roles in the movie--even though he somehow never really gets recognition for it. His Henry Hill, the sort of outside observer to the madness around him, plays the perfect straight man to DeNiro's boss-like character and Pesci's psychopath.

I personally do not consider this to be the best mob movie of all time, but you know what, I wouldn't really try to argue with you if you said otherwise.
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"A more mature answer than I expected."~ Jakyl25
"Sephy's point is right."~ Inviso