Some films tell you about the criminal underworld. GoodFellas drops you into the passenger seat, offers you a cigarette, and floors the gas pedal. Thirty-five years after its release, Martin Scorsese’s blistering magnum opus remains not only the greatest gangster film ever made but also one of the most electrifying, insightful, and disturbingly funny portraits of the American Dream turned feral.
The film’s moral center, remarkably, is Lorraine Bracco’s Karen. She enters the world as a dazzled outsider, seduced by the money and danger. But as she watches her husband turn into a paranoid mess and discovers a mistress hiding in an apartment paid for by stolen credit cards, her disillusionment becomes ours. The scene where she shoves a gun into Henry’s face is more terrifying than any mob execution. The last act is a masterpiece of collapsing structure. Henry’s infamous "May 11th" montage—running between drug deals, cooking dinner, and pulling a gun on his own mistress—is a portrait of hell as mundane errand. When Tommy gets "made" (the ceremony that ends in a shocking, abrupt murder), Scorsese inverts every gangster trope. There is no epic shootout. Just a car ride, a door, and a silence that screams. GoodFellas
Director: Martin Scorsese Starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5) Some films tell you about the criminal underworld