Which book inspired Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas?

Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas was inspired by Nicholas Pileggi’s 1985 nonfiction book Wiseguy. The book chronicles the life of Henry Hill and his involvement with organized crime in New York.

Pileggi’s reporting provided the basis for the film’s characters, criminal episodes, and documentary-like narration. Scorsese co-wrote the screenplay with Pileggi, and the two shaped the story around Hill’s perspective rather than presenting a conventional rise-and-fall crime saga.

The film was released in 1990 and stars Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway, and Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito. The book’s title is sometimes remembered as Goodfellas because the film became much more famous internationally, but Wiseguy was the original source title.