Henry begins as a fence for Jimmy, gradually working his way up to more serious crimes. In 1955, high school student Henry Hill, son of an Irish-American father and Sicilian-American mother, becomes enamored of the criminal life and Mafia presence in his working class Italian-American neighborhood in Brooklyn and begins working for local caporegime Paul “Paulie” Cicero and his associates: James “Jimmy the Gent” Conway, an Irish-American truck hijacker and gangster and Tommy DeVito, a fellow juvenile delinquent. Its content and style have been emulated in numerous other films and television series. In 2000, it was deemed “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Goodfellas is widely regarded as one of the greatest films in the gangster genre. Additionally, Goodfellas was named the year’s best film by various critics’ groups. The film won five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film and Best Director. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, with Pesci winning for Best Supporting Actor.

The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls it “arguably the high point of Martin Scorsese’s career”. Made on a budget of $25 million, Goodfellas grossed $46.8 million. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines he liked best and put them into a revised script, which the cast worked from during principal photography. According to Pesci, improvization and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals wherein Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. 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. Scorsese initially titled the film Wise Guy and postponed making it later, he and Pileggi changed the title to Goodfellas. The film narrates the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980. It is an adaptation of the 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. Goodfellas (stylized GoodFellas) is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese.

Wiseguy de nicholas pileggi