The Ringer's Case That Goodfellas Is the Hardest of the Mob Trilogy to Discuss Alone
Goodfellas opened on September 19, 1990—between the March 1972 release of The Godfather and the January 1999 premiere of The Sopranos. The essay's frame is an informal American mob trilogy, and within that frame it calls Goodfellas the hardest to talk about on its own—and says it might be the greatest artistic achievement of the three.
The essay says Goodfellas's importance is harder to quantify, in part because The Godfather revolutionized the movies and The Sopranos revolutionized TV.
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The essay's observation that any conversation about Goodfellas inevitably involves The Godfather or The Sopranos is really a point about canon formation: some works arrive with their context attached.
Influence is not the same as quality, though. The essay notes Roger Ebert thought Goodfellas was better than The Godfather and David Chase acknowledges it inspired The Sopranos; neither settles the ranking.