History Film / Goodfellas

* TheOner: The famous EpicTrackingShot that starts as Henry leaves his car with the valet and follows he and Karen as they enter the Copacabana through a rear entrance, down a corridor, through the kitchen and into the nightclub as their table is set up and comedian Henny Youngman starts his act. It lasts three minutes.

* EpicTrackingShot: The famous scene showing Henry and Karen entering the Copacabana through the kitchen. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sr-vxVaY_M Watch it here]]

** Played straigh by Tommy, who phisically assaults them and boasts about it. Deadly with Spider, a young bartender with an entry-level job echoing Henry's past.

* TheOner: The shot that starts as Henry leaves his car with the valet and follows he and Karen as they enter the Copacabana through a rear entrance, down a corridor, through the kitchen and into the nightclub as their table is set up and comedian Henny Youngman starts his act. It lasts three minutes.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill:
** Billy Batts is bleeding in the trunk, but he's still alive. So Tommy stabs him '''eight''' times. Then Jimmy goes ahead and shoots him four times. And then the title screen comes in.
** [[spoiler:Jimmy pretty much wipes out his entire crew that worked the Lufthansa heist. By the end only Tommy and Henry seem to be left.]]

** Avoided by Tommy who phisically assaults them and boasts about it. Deadly with Spider, a young bartender with an entry-level job echoing Henry's past.

* YouRemindMeOfX: When the three protagonists stop at Tommy's mother's place intending to get a shovel, only to end up staying for dinner, a photo there joyfully reminds them of Billy Batts, [[spoiler: [[MoodDissonance who at that moment is lying in the trunk of their car, half-dead]]]]

** Tommy [=DeVito=]'s real life counterpart was even nastier than he's portrayed. He was eventually murdered for trying to attack Karen.

** Tommy [=DeVito=]'s real life counterpart was even nastier than he's portrayed. He was eventually murdered for trying to rape Karen.

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Henry Hill avoids prosecution and mob retribution, though he will spend the rest of his life as a nobody, which he hates. Then again, he'll also go on to help write the book this film is based on, and subsequently become world famous and later relatively wealthy, so he won't be a nobody for too long either]].

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Henry pistolwhips the guy who gropes Karen, then gives her the gun to hide, and she confesses in voiceover "I gotta admit - It turned me on."

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Tommy Devito.]]

* BareYourMidriff: Near the end, we briefly see LorraineBracco's belly, as she [[VictoriasSecretCompartment hides a gun in her panties]].

** "Nigger stickup men get caught because they fall asleep in the getaway car"
** Paulie's educated concerns about drug traffic and his reluctance to use telephones.

** A part of the monologue where Karen says that the husbands of mob wives are just "blue collar guys who cut a few corners". Cut to Henry and Tommy hijacking a truck.
** Henry pointing how Jimmy instructs him to be discreet with a heist money. Cue Henry entering his house with a huge Christmas tree and shouting to his family "I got the most expensive tree they had"

* IdiotBall: Henry's mule/babysitter; she is insistently told to leave the house in order to make a drug related phone call. ''And what does she do? She phones from the house''. [[spoiler: The narcs of course are wiretapping everything.]] Bitterly lampshaded by Henry.

* LuxuryPrisonSuite: Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Which is actually nicknamed "Mafia Manor."

* PistolWhipping: By the main character.

** One of the gangsters buys his girl a fur coat with his cut of the Lufthansa cash. Jimmy flips out over it because he told everybody not to buy anything big that attracts attention. This is implied to be one of the reasons why Jimmie becomes paranoid and starts killing the accomplices.

* SamuelLJackson: In a bit part (this movie was four years before PulpFiction after all...) of the black guitar player who gets involved in the great Lufthansa heist: [[spoiler: He gets [[BlackDudeDiesFirst killed]] by Tommy and Joe Carbone for not having disposed of the van used in the heist as he was told to do. His death probably sends Jimmy Conway on the course of just killing off all of the heist accomplices (aside from Tommy and Henry) to keep most of the money for himself.]]
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: [[spoiler: When Henry is busted for drug dealing, his mob friends begin to cut ties with him in fear that he's going to rat them out to the police. Feeling cornered and fearing that his former friends will try and whack him, Henry has no choice but to make a deal with the police.]]

* ShootTheMessenger: The wiseguys are about to lose the young Henry as an associate so they solve the problem assaulting the mailman who delivers troublesome non-attendance school letters to Henry's house and father.

* SurveillanceAsThePlotDemands: Justified; the local cops are easily bribed to look the other way, but when drug traffic comes into play so do narcs, wiretapping and helicopter surveillance.

* TensionCuttingLaughter: Done famously after a prolonged scene where Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) appears to be offended at being called "funny" by Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), his rage visibly building over the course of several minutes. A bit of a twist in that it is Ray Liotta who breaks the tension.

* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler: No, Tommy, you don't off a made man without the go-ahead from the boss.]]
* TrunkShot

* VillainProtagonist

* YouRemindMeOfX: A painting at the house of Tommy's mother joyfully reminds the three protagonists of Billy Batts, [[spoiler: [[MoodDissonance who at that moment is in their trunk, half-dead]]]]

* BadGuyWins: [[spoiler: Averted. Of course, the bad guys are the main characters.]]

** Specially relevant in the "I'm funny how?" one; Pesci and Liotta were instructed to improvise, other actors didn't know what was going to happen so their surprised-to-panicked reactions and puzzled faces are genuine. The scene mirrors what happened to [[ActorSharedBackground Pesci in RealLife]]; he told a mobster in a restaurant that he was funny and the mobster got angry. Scorsese implemented it once he learnt about it, as it wasn't in the book.

MartinScorsese's famous 1990 film, which followed the story of New York City gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) from his induction into the Lucchese crime family in the 1950s to his downfall and entry into the Witness Protection Program in the 1980s. Along with Henry, the film follows Henry's boss Jimmy Conway (RobertDeNiro), his best friend Tommy [=DeVito=] (JoePesci), and his wife Karen (LorraineBracco). The film details Henry's moving up the ranks, his eventual imprisonment, his role in (at the time) the largest heist in American history, and his involvement with the cocaine trade (which eventually gets him arrested by narcotics officers and shunned by the Mob). As the ground crumbles around him, [[spoiler: he turns to the Feds for protection, eventually having to "live the rest of [his] life like a shnook".]]

''Goodfellas'' was followed by ''{{Casino}}'', a near-remake also featuring De Niro (who 'fagocitated' Liotta's role in becoming the centre of the movie's romantic subplot) and Pesci (still the same sort of vicious, cynical character- though, it should be noted, both guys he played really existed, and he played them pretty faithfully).

** Paulie Cicero is depicted as AffablyEvil and a likable capo. Henry Hill explains him away as "protection for wiseguys among themselves". Mobster Paul Vario - his RealLife counterpart - had more direct involvement in the nastier (and bloodier) crimes committed by his crew.

* SamuelLJackson: In a bit part (this movie was four years before PulpFiction after all...) of the black guitar player who gets involved in the great Lufthansa heist: [[spoiler: He gets killed by Tommy and Joe Carbone for not having disposed of the van used in the heist as he was told to do. His death probably sends Jimmy Conway on the course of just killing off all of the heist accomplices (aside from Tommy and Henry) to keep most of the money for himself.]]

The movie became famous for several reasons, including a long tracking shot through the kitchen of the Copacabana; the montage near the end showing Henry's increasing drug-induced paranoia as he tries to run some guns, get a drug shipment off to Pittsburgh, and make dinner for his family; and Tommy's [[ClusterFBomb profanity-laden dialogue]] and HairTriggerTemper, which threatened to make Joe Pesci typecast for some time -- and won him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The movie itself ended up losing Best Picture to ''DancesWithWolves''.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: The black driver who participated in the Lufthansa heist is the first to get whacked to keep him quiet.

* ConspicuousConsumption: After a big heist Jimmy is appalled when some of his accomplices show up with incredibly expensive purchases that would logically suggest newly acquired wealth. Jimmy had explicitly warned them to lay low to avoid the implication and the trope.

* EnforcedMethodActing: A number of scenes are partially ad-libbed with actors not told beforehand, this is specially relevant in the "I'm funny how?" one; Pesci and Liotta were instructed to improvise, other actors didn't know what was going to happen so their surprised-to-panicked reactions and puzzled faces are genuine.
** That scene mirrors what happened to [[ActorSharedBackground Pesci in RealLife]]; he told a mobster in a restaurant that he was funny and the mobster got angry. Scorsese implemented it once he learnt about it, as it wasn't in the book.

* GilliganCut: A part of the monologue where Karen says that the husbands of mob wives are just "blue collar guys who cut a few corners". Cut to Henry and Tommy hijacking a truck.

* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Played straight by Tommy, then subverted when he intentionally [[spoiler: kills Spider]].

* MuggingTheMonster: Karen is assaulted by her neighbour, prompting a violent retaliation from Henry.
** An inversion is conversed at the wedding; Karen is concerned about a bag of money-gifts but Henry is amused and confident that nobody is going to rob a mob party.
* MythologyGag: Joe Pesci beating Frank Vincent like in RagingBull (Vincent's character surname was Batts too). Scorsese would deliver the punchline to the joke in Casino... somehow.

* NiceToTheWaiter: Subverted. Jimmy is shown handing out $100 bills like confetti to waiters, bartenders, and doormen, but he's still a completely ruthless psychopath who kills people at the drop of a hat.

* NotInTheFace: Inverted; [[spoiler: Tommy]] is shot specifically in the face so his mother will have to give him a closed casket funeral.

* PrettyLittleHeadshots: Brutally averted with Tommy's murder. Henry even notes that they shot him in the head so that his mother couldn't give him an open casket at the funeral
* RagsToRiches: Henry and Tommy, former shoe shinner
** The actual Tonny Bennett song of the same name is the soundtrack during the initial narration.

* [[ShootTheDog Shoot The Spider]]

* AlliterativeName: Henry Hill.

** That scene mirrors what happened to [[ActorSharedBackground Pesci in RealLife]]; he told a mobster in a restaurant that he was funny and the mobster got angry.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: "Nigger stickup men get caught because they fall asleep in the getaway car"

* [[invoked]] RootingForTheEmpire: "Jimmy was the kind of guy who rooted for the bad guys in the movie"

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: For a few minutes, the film gives Karen narration.

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: The beating of Billy Bats. So intense that Jimmy dents his shoes.

* {{Rooting for The Empire}}: "Jimmy was the kind of guy who rooted for the bad guys in the movie"

* {{Deconstruction}}: Of the gangster film. [[MisaimedFandom It didn't]] [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing take]].

* DoubleStandards: Or triple... Tommy who is disgusted by the notion that a woman could be a attracted to a black man -Sammy Davis Jr- laments that some gal rejects him because he is Italian.
--> '''Tommy''' : "In this day and age, what the fuck is this world coming to? I can't believe this, prejudice against - a Jew broad - prejudiced against Italians"

* ConspicuousConsumption: After a big heist Jimmy is appalled when some of his accomplices show up with incredibly expensive purchases that would logically suggest new acquired wealth. Jimmy had explicitly warned them to lay low to avoid the implication and the trope.

* RagsToRiches: Henry. The actual Tonny Bennett song of the same name is the soundtrack during the initial narration.

* SamuelLJackson: In a bit part (this movie was four years before PulpFiction after all...) of the black guitar player who gets involved in the great Lufthansa heist: [[spoiler: unfortunately, he gets killed by Tommy and Joe Carbone for not having disposed of the van used in the heist as he was told to do. His death probably sends Jimmy Conway on the course of just killing off all of the heist accomplices (aside from Tommy and Henry) to keep most of the money for himself.]]

* SurveillanceAsThePlotDemands: Justified; the local cops are easily bribed to look the other way, but when drug traffic comes into play so does narcs, wiretapping and helicopter surveliance.

* YouRemindMeOfX: A picture at the house of Tommy's mother joyfully reminds the three protagonists of Billy Batts, [[spoiler: [[MoodDissonance who at that moment is half-death in their trunk]]]]

* DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: Henry's father when he finds out the young Henry has been playing hookie to do mob errands. Dad's is only seen again in the movie -and with a long face- during his son wedding, as Henry basically places himself in a new "family."

* YouRemindMeOfX: A picture at the house of Tommy's mother joyfully reminds the three protagonists of Billy Batts. [[spoiler: MoodDissonance Who at that moment is half-death in their trunk]]

* DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: Henry's father when he finds out the young Henry has been playing hookie to do mob errands. Dad's never seen again in the movie, as Henry basically places himself in a new "family."

* WitnessProtection: Where Henry ends up. The real Henry Hill left witness protection some time after the film was released. He says that everyone who would want him dead is long gone, and now gangsters who do contact him want him to read their screenplays.

* NotUsingTheZWord: Ala {{The Godfather}}, the word "Mafia" is rarely, if at all used.