Martin Scorsese’s using Jules and Jim’s opening montage as a guide.
The way Scorsese saw it, this was the only way to capture the recklessness of the mafia lifestyle on film. As a result of every scene being distilled to its essential components, the movie has a ton of unforgettable moments. So, here are Goodfellas’ most iconic scenes.
Updated on May 12th, 2021: Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas remains a timeless classic and one of the most rewatchable movies of all time. Like all the best movies, there isn’t a single scene in Goodfellas that drags on or feels out of place. This tightly edited masterpiece is jam-packed with iconic moments, from the Copacabana tracking shot to the murder of Billy Batts. Since there are countless memorable scenes in this beloved movie, we’ve updated this list with a few new entries.
Jimmy Decides To Kill Morrie
All throughout Goodfellas, Robert De Niro’s Jimmy Conway butts heads with Morrie, the wig shop owner who wants a cut of their loot for coming up with the idea for their biggest score. After finding out Morrie spent the money he owed Jimmy on a commercial for his store, Jimmy strangles him and makes his wig fall off.
When Jimmy overhears Morrie idly singing “Danny Boy” to himself in a bar, he decides to kill him. Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” kicks in on the soundtrack as Jimmy smokes a cigarette in the bar and realizes he could just kill everybody and keep all the money for himself.
Henry In Court
Throughout the entire movie, Henry is told that ratting on his friends is the worst possible thing he could do. After Henry is arrested and becomes a federal witness, he’s seen in court, turning in all his closest associates. Ray Liotta delivers a powerful monologue directly to the camera that sums up the thesis of the movie.
Having showered the soundtrack with pop hits when Henry was a happy-go-lucky mobster, Scorsese creates a stark contrast with the silence of his post-arrest scenes.
Late-Night Dinner At Tommy’s Mother’s House
Goodfellas opens in the middle of the story, with Henry, Tommy, and Jimmy driving Billy Batts’ corpse out to the woods to bury it. They stop off at Tommy’s mother’s house to pick up a couple of things and they accidentally wake her.
She insists on feeding them, so they end up sitting down for a meal with her — all while Billy is bleeding out in the trunk. Tommy’s mother is played by Martin Scorsese’s own mother, who cameoed in many of his films.
Jimmy Finds Out Tommy Is Dead
Jimmy is standing outside a diner, talking on a payphone, when he learns that Tommy — one of his protégés and his closest friends — has been shot in the back of the head.
He breaks down and starts slamming the phone against the wall of the phone box. Then, he starts kicking the phone booth and the whole thing comes crashing down. It’s unconfirmed if this was improvised, but De Niro briefly looks surprised when the booth falls over.
The “Layla” Montage
One of the most memorable uses of music in Goodfellas is the second half of Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla,” beginning with the soft piano riff. It plays over a montage of all the bodies being discovered.
The massacre that eventually brings down Jimmy’s criminal enterprise begins to unfold as corpses show up in places like garbage trucks and xindustrial freezers.
The Ending
At the end of Goodfellas, Henry Hill avoids jail by selling out all of his friends and going into witness protection with his family. In his voiceover narration, as the camera pans across an average suburban neighborhood to his new house, Henry explains that, while he’s not in prison, he still feels imprisoned, because he’s become just like everybody else. The glamour of the mobster lifestyle is gone.
Then, we see a shot of Tommy firing a gun at the camera against a black background, à la The Great Train Robbery, symbolizing the target on Henry’s back. It was an unforgettable ending.
Tommy kills Spider
Tommy’s rivalry with Spider led to some really intense scenes, like the moment when Tommy ended up shooting Spider in the foot. In their follow-up meeting, Tommy made fun of Spider for wearing a cast. When Spider told Tommy, “Go f*ck yourself,” he sealed his fate. The other guys thought it was funny, but Tommy just opened fire.
Michael Imperioli played Spider and would go on to become an icon with his role as Christopher in HBO’s The Sopranos. He was one of many actors from the cast of Goodfellas that David Chase recruited for the series, having been heavily influenced by the film.
The pistol whip
The first instance of Karen being enraptured by Henry’s criminal lifestyle comes when one of her neighbors attacks her and she calls Henry to pick her up. Henry asks her to identify which guy did it and then walks over to his driveway to confront him.
At first, the guy acts cool, saying, “What do you want, f*cko?” but then Henry takes out his pistol and repeatedly smacks it into the guy’s face. Then, he tells him, “I swear on my mother, if you touch her again, you’re dead!” He walks back over to Karen’s house and gives her the blood-spattered pistol to hide.
Billy busts Tommy’s chops
The bar scene in which Billy Batts gives Tommy DeVito a hard time starts off funny, but it quickly becomes tense when Tommy’s offense begins to show. Billy doubles down on insulting Tommy: “Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna break your balls, I'd tell ya to go home and get your shine box.” The scene ends with the brutal murder of Billy at the hands of Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry.
Tommy starts kicking him to death, and Jimmy and Henry in to their friend. This ends up landing them in huge trouble because Billy is a made man and killing made men is strictly prohibited.
Henry wakes up to Karen pointing a gun at his face
Rather than vindicate Henry Hill’s domestic violence and extramarital affairs, Goodfellas sympathizes with his wife Karen. Just like we are, as viewers throughout the film, Karen was seduced by Henry’s lifestyle, only to find that the reality of it isn’t very glamorous. In one scene, Henry wakes up to the sight of Karen holding a gun in his face.
It’s a tense moment, and as Henry talks Karen down and eventually overpowers her, we feel even worse for her. During one of the takes for this scene, the gun apparently flew out of Lorraine Bracco’s hand and hit cinematographer Michael Ballhaus in the head.
