as good as people say it is

Rating: 9/10 (7 March 2015)

Goodfellas has a solid case of being Scorsese's finest work, and considering his iconic filmography, that's a huge ask.
It not only offers career-defining performances from Liotta and Pesci, it also gave us the ultimate De Niro hardcore gangster, the stuff his legend is made of. With Scorsese in scintillating form, the famous restaurant one-shot is one of many intoxicating scenes, we get an epic story spanning decades, and most importantly for such a genre film, it's absolutely coherent.
Italio/Latino-Gangster movies often exist within themselves, and while Goodfellas doesn't transcend its genre as a work of art (like Coppolas' Godfather 1/2 arguably does) it's so expertly-executed that it must sit right at the top of this particular genre-tree.