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Goodfellas is a 1990 motion picture almost the rise and fall of three gangsters, spanning iii decades.

Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written past Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese, based on Pileggi's book, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family.

Iii Decades of Life in the Mafia.taglines

Henry Hill [edit]

As far dorsum every bit I can recollect, I e'er wanted to exist a gangster. To me, being a gangster was ameliorate than existence President of the The states. Even before I first wandered into the cabstand for an afterward-school chore, I knew I wanted to be a function of them. It was there that I knew that I belonged. To me, information technology meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies. They weren't similar anybody else. I mean, they did any they wanted. They double-parked in front of a hydrant and nobody e'er gave them a ticket. In the summertime when they played cards all night, nobody e'er chosen the cops.
Paulie might've moved irksome, only information technology was but because Paulie didn't have to move for anybody.
He knew what went on at that cab stand, and every once in a while I'd have to take a beating. But by then I didn't intendance. The way I saw it everybody takes a beating onetime.
Hundreds of guys depended on Paulie and he got a slice of everything they made. And it was tribute, just similar in the sometime land, except they were doing information technology hither in America. And all they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. And that's what it'south all about. That'due south what the FBI could never understand. That what Paulie and the organization does is offer protection for people who can't go to the cops. That'south information technology. That's all. They're like the constabulary department for wiseguys.
One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my female parent's groceries all the way home. Yous know why? It was outta respect.
For usa to live any other manner was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-skillful people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to piece of work every day and worried about their bills were expressionless. I hateful they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something, nosotros only took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.
Now the guy's got Paulie equally a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the neb? He can get to Paulie. Problem with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. Simply now the guy's gotta come up up with Paulie'southward coin every week, no matter what. Business bad? "Fuck you, pay me." Oh, you had a fire? "Fuck you, pay me." Place got hit past lightning, huh? "Fuck y'all, pay me." Besides, Paulie could practice anything. Especially run up bills on the joint's credit. And why not? Nobody'south gonna pay for it anyway. And every bit soon every bit the deliveries are fabricated in the front door, you move the stuff out the back and sell it at a discount. Yous take a 2 hundred dollar case of booze and you sell information technology for a hundred. It doesn't matter. It's all profit. And then finally, when there'due south nada left, when yous can't borrow another cadet from the bank or purchase some other case of alcohol, you bust the joint out. You light a match.
For most of the guys, killings got to be accustomed. Murder was the simply way that everybody stayed in line. You lot got out of line, you lot got whacked. Everybody knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn't get out of line, they got whacked. I mean, hits just became a habit for some of the guys. Guys would get into arguments over zero and before yous knew it, ane of them was dead. And they were shooting each other all the time. Shooting people was a normal thing. Information technology was no big deal. We had a serious trouble with Billy Batts. This was actually a touchy affair. Tommy'd killed a fabricated guy. Batts was part of the Gambino crew and was considered untouchable. Before you could bear on a made guy, you had to have a good reason. You lot had to have a sitdown, and y'all better go an okay, or you'd exist the i who got whacked.
Saturday night was for wives, but Fri night at the Copa was always for the girlfriends.
See, you know when you think of prison, you go pictures in your mind of all those old movies with rows and rows of guys backside confined...But it wasn't similar that for wiseguys. It really wasn't that bad. Excepting that I missed Jimmy. He was doing his fourth dimension in Atlanta...I hateful, everybody else in the articulation was doing real time, all mixed together, living like pigs. But we lived alone. And we owned the joint.
[after the Lufthansa heist] It fabricated him ill to have to turn money over to the guys who stole it. He'd rather whack 'em. Anyway, what did I care? I wasn't request for anything and too, Jimmy was making nice money with me through my Pittsburgh connections. [showing a montage of dead gangsters] But still, months after the robbery they were finding bodies all over. [police surround a truck, open up it to encounter a dead man hanging on a claw like a meat husk] When they institute Carbone in the meat truck, he was frozen then stiff it took them two days to thaw him out for the autopsy.
You lot know, we always called each other goodfellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, "You're gonna similar this guy. He's all right. He's a skilful fella. He's one of us." You understand? We were goodfellas. Wiseguys. Simply Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. Information technology didn't even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a fellow member of a crew yous've got to be one hundred per cent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country. See, it's the highest honor they can give you. It means y'all belong to a family and coiffure. Information technology ways that nobody can fuck around with you. It too means y'all could fuck around with anybody just as long equally they aren't also a member. It's similar a license to steal. It's a license to do anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being made, it was similar we were all being made. We would at present take one of our ain as a fellow member.
[about Tommy's murder] It was revenge for Billy Batts, and a lot of other things. And there was nothing that we could practise about it. Batts was a fabricated human and Tommy wasn't. And nosotros had to sit still and take it. It was among the Italians. It was real greaseball shit. They even shot Tommy in the face so his mother couldn't requite him an open up coffin at the funeral.
For a second, I thought I was expressionless, just when I heard all the dissonance I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they had been wiseguys, I wouldn't have heard a thing. I would've been expressionless.
If you're function of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill yous. It doesn't happen that way. There weren't any arguments or curses similar in the movies. So your murderers come with smiles. They come up as your friends, the people who take cared for you all of your life, and they always seem to come at a time when you lot're at your weakest and nigh in need of their help.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel for all of us to disappear. My house and cars were either registered in the proper noun of my wife or my mother-in-law. My driver'due south license and social security number were phony. I never voted; never paid taxes. My nativity document, arrest canvass, and my service tape from the Army were all that existed to prove to the government I was ever alive.
See, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life. And nosotros were treated like picture stars with muscle. We had it all, merely for the asking. Our wives, mothers, kids, everybody rode along. I had paper bags filled with jewelry stashed in the kitchen. I had a sugar bowl full of coke next to the bed. Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Gratis cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I'd bet xx, xxx grand over a weekend and and then I'd either blow the winnings in a week or get to the sharks to pay back the bookies. Didn't matter. Information technology didn't hateful annihilation. When I was broke I would exit and rob some more. We ran everything. Nosotros paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their easily out. Everything was for the taking. And at present it's all over. And that's the hardest part. Today, everything is dissimilar. There's no action. I have to expect effectually like anybody else. Tin't even get decent nutrient. Right afterwards I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody. I get to alive the rest of my life similar a schnook.

Karen Hill [edit]

One dark, Bobby Vinton sent us champagne. At that place was naught like it. I didn't think there was anything strange in any of this. You know, a twenty-one-year-old kid with such connections. He was an heady guy. He was really nice. He introduced me to everybody. Everybody wanted to be dainty to him. And he knew how to handle it.
I know there are women, like my all-time friends, who would take gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. Merely I didn't. I gotta acknowledge the truth. It turned me on.
Well, we weren't married to nine-to-5 guys, but the beginning time I realized how unlike was when Mickey had a hostess party. They had bad peel and wore too much make-up. I mean, they didn't expect very skillful. They looked mussed-up. And the stuff they wore was thrown together and cheap. A lot of pant suits and double knits. And they talked near how rotten their kids were and near beating them with broom handles and leather belts. Simply that the kids yet didn't pay any attention...After a while, it got to exist all normal. None of information technology seemed like crimes. It was more than similar Henry was enterprising and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while the other guys were sitting on their asses waiting for mitt-outs. Our husbands weren't brain surgeons. They were blue-collar guys. The only way they could make actress money, real extra money, was to go out and cutting a few corners...We were all so very close. I mean, there were never whatsoever outsiders effectually. Absolutely never. And beingness together all the fourth dimension fabricated everything seem all the more than normal.
We always did everything together and we e'er were in the aforementioned oversupply. Anniversaries, christenings. We only went to each other'south houses. The women played cards, and when the kids were built-in, Mickey and Jimmy were always the outset at the hospital. And when we went to the Islands or Vegas to vacation, we always went together. No outsiders, ever. It got to be normal. It got to where I was even proud that I had the kind of husband who was willing to go out and risk his neck just to get us the little extras.
But still I couldn't injure him. How could I injure him? I couldn't even bring myself to go out him. The truth was that no matter how bad I felt I was notwithstanding very attracted to him. Why should I give him to someone else? Why should she win?

Dialogue [edit]

Jimmy: [To immature Henry, after he gets cleared in court] Congratulations, here's your graduation nowadays [Puts money in Henry's pocket]

Henry: For what? I got pinched.

Jimmy: Hey, everybody gets pinched, simply you lot did information technology right. You lot told 'em nothing and they got zip.

Henry: I thought y'all'd be mad.

Jimmy: I'm not mad, I'm proud of ya. You took your first pinch like a man, and you learned the two most important things in life. You listenin'? Never rat on your friends, and ALWAYS keep your oral fissure close. [Gives Henry an affectionate lite slap on the cheek and leads him out of the court. Outside, Paulie and many of the other gangsters are waiting for him.]

Paulie: Hey, y'all broke yer cherry! [The other gangsters cheer and congratulate Henry]

Henry: You're a pistol! You're actually funny. You're really funny!

Tommy: What do you mean I'm funny?

Henry: Information technology's funny, y'all know. It's a good story, it'due south funny, y'all're a funny guy!

Tommy: [dangerously] What exercise yous mean? You mean the way I talk? What?

[Everyone becomes quiet]

Henry: It'due south just, you lot know, y'all're just funny. Information technology's funny, the way you tell the story and everything.

Tommy: Funny how? I mean, what's funny about it?

Anthony: Tommy, no, y'all got it all wrong —

Tommy: Oh, oh, Anthony. He'southward a large boy, he knows what he said. [to Henry] What did ya say? Funny how?

Anthony: Y'all're right.

Henry: But —

Tommy: What?

Henry: But, ya know, yous're funny.

Tommy: You mean, let me sympathize this, 'cause, ya know maybe information technology'due south me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how? I mean funny like I'thou a clown? I amuse y'all? I brand you lot laugh, I'grand here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny?

Henry: Just... you know, how you lot tell the story — what?

Tommy: No, no, I don't know. You said information technology! How exercise I know? Y'all said I'chiliad funny. How the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is and then funny about me?! Tell me, tell me what's funny!

[Long suspension]

Henry: Get the fuck out of here, Tommy!

[Everyone laughs]

Tommy: Ya motherfucker! I almost had him, I almost had him! You stuttering prick, y'all! Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder about you lot sometimes, Henry. You may fold nether questioning!

Karen: [narrating] After awhile, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like law-breaking. It was more like Henry was enterprising, and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while all the other guys were sitting on their asses, waiting for handouts. Our husbands weren't brain surgeons, they were blueish-collar guys. The but way they could make extra money, real actress money, was to go out and cut a few corners.

[Cuts to Henry and Tommy hijacking a truck]

Tommy: Where'southward the strongbox, you fuckin' varmint?!

Karen: [narrating] We were all so very shut. I hateful, in that location were never whatsoever outsiders effectually. Absolutely never. And beingness together all the time made everything seem all the more than normal.

Karen: [narrating, at a makeup party with other wives] Information technology was rough seeing the wives of other gangsters. They did non take care of themselves; they looked beat upward and their faces were caked with makeup. About of the time was spent talking well-nigh how rotten their kids were; how they decked them or whipped them with electrical wiring and the kids withal wouldn't pay attention. [later in her bedroom] I don't recollect I can do information technology, Henry.

Henry: Do what?

Karen: This whole thing. Jeannie said her husband was sent to jail. God forbid, what if that happened to y'all?

Henry: Bet she didn't tell you why her husband went there?

Karen: How come?

Henry: To get away from Jeannie! Karen, when it comes to the Mafia no 1 goes to jail unless they want to. Nosotros beat the system and I got information technology all figured out. I am organized; I got my shit together. You know who goes to jail? Nigger stickup men. Know why they get caught? Because they fall comatose in the getaway machine.

Tommy: Simply don't get bustin' my balls, Baton, okay?

Billy: Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna suspension your balls, I'd tell you lot to go home and get your smooth box. [To his friends] Now this kid, this kid was great. They, they used to call him Spitshine Tommy. I swear to God! Now he'd make your shoes look similar fuckin' mirrors. 'Scuse my language. He was terrific, he was the best. He made a lot of money, too. Salud, Tommy!

Tommy: No more shines, Billy.

Billy: What?

Tommy: I said no more than shines. Mayhap you didn't hear well-nigh it, yous've been away a long time; they didn't go up there and tell yous. I don't smoothen shoes anymore.

Billy: Relax, will ya? Yous flipped right out, what's got into you? I'g breakin' your balls a trivial bit, that'southward all. I'yard just kiddin' with ya.

Tommy: Sometimes you don't sound similar you're kidding, you know? There's a lotta people around...

Billy: Tommy, I'chiliad only kiddin' with you lot. We're having a party and I just came dwelling, and I haven't seen you in a long time, and I'thousand breakin' your balls, and correct away you lot're getting fuckin' fresh. I'thou pitiful, I didn't mean to offend you.

Tommy: I'k sorry likewise. It's okay. No problem.

Billy: Okay, salud. [moment of silence as he takes a drink] Now get home and get ya fuckin' shinebox!

Tommy: [smashes his drinking glass in acrimony] Motherfuckin' mutt! You, you fuckin' slice of shit...! [Henry and Jimmy restrain him]

Billy: [taunting] Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, come on! Come on! Let him go!

Tommy: Henry, he bought his fucking button! That faux old tough guy! You lot bought your fucking button! Go along that motherfucker hither, keep him here! [leaves]

Tommy: Spider, that cast on your foot is bigger than your fucking head. Next thing yous know he'll have one of these fucking walkers. Only you tin can still trip the light fantastic toe. Give us a couple of fucking steps, Spider. You fucking bullshitter, you. Tell the truth. Yous want sympathy, is that right, sweetie?

Spider: Why don't y'all become fuck yourself, Tommy?

[Everyone, but Tommy, laughs]

Jimmy: I didn't hear right. I can't believe what I heard. [giving Spider cash] This is for y'all. I got respect for this child, he's got a lot of fucking balls. Good for you! Don't take no shit off nobody! A guy shoots him in the pes, he tells him to go fuck himself. Tommy, you gonna let this fucking punk become away with that? What's this world coming to?

Tommy: [standing and shooting Spider] That's what the fucking globe's coming to, how do ya like that? How'due south that?

Henry: What is incorrect with you lot?!

Jimmy: What is the fucking thing with y'all?! What, are you stupid or what?! I was kidding with you. Are you lot a sick maniac?

Tommy: How do I know y'all're kidding? You breaking my fucking balls?!

Jimmy: I'yard fucking kidding with you, you fucking shoot the guy?!

Henry: [inspecting Spider on the floor] He's dead.

Tommy: [afterwards a brief silence] I'm a good shot, what do you want from me?

Anthony: How could yous miss at this distance?

Tommy: You got a problem with what I did, Anthony? Fucking rat, anyhow. His family unit's all rats, he'd accept grown up to exist a rat.

Jimmy: Stupid bastard, I can't fucking believe you. Now, you're gonna dig the fucking affair now. You're gonna dig the hole. I got no fucking lime, yous're gonna exercise information technology.

Tommy: Fine! I'll dig the fucking hole, I don't give a fuck. What is it, the starting time hole I ever dug? I'll fucking dig the hole. Where are the shovels?

Paulie: [about Henry's cheating] Karen came to the house. She's very upset. This is no good; you gotta straighten this out. We gotta have calm.

Jimmy: We don't know what she'll practise.

Paulie: She's hysterical. Very excited. She'due south wild. And you got to accept information technology easy. You got children. I'1000 not maxim go back to her this minute, but you got to go back. Y'all got to go on upwards appearances.

Jimmy: I got the two of them come to my business firm every solar day commiserating, the two of them. I just can't have it. I can't do it, Henry. I can't practise it. Nobody says you can't do what you desire. We all know that. This is what it is. We know what it is. You take to practise what'south right. You lot accept to get domicile to the family unit. You got to go dwelling, okay? Wait at me. You got to go home. Smarten up.

Paulie: I'll talk to Karen. I'll straighten this out. I know simply what to say to her. I'll say y'all'll go dorsum to her and it'll be like when you kickoff got married. I'll romance her. It'll be beautiful. I know how to talk to her, specially to her. In the concurrently, Jimmy and Tommy were going to Tampa this weekend. Instead you become with Jimmy.

Jimmy: You come with me.

Paulie: Take a good time. Sit in the sun. Take a few days off.

Jimmy: We'll take a good time.

Paulie: After that, you'll go dorsum to Karen. At that place'due south no other way. No divorce. We're not animoli.

Jimmy: No divorce. She'll never divorce him. She'll kill him, but not divorce him. [they laugh]

Karen and her children are visiting Henry in jail

Guard: Mrs. Loma, this way. Sign this book, please.

Karen signs ledger just something catches her center

Proper noun of Inmate: Henry Loma

Proper noun of Visitor: Janice Rossi

Company's eye

Karen: I saw her, Henry.

Henry: What are yous talking about?

Karen: I saw her name in the register.

Henry: Jesus Christ.

Karen: You want her to visit you? Let her stay up all night, crying and writing letters to the parole lath.

Henry: What am I doing here? Where am I? I'g in jail. I can't stop people from coming to see me.

Karen: Skilful. Let her sneak this stuff every calendar week. [Karen dangles a bag of illegal drugs in front end him] Let her fight these bastards every week!

Henry: Look what y'all're doing! Stop information technology!

Karen: I'grand sorry. Let her sneak this shit in for you.

Henry: Will you stop information technology, Karen? Will y'all terminate it?

Karen: Let her do information technology! Let her do it!

Henry: Cease IT!!!

[Kids react to anger; Karen starts to sob]

Karen: Nobody is helping me. I am all lonely. Belle and Morrie are bankrupt. I asked your friend Remo for the money that he owes you, and you lot know what he told me? He told me to take my kids downwards to the police station and get on welfare.

Henry: Karen, It'south going to exist okay.

Karen: Yes? Even Paulie, since he got out, I've never seen him. I never see anybody anymore.

Henry: It'due south only you and me. That's what happens when you go away. I told you that we're on our own. Forget everybody else. Forget Paulie. As long every bit he'due south on parole, he doesn't want anybody doing anything.

Karen: I tin can't do it.

Henry: Yes, y'all can. Karen, Listen to me. All I need is for yous to bring me this stuff. I got a guy in here from Pittsburgh who'll assist me move it. Believe me, in a calendar month nosotros're gonna be fine. Nosotros won't need anybody.

Karen: I'm afraid. I'm afraid if Paulie finds out...

Henry: Or I just say, Don't worry almost him. He is not helping us out. Is he putting any food on the tabular array? We've gotta assistance each other. We've just gotta-- Heed, We've gotta be really careful while we exercise it.

Karen: I don't desire to hear a give-and-take about her anymore, Henry.

Henry: Never.

Henry has merely been released from prison

Henry's Children: Daddy! Are y'all out for practiced? Are you coming to my recital? Here is a picture show I drew!

Henry takes a look at the depression-rent tenement his wife and kids are looking in and reacts with disgust

Henry: Karen, go packed. We are moving out. I am going to Pittsburgh tommorow.

Karen: What? You have a meeting with your parole officer tommorow.

Henry: Don't worry, they owe me $xv,000. Who wants to go to Uncle Paulie's?

Children cheer. Cut to Paulie's house where people have a big dinner. Later Paulie speaks to Henry in private

Paulie: I do not desire any more than of that shit.

Henry: I have no idea what's going on here.

Paulie: I mean the drugs! I do not desire any more of that junk.

Henry: Paulie, why would I desire to get mixed upward in that?

Paulie: But don't practise it. I am not talking almost what you did in the can. You get a pass for that. In at that place you had to do what y'all had to do to back up your family. I am talking about here and now. I practice not desire to finish up like Gribbs. Gribbs got twenty years simply for saying good morning to some scuzz who was selling junk backside his back! Gribbs is 70 years old; the poor human is going to dice in prison house. And then I am warning everyone, it could exist my son, it could be anyone.

[Cutting to Henry making cocaine]

Henry: [voiceover] It took me two weeks of sneaking the stuff around, but when I did, it was a real score. In a month I had a down payment on my firm and things were rolling. I knew as long as the cash kept rolling in; Paulie would never detect out.

Henry: [sniveling] Paulie, I am really sorry.

Paulie: You fucked up good. You lot looked me in the eye and treated me like shit; like I was nobody.

Henry: I couldn't come to y'all; not after what you said to me. I was aback then; I am ashamed now. I swear on my kids, I am make clean. Just I got nowhere else to go. I could really use some assistance at present.

Paulie: Take this.

[Paulie pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket and hands information technology to Henry]

Henry: Thank you.

Paulie: And now I have to turn my back on you. At that place is no other way.

Henry: [narrating] My advantage for a lifetime of service to Paulie: $3,200. It was non even enough to pay for my casket.

Henry enters a diner

Henry{as narrator}: I got there 15 minutes early, Jimmy was already in that location waiting for me.

Jimmy: All my life I said, do not talk on the telephone. Now you lot see why? Do non worry, I call back yous stand a skillful chance of beating this instance.

Jimmy: There was a child we knew, turned out to exist a rat.

Henry: Actually?

Jimmy: Yep. Found him hiding in Florida. How would you feel nigh going with Anthony, accept care of that guy?

[Jimmy slips a message with information. Screen freeze-frames]

Henry: [narrating] Jimmy never asked me to whack a guy before. Now in the midst of all this he is asking me to go to Florida and exercise a hitting with Anthony? [Screen resumes] That is when I knew I would take never returned from Florida alive.

Taglines [edit]

Three Decades of Life in the Mafia.
"As far back equally I can call back, I've always wanted to be a gangster."—Henry Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1955.
Murderers come with smiles.
Shooting people was 'No big bargain'.
In a world that's powered by violence, on the streets where the trigger-happy take power, a new generation carries on an sometime tradition.