Goodfellas
Director: Martin Scorsese
Genre: Biographical film, Crime Fiction, Gangster, Film adaptation, Thriller, Crime Drama, Drama
Year: 1990
Country: United States of America
Language: English Language, Italian Language
Starring: Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino, Frank Vincent, Frank Sivero, Debi Mazar, Mike Starr, Catherine Scorsese, Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Darrow, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Imperioli, Chuck Low, Charles Scorsese, Frank DiLeo, Gina Mastrogiacomo, Henny Youngman
Goodfellas (stylized as GoodFellas) is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. The film follows the rise and fall of Lucchese crime family associates Henry Hill and his friends over a period from 1955 to 1980.
Scorsese originally intended to direct Goodfellas before The Last Temptation of Christ, but when funds materialized to make Last Temptation, he postponed what was then known as Wise Guy. The title of Pileggi's book had already been used for a TV series and for Brian De Palma's 1986 comedy Wise Guys, so Pileggi and Scorsese changed the name of their film to Goodfellas. To prepare for their roles in the film, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta often spoke with Pileggi, who shared research material left over from writing the book. According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals where Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines he liked best, and put them into a revised script the cast worked from during principal
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