Goofs for
Goodfellas (1990) More at IMDbPro »

• Anachronisms: In the scene that opens with the title "Idlewild Airport, 1963", Henry is leaning on a 1965 Chevy Impala.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Henry and others are outside Idlewild Airport in 1963, and overhead a Boeing 747 is landing/taking off. 747s had their first test flights in 1969, entering service in 1970.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: Shadow in Henry's house when he is talking with Marie about the Lufthansa heist.
  
  

• Continuity: When Karen is holding a gun in Henry's face, a different gun is used for close-up and long shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When Karen visits Henry in prison, cheese and salami on the table change position between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When Karen visits Henry in jail the daughter sitting on her lap plays with blocks. These blocks change between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When Karen is throwing things on the table while visiting Henry in prison, her youngest daughter is crying on Henry's lap. She goes to hug him and immediately is seen with a bottle and pacifier which she did not have in her hands the second before.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Tommy takes out Stacks, he says, "You'd be late to your own funeral" as he puts the gun to the back of Stacks' head. When they show Tommy in slow motion, he doesn't say anything. This is not a goof but rather because Tommy shoots him once in the head and then moves positions before shooting him again. In slow-mo, we do not see the first shot, only the latter ones.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Lois is making the call that dooms Henry, the Trimline phone she used has the post-divestiture AT&T logo which was not created until 1984, four years after this scene takes place.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the establishing shots of "Idlewild Airport, 1963," we see a Swissair jet in a livery consisting of black and dark green stripes and the title "Swissair" in lower-case red letters on the fuselage. This color scheme was not introduced on Swissair aircraft until 1981.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sonny Bunz has his sitdown with Paulie about Tommy, there is an over-the-shoulder shot from behind Sonny of Paulie talking with a cigar in his mouth. The next shot is an over-the-shoulder from behind Paulie of Sonny, but there's no cigar in Paulie's mouth. The following shot is another over-the-shoulder from behind Sonny and Paulie has the cigar in his mouth again.
  
  
• Continuity: When the police car pulls up when Jimmy is handing out cartons of cigarettes from the truck hijacking, the same two-tone brown 1957 Buick two-door sedan drives by in the background several times in the same direction.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Front of camera can be seen reflected in the side of the phone booth Jimmy is in when he calls about Tommy being made.
  
  
• Continuity: When Henry brings in the bag of supplies in jail he hands the wine bottles to Paulie then picks up a bottle of scotch and two jars. The next camera shot shows him holding bread, a different bottle of scotch and two jars.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When young Henry and Tuddy Cicero are "running around" and making Paul's phone calls and Henry enters the phone booth, you can see a wireless mike pack in his back pocket.
  
  
• Factual errors: Henry looks into a bag filled with $20 bills over his narration. The 20s are signed by "James A. Baker" (James Baker III), who was Treasury Secretary in 1985. The scene, however, takes place in the mid to late 1970s.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Karen drives off after Jimmy tells her to go into the dress shop, the car blows a fake license plate off a car.
  
  
• Continuity: After Tommy shoots Spider's foot, Henry gets up to help him, but can be seen sitting down in the background.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious blood spray used in wide shot of Stacks Edwards Hit. Also, Tommy's gun does not recoil.
  
  
• Continuity: The phone jumps around on Morry's shoulder when he's talking to Henry.
  
  
• Continuity: Henry's Catholic cross and Star of David during the shower scene.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: A camera is visible in the background at Henry's mother-in-law's house when they go to hide the gun.
  
  
• Continuity: Series of over 10 shots where items such as wine glasses and napkins on the table fill, empty and move themselves while Tommy is telling his anecdote at the restaurant.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Near the end, when Henry is driving around and watching for the helicopter, a package of Winston cigarettes is on the dashboard of his car. This particular package design has a gold eagle on it and was newly marketed beginning around 1987, several years after the story takes place.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The Cadillac Coupe DeVille Phaeton (a 1979 model) that Henry drives (while watching the helicopter near the end) has a rear dash-mounted brake light, which wasn't available until 1986, although the scene is set in the late 1970s.
  
  
• Continuity: A title card dates the Billy Batts murder as June 11, 1970. Later, Henry says "it's been six months" when they go to dig up the grave. It should therefore be winter in New York, but the boys are in shirt sleeves and Henry's kids are going to the beach the next day.
  
  
• Continuity: When Henry's mistress is having a party and showing off her new apartment, the ladies walk from the living room to the bedroom. The second lady changes positions to the third lady entering the bedroom.
  
  
• Continuity: During Tommy's "Why am I funny" speech, the position of Henry's left hand, as well as the objects he is holding (cigarette, glass) change and move.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The pay phone in the airport diner is of the familiar current design, which was introduced by the Bell System in the late 1960s, or several years after this scene takes place (1963). It is, however, the rotary dial version.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Maury's address is shown in his TV ad, not only is it not hyphenated, as all Queens addresses are, but addresses in Queens are written as "Neighborhood, NY", not "Queens, NY". Names of the other four boroughs are used in the address, however, except for Manhattan addresses, which are always "New York, NY".
  
  
• Continuity: Karen's sweater has dirt on the shoulder after Henry's fight. When she is at the door the sweater is clean.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The bass player in the band in the restaurant in 1963 is playing a Gibson EB-2D which was not introduced until 1966.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Reflected in the window while Karen is trying to find where Jimmy is keeping the stolen dresses.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: When Henry is released from prison and Karen is waiting by her car, the mic is reflected in the car window as Karen turns to her right to hug Henry.
  
  
• Continuity: In the "You're a funny guy" scene, a styrofoam coffee cup disappears and reappears three times.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: During the "You're a funny guy" scene (set in 1963), a bottle of Crown Royal whisky can be seen on the table. Crown Royal wasn't introduced for sale until 1965. Tommy smuggled Crown Royal into the States before it was legally imported.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When young Henry Hill is arrested for selling black-market cigarettes (late 1950s), UPC barcodes are visible on the cigarette cartons. UPC barcodes first appeared in the late 1970s.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the mailman's head is pushed into the pizza oven, his hand is clearly seen resting on the inside of the oven door before the image is frozen, even though a cooked pizza is shown inside the oven as it is opened (i.e. it was too hot for him to keep his hand there for the few seconds shown without reacting).
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: At 42.56 minutes, one of the cameramen can be seen on the right-hand side of the screen.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the long Steadicam shot through the restaurant's kitchen, the camera's shadow is briefly visible on the left-hand side as it exits.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Billy Batts says, "What?" to Tommy in the bar, Billy's lips don't move.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Billy Batts is mocking Tommy in the bar he eventually raises his glass and says "Salud, Tommy", but his lips aren't moving.
  
  
• Continuity: Young Henry is right-handed, while older Henry is left-handed.
  
  
• Continuity: In the beginning of the day May 11, 1980, Henry puts a paper bag into the car trunk with the left hand. But in the close-up we see a hand with a watch and a bracelet, although Henry is wearing them on the right hand.
  
  
• Continuity: After Tommy breaks a bottle on the head of restaurant owner, his jacket changes from clean and dry to splashed and back between shots
  
  
• Continuity: When Jimmy strangles Maury the wig man with the telephone chord Maury's grip on the phone changes between shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Tommy De Vito kills Morrie from behind in the car, you can see Morrie clearly breathing on the left edge of the screen.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In a segment introduced as Brooklyn, 1955, the camera pans to follow Henry running off to his job at the cab stand. Part of the view is a look through the utility poles to show the surrounding neighborhood. In the shot (at 4:44 into the film) is a modern cable television amplifier.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The street signs shown in the scene towards the end where Karen shouts at Jimmy did not exist until 1985, five years after the scene takes place (they should be white on black, not white on green).
  
  
• Anachronisms: When we first see Paulie's house, a cable TV wire is clearly visible on the outside. Cable TV didn't come to the outer boroughs of New York City until the mid-1980s, decades after that scene was set.
  
  
• Continuity: Henry and Karen's first date alone - the clothes Henry and Karen are wearing when Henry picks her up at the house are not the same clothes they're wearing in the next scene when they arrive at the club (and go in the back door).
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scene towards the end where Henry almost gets in the accident, the door of a Nassau County Police patrol car is shown for a split second. The emblem on the door is that of the Nassau Police's shoulder patch, which they did not display on their cars until the mid-1980's, not in May of 1980 when the scene was to have taken place.
  
  
• Anachronisms: A McDonnell Douglas DC-10 can be seen in one of the 1960s era airport shots, though this plane wasn't introduced until the early 1970s.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The "Airline Diner" depicted is not outside Idlewild (Kennedy) Airport, but Laguardia Airport.
  
  
• Continuity: When Henry hands in the gun to Karen, the way she holds it changes between the wide shot and the close-up.
  
  
• Continuity: On May 11, 1980, when Henry and Karen are at the shopping mall, they leave their car by the curb in front of the store. When they leave the mall later, after looking out for the helicopters, we see that the car is no longer at the curb, but is parked in the parking lot.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Scene at the hostess party has back-drop of faux ivy, which is obviously contemporary silk-floral foliage: it would have been plastic-only then.
  
  
• Anachronisms: As the trucker says that two men stole his car, it can clearly be seen that modern cars are passing on the road in the background.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In an early scene, the narrator says, "It was before Apalachin," referring to the town in upstate New York where a late-1950s summit meeting of crime bosses was raided by police, making national headlines. He pronounces it "ap-a-lay-chin," but the last syllable is pronounced "kin."
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the scene where Tommy kills Stacks, the silencer can be heard three times after he shoots Stacks in the head. During the slow-motion replay of the killing, Tommy shoots Stacks a total five times in the back, two times more than in the previous scene.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): During the prison dinner scene, Paulie says, "Freddie, Vinnie, come eat." There was no Freddie, he was talking to Johnnie Dio.
  
  
• Factual errors: During the Air France heist scene, when Henry is narrating "Air France made me...", the aircraft shown is a Convair 240. Air France never flew this type aircraft.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Henry and Tommy hijack the truck, and Tommy has the paper bag over his gun at 47 minutes into the film. There is a graffiti throw up on the side of the truck, pieces only really started around 72' and throw ups came after pieces a few years later. This part of the movie was set in the late 60's, when that type of graffiti did not yet exist.
  
  
• Continuity: When the teenage Henry is given the keys to park a "wiseguy's" Cadillac and gets behind the wheel, the car shown is a 1952 or 1953 model. However, after Henry parks it, an overhead long shot shows him getting out of a 1949 Cadillac.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the film, Henry and Karen Hill have two daughters. In real life, they have a son and a daughter.
  
  
• Continuity: During Henry's shower scene, the shampoo in his hair appears and disappears between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: The same truck is used in 3 hijacking scenes: the diner, the guy that they take his drivers licenses away and possibly one other. It's the truck with the red cab in the front.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Tommy shoots Spider in the foot, Tommy fires a total of seven shots from a revolver without reloading. Some models of revolvers do in fact hold seven or more rounds, although it is not clear whether Tommy's gun was actually capable of this or if it was a special effects error.
  
  
• Factual errors: Joe Pesci's character, Tommy DeVito, is portrayed in the 1955 sequences as a boy about the same age as Henry Hill, maybe slightly older. In actuality, the real-life mobster who Pesci's character was based off was born in 1950, and he would have been 4 or 5 years old at the time these events took place.
  
  
• Continuity: When Tommy shoots Spider he is behind the bar putting ice in the drinks. The next shot he is meters in front of the bar and falls back into it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: (At 34:56) In the scene at the airport where Tommy and Henry take the Sargent key and walk over to the locked storeroom, the whole knob turns when the key is turned. That indicates that the lock was already unlocked. If it had been locked, only the key would've turned.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When young Henry is breaking out the unwanted neighborhood cars windows, the glass breaks and falls out easily as if they were window panes.
  
  
• Continuity: When Henry, Paulie and the restaurant owner are discussing Paulie taking over part of his restaurant, to make it safe from Tommy, Paulie's cigar moves around and even disappears in between scenes.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scene that is supposed to occur in May of 1980, where Henry and Karen hide guns at Karen's mother's house, a G-Body GM car is parked in the driveway. This model wasn't available until 1982.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In an early 1970s scene, Visa and Mastercard logos can be seen at the front door of a dining establishment, neither one of which went under these names at the time. The Mastercard sign should have read "Master Charge."
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Henry takes Karen to the Copa, they enter through a service door and proceed through the labyrinth of passageways until they finally emerge in the dining room. The problem here is that as the camera follows them on their journey, we see a modern fire extinguisher near the kitchen area. The predominant extinguishers of the era were either the dry powder, push handle type - similar in action to the old insect sprays. The other was the gravity fed liquid extinguisher that is operated by turning the unit upside down and directing the nozzle. The model seen in the film however is a modern pressurized CO2 extinguisher. Additionally, it also has an OSHA filling inspection tag attached, which wasn't a requirement until many years after this event occurred, ostensibly in the early to mid sixties.
  
  
• Continuity: When Morrie is on the phone and says give them 8 to 5 on Cleveland, the phone is in his right hand and next to his ear. In the next shot a split second later the phone is in his left hand and down by his side.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the Idlewild Airport scene at the beginning, the type states that it is 1963, but the two guys talking are leaning on a 1965 Impala. The earliest this car could have come out was fall of 1964, which was when new models were released at the time.
  
  
• Continuity: During the scene where Jimmy finds out Tommy has been "whacked", check the car window in the background. When Jimmy goes to the car it is open, but when he pushes over the phone booth it is closed.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the Idlewild Airport scene, when Henry steals the man's truck and when the man comes back in and says that two men have stolen his truck, it is very obvious too see that there are modern-day cars passing outside the diner.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene when Tommy stabs Billy Batts, the knife is a very obvious rubber prop knife.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: When Jimmy opens up the trunk of the car to find Billy Batts still alive, Tommy pulls out a large butcher knife and plunges it into Batts almost to the hilt several times. He then stands watching while Jimmy empties his gun into Batts' body, but there's no blood on either Tommy's hands or the knife, which there should be considering how many times he stabbed Batts.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: Every scene shot coming/going from Karen's home, regardless of passage of time, i.e. the neighbor rough-up (pre-marriage), Henry leaving after their marriage, etc., was obviously shot at same time, in the spring, with all trees, shrubs in the same state of bloom; the latest of these shots has the previously hot pink almond or dogwood tree a more-faded coloration.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: When Tommy pulls out the knife to stab Billy Bats, you can see when the light hits it that it is a retractable prop knife.
  
  

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