I’m not here to argue that Casino is better than Goodfellas. It’s not. But was also fascinated by the top world of the mob, and that of course was Casino.” Goodfellas, it was like the kids from Mean Streets growing up, the middle class.
Casino was a sequel in everything but name. “It’s like a trilogy,” Pileggi says on the film’s DVD commentary. Released five years earlier, Goodfellas also starred Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro, and also had Scorsese and journalist Nicholas Pileggi adapting a Pileggi book about the mob. (She lost to Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking, a classic Oscar robbery.) Then, as now, it seemed destined to be overshadowed by its older brother, Goodfellas. At the time, it was a (very) modest success, opening fifth at the box office, but going on to gross $116 million worldwide and earning a Golden Globe win and a Best Actress nomination for Sharon Stone. To this day, one of those movies that I’ll leave on whenever I come across it on cable. It was 20 years ago last week that Universal released Casino, Martin Scorsese’s eighth film collaboration with Robert De Niro and his second with writer Nicholas Pileggi.
