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 associate Henry Hill and his friends over a period from 1955 to 1980. Scorsese initially named the film Wise Guy, but postponed it, and later he and Pileggi changed the name 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 photography. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won for Pesci in the Best Actor in a Supporting Role category. Scorsese’s film won five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film, and Best Director. Goodfellas is often considered one of the greatest films of all time, both in the crime genre and in general, and was deemed “culturally significant” and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Scorsese followed this film up with two more films about organized crime: 1995’s Casino and 2006’s The Departed.
