Fall 1990 was all about organized crime. Don't believe me? The films I capsule below run from September 14 to October 5, just shy of a month. There are seven films in all (though films I've defended before - Texasville and Henry & June - were released September 28th and October 5th, respectively). Four of those films deal with organized crime. And one film released around the same time - September 19th, to be exact - is considered by many to be the grand poobah of organized crime flicks.
GoodFellas is, perhaps, the most iconographic film in Martin Scorsese's career. Yeah, yeah, Taxi Driver, but I guarantee you know more people that have seen GoodFellas, that will quote GoodFellas without realizing they're quoting GoodFellas, than you will people who've seen Taxi Driver...or even The Departed. Think of the music video for Ashanti's "Foolish" or the multiple references on Family Guy or Animaniacs' "GoodFeathers" (an entire segment on a children's show based around imitations of the core three GoodFellas actors as pigeons). It's a movie that's permeated the culture, like Scarface or, hey, The Godfather. It's a movie significant enough to warrant its own making-of book, the indispensable Made Men by Glenn Kenny. Like the movie? Read the book, it only heightens the experience.
GoodFellas claimed the #1 spot its first weekend, taking over for Postcards from the Edge (more on that one below). That was it. Never hit the top spot of the box office again. By the end of its run, it made about $47M off a $25M budget. But that's just theaters: its life on video, DVD, and TV is...immeasurable. To see it is to love it: the Los Angeles Film Critics, the New York Film Critics, and the British Film Academy all named it the Best Picture of the Year in 1990! In national telecasts, the American Film Institute named it among the Top 100 American Films of All Time in both 1997 and 2007! Roger Ebert called it the best mob movie ever! The Sopranos creator David Chase credited that movie with the series' inception!
With many films, we look back at all their Oscar nominations and question the very meaning of the word "best." With GoodFellas, we see its one win (Best Supporting Actor - Joe Pesci) and four other nominations (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress - Lorraine Bracco, Best Adapted Screenplay) and question why it didn't get more?
Anyway. Here are the films it came out alongside:
