9 Smart Movies That Tricked Us Into Rooting For The Bad Guys

6. He's The Best Of A Bad Bunch - Henry Hill In Goodfellas

Henry Hill was a man who in his time in the mob covered up murders, committed arson, distributed drugs, went to jail on extortion and brought a white Christmas tree. And yet you come out of Goodfellas thinking of him a genuine good fella. I mean, no one comes out of it wanting to go into a life of crime, but you're left with an underlying respect for Hill.

And it is, to some degree, earned; he did put away many prolific gangsters when he turned FBI informant and tried to live a relatively good life. But the thing is we're rooting for him long before any of that goes down. From the moment we feel his boyish adoration of the lifestyle we see him not as the big criminal you'd hear about on the news, but as a human being.

Whereas The Godfather was about the high ups in world different from our own, Scorsese made us feel at home in the gangster reality, demystifying the criminals and giving us some relatable connection. We even got a little hooked on the lifestyle. No one comes out of Goodfellas wanting to be a gangster, but at some point during the film you probably did.