“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”
1990. Martin Scorsese takes a memoir written by Nicolas Pileggi based on interviews with low level Mafioso Henry Hill, and fashions the most exhilarating gangster movie of them all, a film infused with the excitement, camaraderie, the sheer hard-on of fast cash, girls, guns and drugs. This is filmmaking firing on all cylinders. Yet this brazenly amoral movie is also a clear-eyed portrait of the brutality, betrayal, and spiritual void of the criminal world; a place of fear, venality and violent death — and a world Scorsese knew at first hand, growing up in Little Italy.
Scorsese returned to these people with Casino and The Irishman, each time with a greater degree of gravity and regret. But it’s debatable if he has ever bested the virtuosity of this intricately detailed and authentic movie, a pop artifact that remains his most popular film some 36 years later.
Content Considerations: Graphic violence; drug & alcohol abuse
Martin Scorsese’s brash and brilliant mob masterpiece from 1990 — about the rise and fall of Irish-Italian criminal Henry Hill, from the 60s to the 80s — is a reminder of what his very best work looks like…GoodFellas barrels along with unstoppable storytelling relish, its jukebox slams of pop music repeatedly convulsing the movie with sugar-rush excitement amounting almost to hysteria.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
For its swaggering energy, the heart-in-your-throat pacing and for some of the most memorable, most imitated scenes in mafia movie history, this must rank as one of Scorsese’s finest films, if not the best.
Wendy Ide, The Observer
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Martin Scorsese
Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino
USA
1990
English
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Credits
Producer
Irwin Winkler
Screenwriter
Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese
Cinematography
Michael Ballhaus
Editor
Thelma Schoonmaker
Production Design
Kristi Zea
Art Director
Maher Ahmad
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Crash
Sex drive, David Cronenberg-style. The car-crash fetishists who orbit Cronenberg's metrosexual Toronto (they include James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Deborah Unger) obsessively seek a fusion of metal and flesh... Fender bender as the ultimate orgasm.
Trainspotting
Danny Boyle's blistering movie was a sensation in 1996: a kick in the teeth of old school British kitchen sink realism, it fearlessly transformed the dire circumstances of Edinburgh heroin addicts into an experience by turns exhilarating and devastating.
Fargo
Have the Coen brothers ever made a more satisfying movie than Fargo? This grisly comedy pits one of cinema's most pure-hearted cops (Frances McDormand's pregnant cop, Marge Gunderson) against the machinations of weak and mercenary men.
Lone Star
John Sayles's modern day Western is a murder mystery which draws sheriff Chris Cooper to investigate two of his predecessors, the notoriously corrupt Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), and his own father, Buddy (Matthew McConaughey).
90s Mystery Movie + Trivia Night
And now for a shot in the dark... We're not announcing the Mystery Movie in advance, so you'll have to take a leap of faith. We can say it was released between January 1990 and January 2000, and it's not already showing elsewhere in this series. As an added enticement we're going to throw in a 90s movie trivia night with your ticket — plus prizes!
Princess Mononoke
A mystical fight between humans and the Animal Gods of the forest. Ashitaka, the last prince of a dying race, struggles to find a way for both sides to co-exist. But the fighting only becomes more and more bloody and all hope seems to be lost…
Gummo
Harmony Korine was just 24 when he made Gummo. It's become a cult favourite as much for its singularity as anything else: it's a strange, misshapen beast, a slice of beat poetry translated into experimental film.
Jackie Brown
Take half a dozen characters who know they're in a fix, and give them half a million dollars to fight over. Tarantino's crime movie (his best) transcends genre in large part because in Pam Grier and Robert Forster it gives us people we truly care about.
The Big Lebowski
The Coens' whacky, warped slacker generation riff on Raymond Chandler, a shaggy dog story which delights in going sideways at every turn. Jeff Bridges is the Dude, and what he really wants is to get his rug back...
Out of Sight
Adapted from Elmore Leonard's novel about the mutual attraction between an escaped bank robber and the FBI agent on his tail, Out of Sight is sexy and romantic, cosmopolitan, and full of Soderbergh's sleight of hand, shuffling time like a card sharp.
Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo's directorial debut is an eccentric, provocative comedy which laces a poignant love story with both a sombre, washed-out naturalism and surreal musical vignettes. This one is something different...
Run Lola Run
In the hyper intense world of pre-millennial Berlin, Lola has just 20 minutes to come up with a 100,000 Deutchmarks or her boyfriend cops it. He's asking the right woman: Lola won't stop til she's saved the day... It's Speed, in the multiverse...
Rushmore
Precocious Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is befriended by depressed industrialist Harold Blume (Bill Murray) until they both fall in love with first grade teacher Miss Cross (Olivia Williams). Anderson's second feature is an old favourite.
The Blair Witch Project
The rushes of a student-made documentary investigating the legend of the Blair Witch in Burkittsville, Maryland, a quest that led the three filmmakers deep into the Appallachian woods. Easy to get lost in there...