Why Goodfellas Is the Best Movie of the 1990s
Goodfellas opened in September 1990, which technically puts it at the very beginning of the decade. This means that by the time the decade ended, it had nine years to accumulate the reputation it now carries: the most technically accomplished American film of the 1990s, the most pleasurable, and — a case can be made — the most important. Here is the argument.
The Candidates It Has to Beat
Any honest ranking of the best films of the 1990s has to contend with several genuine masterpieces: Schindler's List (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), Fargo (1996), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Unforgiven (1992), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Heat (1995), and Boogie Nights (1997). Each has a serious claim. The argument for Goodfellas has to explain why it's better than each of these.
Against Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a more morally important film than Goodfellas. It is also, on rewatch, a less surprising one. Spielberg's formal mastery — the black-and-white photography, the girl in the red coat, the construction of Schindler's arc — is complete, and it moves viewers reliably across repeated viewings. But its moral position is clear from the first scene, its conclusion is prescribed by history, and the film's emotional range is narrower than Goodfellas's.
Goodfellas makes you feel things that are morally complicated — attraction to violence, excitement at transgression, genuine sympathy for characters who do terrible things. Schindler's List makes you feel things that are morally straightforward. The more difficult achievement belongs to Scorsese.
Against Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction is more formally innovative than Goodfellas in the specific sense of narrative structure — the non-linear timeline was genuinely new in 1994 and influenced virtually every ambitious film made for the next decade. It is also funnier per minute than Goodfellas. But its characters are constructions in service of aesthetic games in a way that Goodfellas's characters aren't. Henry Hill is as vividly real as any character in 1990s cinema. Vincent Vega is a perfectly designed aesthetic object.
Against Fargo
Fargo is the Coen Brothers at their most perfectly realized — a film where every element is exactly as controlled as it should be and nothing is excessive or deficient. It is a masterpiece of tone and a masterpiece of regional characterization. It is also smaller than Goodfellas in ambition and in range. Fargo is doing one thing brilliantly. Goodfellas is doing six things brilliantly simultaneously.
The Case for Goodfellas
Goodfellas is the best film of the 1990s because it does more things at the highest level than any of its competitors. The editing (Thelma Schoonmaker, who won the Oscar). The music cues (Layla, Sunshine of Your Love, Jump Into the Fire). The performances (Liotta, De Niro, Pesci, Sorvino, Bracco — five central performances, all exceptional). The voiceover structure (two parallel narrators with conflicting perspectives). The moral complexity (you feel the life's attraction and its cost simultaneously). The sheer technical ambition of the Copacabana tracking shot, the helicopter paranoia sequence, the frozen-body montage.
No film from the decade does as many things at that level of quality. That's the case.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Goodfellas or Pulp Fiction better?
Goodfellas is more emotionally complex and its characters are more fully realized; Pulp Fiction is more formally innovative and more immediately quotable. Which is "better" depends on what you value in cinema. Both are essential films from the decade.
Did Goodfellas win the Academy Award for Best Picture?
No. Goodfellas lost the Best Picture Oscar to Dances with Wolves (1990), a result that has become one of the most cited examples of Academy miscalibration in the award's history. Joe Pesci won Best Supporting Actor for Tommy DeVito — the film's only acting Oscar win, despite Liotta's and De Niro's performances being widely considered among the decade's best.