This film was robbed of an Academy Award for Best Picture
and so was the other
I do believe Marsellus Wallace, my husband, your boss, told you to take ME out and do WHATEVER I WANTED. Now I wanna dance, I wanna win. I want that trophy, so dance good 
Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character. #002 Pulp Fiction (1994) 31 Votes, 11885 points, Four #1 votes
Quentin Tarantino Running time - 154 min
Country of origin USA
Genre English / Spanish / French
Original language English / Spanish / French
Writing CreditsQuentin Tarantino, Roger Avary
Cast Tim Roth ...
Pumpkin (Ringo)John Travolta ...
Vincent VegaSamuel L. Jackson ...
Jules WinnfieldAmanda Plummer ...
Honey Bunny (Yolanda)Eric Stoltz ...
LanceBruce Willis ...
Butch CoolidgeVing Rhames ...
Marsellus WallacePhil LaMarr ...
MarvinMaria de Medeiros ...
FabienneRosanna Arquette ...
JodyPeter Greene ...
ZedUma Thurman ...
Mia WallaceSteve Buscemi ...
Buddy HollyChristopher Walken ...
Captain KoonsQuentin Tarantino ...
Jimmie DimmickHarvey Keitel ...
Winston 'The Wolf' WolfeAcademy AwardsWon: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Nominated: Best Actor in a Leading Role (John Travolta), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Samuel L. Jackson), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Uma Thurman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Picture
Other awardsWon: BAFTA Film Award Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Samuel L. Jackson), Best Screenplay - Original
Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm.
Golden Globe Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
Nominated: BAFTA Film Award Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Actress (Uma Thurman), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Film, Best Sound, David Lean Award for Direction
Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm.
Golden Globe Best Director - Motion Picture, Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama (John Travolta),
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Samuel L. Jackson), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Uma Thurman)
Roger Ebert / June 10, 2001 Dialogue drives Quentin Tarantino's ``Pulp Fiction''_dialogue of such high quality it deserves comparison with other masters of spare, hard-boiled prose, from Raymond Chandler to Elmore Leonard. Like them, QT finds a way to make the words humorous without ever seeming to ask for a laugh. Like them, he combines utilitarian prose with flights of rough poetry and wicked fancy.
Consider a little scene not often mentioned in discussions of the film. The prizefighter Butch (Bruce Willis) has just killed a man in the ring. He returns to the motel room occupied by his girlfriend Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros). She says she's been looking in the mirror and she wants a pot belly. ``You have one,'' he says, snuggling closer. ``If I had one,'' she says, ``I would wear a T-shirt two sizes too small, to accentuate it.'' A little later she observes, ``It's unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye are seldom the same.''
This is wonderful dialogue (I have only sampled it). It is about something. The dialogue comes at a moment of desperation for Butch. He agreed to throw the fight, then secretly bet heavily on himself, and won. He will make a lot of money_but only if he escapes the vengeance of Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) and his hit-men Jules and Vincent (Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta). In a lesser movie, the dialogue in this scene would have been entirely plot-driven; Butch would have explained to Fabienne what he, she and we already knew. Instead, Tarantino uses an apparently irrelevant conversation to quickly establish her personality and their relationship. His dialogue is always load-bearing.
It is Tarantino's strategy in all of his films to have the characters speak at right angles to the action, or depart on flights of fancy. Remember the famous opening conversation between Jules and Vincent, who are on their way to a violent reprisal against some college kids who have offended Wallace and appropriated his famous briefcase. They talk about the drug laws in Amsterdam, what Quarter Pounders are called in Paris, and the degree of sexual intimacy implied by a foot massage. Finally Jules says ``let's get in character,'' and they enter an apartment.
Tarantino's dialogue is not simply whimsical. There is a method behind it. The discussion of why Quarter Pounders are called ``Royales'' in Paris is reprised, a few minutes later, in a tense exchange between Jules and one of the kids (Frank Whaley). And the story of how Marsellus had a man thrown out of a fourth-floor window for giving his wife a foot massage turns out to be a set-up: Tarantino is preparing the dramatic ground for a scene in which Vincent takes Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) out on a date, on his bosses' orders. When Mia accidentally overdoses, Vincent races her to his drug dealer Lance (Eric Stoltz), who brings her back to life with a shot of adrenaline into the heart.
And that scene also begins with dialogue that seems like fun, while it's also laying more groundwork. We meet Lance's girlfriend Jody (Rosanna Arquette), who is pierced in every possible place and talks about her piercing fetish. Tarantino is setting up his payoff. When the needle goes into the heart, you'd expect that to be one of the most gruesome moments in the movie, but audiences, curiously, always laugh. In a shot-by-shot analysis at the University of Virginia, we found out why. QT never actually shows the needle entering the chest. He cuts away to a reaction shot in which everyone hovering over the victim springs back simultaneously as Mia leaps back to life. And then Jody says it was ``trippy''_and we understand that, as a piercer, she has seen the ultimate piercing. The body language and the punchline take a grotesque scene and turn it into dark but genuine comedy. It's all in the dialogue and the editing. Also, of course, in the underlying desperation, set up by thoughts of what Marsellus might do to Vincent, since killing Mrs. Wallace is much worse than massaging her foot.
The movie's circular, self-referential structure is famous; the restaurant hold-up with Pumpkin and Honey Bunny (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) begins and ends the film, and other story lines weave in and out of strict chronology. But there is a chronology in the dialogue, in the sense that what is said before invariably sets up or enriches what comes after. The dialogue is proof that Tarantino had the time-juggling in mind from the very beginning, because there's never a glitch; the scenes do not follow in chronological order, but the dialogue always knows exactly where it falls in the movie.
I mentioned the way the needle-to-the-heart scene is redeemed by laughter. That's also the case with the scene where the hit-men inadvertently kill a passenger in their car. The car's interior is covered with blood, and The Wolf (Harvey Keitel) is called to handle the situation; we remember much more blood than we actually see, which is why the scene doesn't stop the movie dead in its tracks. Scenes of gore are deflected into scenes of the Wolf's professionalism, which is funny because it is so matter-of-fact. The movies does contain scenes of sudden, brutal violence, as when Jules and Vincent open fire in the apartment, or when Butch goes ``medieval'' (Marsellus' unforgettable word choise) on the leather guys. But Tarantino uses long shots, surprise, cutaways and the context of the dialogue to make the movie seem less violent than it has any right to.
Howard Hawks once gave his definition of a good movie: ``Three good scenes. No bad scenes.'' Few movies in recent years have had more good scenes than ``Pulp Fiction.'' Some are almost musical comedy, as when Vincent and Mia dance at Jackrabbit Slim's. Some are stunning in their suddenness, as when Butch returns to his apartment and surprises Vincent. Some are all verbal style, as in Marsellus Wallace's dialogue with Butch, or when Capt. Koons (Christopher Walken) delivers a monologue to the ``little man'' about his father's watch.
And some seem deliberately planned to provoke discussion: What is in the briefcase? Why are there glowing flashes of light during the early shooting in the apartment? Is Jackson quoting the Bible correctly? Some scenes depend entirely on behavior (The Wolf's no-nonsense cleanup detail). Many of the scenes have an additional level of interest because the characters fear reprisals (Bruce fears Wallace, Vincent fears Wallace, Jimmie the drug dealer wants the dead body removed before his wife comes home).
I saw ``Pulp Fiction'' for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994; it went on to win the Palme d'Or, and to dominate the national conversation about film for at least the next 12 months. It is the most influential film of the decade; its circular timeline can be sensed in films as different as ``The Usual Suspects,'' ``The Zero Effect'' and ``Memento''_not that they copied it, but that they were aware of the pleasures of toying with chronology.
But it isn't the structure that makes ``Pulp Fiction'' a great film. Its greatness comes from its marriage of vividly original characters with a series of vivid and half-fanciful events_and from the dialogue. The dialogue is the foundation of everything else.
Watching many movies, I realize that all of the dialogue is entirely devoted to explaining or furthering the plot, and no joy is taken in the style of language and idiom for its own sake. There is not a single line in ``Pearl Harbor'' you would want to quote with anything but derision. Most conversations in most movies are deadly boring_which is why directors with no gift for dialogue depend so heavily on action and special effects. The characters in ``Pulp Fiction'' are always talking, and always interesting, funny, scary or audacious. This movie would work as an audio book. Imagine having to listen to ``The Mummy Returns.''
Amazon.com linkIMDB link - 8.9/10 (248,673 votes)
Top 250: #5SOMB 499 rank - #3
Ranked highest by
Suckered You, Agrimorfee, SNC and
Tracy Jacks, (#1)Oh I like this one... One dog goes one way, the other dog goes the other way, and this guy's sayin', "Whadda ya want from me? 
"As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster." -- Henry Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1955 #001 Goodfellas (1990) 34 Votes, 15822 points, Six #1 votes
Martin Scorsese Running time - 145 min
Country of origin USA
Genre Biography / Crime / Drama
Original language English / Italian
Writing CreditsNicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese
Cast Robert De Niro ...
James 'Jimmy' ConwayRay Liotta ...
Henry HillJoe Pesci ...
Tommy DeVitoLorraine Bracco ...
Karen HillAcademy AwardsWon: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Joe Pesci)
Nominated: Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Lorraine Bracco), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Writing - Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
Other awardsWon: BAFTA Film Award Best Costume Design, Best Direction, Best Editing, Best Film, Best Screenplay - Adapted
Nominated: BAFTA Film Award Best Actor (Robert De Niro), Best Cinematography
Golden Globe Best Director - Motion Picture, Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Joe Pesci), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Lorraine Bracco), Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
Roger Ebert / November 24, 2002 As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States.
So says Henry Hill in the opening moments of Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas," a movie about the tradecraft and culture of organized crime in New York. That he narrates his own story--and is later joined by his wife, narrating hers--is crucial to the movie's success. This is not an outsider's view, but a point-of-view movie based on nostalgia for the lifestyle. "They were blue-collar guys," Hill's wife explains. "The only way they could make extra money, real extra money, was to go out and cut a few corners." Their power was intoxicating. "If we wanted something, we just took it," Henry says. "If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again."
At the end of the film, Henry (Ray Liotta) still misses the old days. His money is gone, most of his friends are dead, and his best friend was preparing to kill him, but after he finds safety in the federal witness protection program, he still complains. "We were treated like movie stars with muscle," he remembers. "Today, everything is different. There's no action. I have to wait around like everyone else."
The rewards of unearned privilege are at the heart of "GoodFellas" (1990). There's an early scene introducing Henry's partner Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), and he enters the shot in a sort of glowing modesty; his body language says, "no applause, please." Henry's other partner is Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), who makes the mistake of over-exercising his clout instead of letting it go without saying. In one of the great buildups and payoffs in movie history, he believes he's going to become a "made" man, realizes his mistake too late, and says "Oh, no" before being shot in the head. He never learned to relax and enjoy his privileges. He always had to push things.
The early scenes of "GoodFellas" show young Henry Hill as a gofer for the local Brooklyn mob, which has its headquarters in a taxi garage right across the street from his house. (A shot of Henry looking out the window mirrors Scorsese's own childhood memories from Manhattan's Little Italy neighborhood, and so does a following sequence which uses subtle slow-motion for closeups of the mobster's shoes, ties, hair, rings and cigars.) In a movie famous for violence that arrives instantly, without warning, the most shocking surprise comes when Henry is slapped by his father for missing school. He had to "take a few beatings" at home because of his teenage career choice, Henry remembers, but it was worth it. Violence is like a drumbeat under every scene.
Henry's joy in his emerging career is palpable. He sells stolen cigarettes out of car trunks, torches a car lot, has enough money at 21 to tip lavishly. In the most famous shot in the movie, he takes his future wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) to the Copacabana nightclub. There's a line in front, but he escorts her across the street, down stairs and service corridors, through the kitchen area, and out into the showroom just as their table is being placed right in front of the stage. This unbroken shot, which lasts 184 seconds, is not simply a cameraman's stunt, but an inspired way to show how the whole world seems to unfold effortlessly before young Henry Hill.
There is another very protracted shot, as Henry introduces us to his fellow gangsters. Henry leads the camera through a crowded club, calling out names as the characters nod to the camera or speak to Henry. Sometimes the camera seems to follow Henry, but at other times it seems to represent his POV; sometimes he's talking to them, sometimes to us. This strategy implicates us in the action. The cinematographer, Michael Ballhaus, did not get one of the film's six Oscar nominations, but was a key collaborator. Following Scorsese's signature style, he almost never allows his camera to be still; it is always moving, if only a little, and a moving camera makes us not passive observers but active voyeurs.
The screenplay by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese is based on Pileggi's book about Hill, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family. It is equally based, probably, on Scorsese's own memories of Little Italy. It shows a mob family headed by Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino), who never talks on the phone, dislikes group conversations, disapproves of drugs (because the sentences are too high), and sounds like a parish priest when he orders Henry to return home to his wife. That doesn't mean he has to dump his mistress; all the guys seem to have both a wife and a mistress, who are plied with stolen goods of astonishing tastelessness.
"GoodFellas" is unusual in giving good screen time to the women, who are usually unseen in gangster movies. Karen Hill narrates her own side of the story, confessing that she was attracted to Henry's clout and fame; after she tells Henry the guy across the street tried to hit on her, Henry pistol-whips him and then gives her the gun to hide. She tells us: "I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn't. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on." It is reasonable to suggest that "The Sopranos" finds its origin in the narrations in "GoodFellas," especially Karen's.
Underlying the violence is a story of economic ambition. Henry and Karen come from backgrounds that could not easily lead to Cadillacs, vacations in Vegas and fur coats, and she justifies what he has to do to pay for the lifestyle: "None of it seemed like crimes. It was more like 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 handouts."
The story arc follows Henry's movement up into the mob and then down into prison sentences and ultimate betrayal. At first the mob seems like an opening-up of his life, but later, after he starts selling drugs, there is a claustrophobic closing-in. The camera style in the earlier scenes celebrates his power and influence with expansive ease. At the end, in a frantic sequence concentrated in a single day, the style becomes hurried and choppy as he races frantically around the neighborhood on family and criminal missions while a helicopter always seems to hover overhead.
What Scorsese does above all else is share his enthusiasm for the material. The film has the headlong momentum of a storyteller who knows he has a good one to share. Scorsese's camera caresses these guys, pays attention to the shines on their shoes and the cut of their clothes. And when they're planning the famous Lufthansa robbery, he has them whispering together in a tight three-shot that has their heads leaning low and close with the thrill of their own audacity. You can see how much fun it is for them to steal.
The film's method is to interrupt dialogue with violence. Sometimes there are false alarms, as in Pesci's famous restaurant scene where Tommy wants to know what Henry meant when he said he was "funny." Other moments well up suddenly out of the very mob culture: The way Tommy shoots the kid in the foot, and later murders him. The way kidding-around in a bar leads to a man being savagely beaten. The way the violence penetrates the daily lives of the characters is always insisted on. Tommy, Henry and Jimmy, with a body in their trunk, stop at Tommy's mother's house to get a knife, and she insists they sit down at 3 a.m. for a meal.
Scorsese seems so much in command of his gift in this film. It was defeated for the best picture Oscar by "Dances with Wolves," but in November 2002 a poll by Sight & Sound magazine named it the fourth best film of the past 25 years (after Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," Scorsese's "Raging Bull," and Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander"). It is an indictment of organized crime, but it doesn't stand outside in a superior moralistic position. It explains crime's appeal for a hungry young man who has learned from childhood beatings not to hate power, but to envy it. When Henry Hill talks to us at the opening of the film, he sounds like a kid in love: "To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. I mean, they did whatever they wanted. They double-parked in front of a hydrant and nobody ever gave them a ticket. In the summer when they played cards all night, nobody ever called the cops."
Amazon.com linkIMDB link - 8.7/10 (134,077 votes)
Top 250: #15SOMB 499 rank - #2
Ranked highest by
Worrywort, Citizen, BirdIsTheWord, Elemeno P.T. ManIsMatter and
FallingandLaughing (#1)
