Goodfellas feels a lot like the quintessential Martin Scorsese movie; a film so relentlessly watchable on account of its construction - music, dialogue and camera-work pulled together into one fluid whole - that it feels very much like the movie that the director was born to make. Based on the true account of one Henry Hill, a former mafia member, there is arguably no other crime movie that manages to glamourise and deride the mafia way as well as this. There is almost too much to love here: the performances from Ray Liotta (his best), Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro, that infamous tracking shot through the back of the restaurant, the iconic editing (freeze frames!), the soundtrack, the quotes ("Funny how?"), and son on. As well as serving up what is often considered to be one of the definitive mafia movies, though, Goodfellas is - as is the case with so many Scorsese movies - a celebration of the cinematic medium itself. Bravo.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
