Goodfellas

(1990; screens Sunday at 7:15 p.m.)

Martin Scorsese's film of Nicholas Pileggi's Wise Guy tells the true story of Henry Hill, a petty mobster who earned a fortune in the rackets and then turned state's evidence when it all exploded in his face. As Hill, Ray Liotta, though essentially passive, has menace and a roiling blackness. Robert De Niro appears as a wilier and crazier version of Mean Streets' Johnny Boy; Joe Pesci also gives an inspired and scary performance. The violence here isn't attractive but the perpetrators are.