Genre Analysis of Goodfellas

The movie Goodfellas fits within the genre of crime film, and more specifically within the subgenre of mafia/gangster film. Many facts support this statement. The first noticeable thing that makes this statement true is the setting of the movie. Many of the movie's scenes take place in bars. In those bars, the people are always smoking, drinking, and making jokes, as if they have no reason to be worried. In most of these scenes, the gangsters fight, and in some of them someone dies.
Other facts that makes the movie fit within this subgenre is that there is always violence and drugs involved, respect, and family-like treatment.
Respect is the word, the most important term when we are talking about mafia and its hierarchy. In Goodfellas, Paulie is the head of the mafia and everybody respects him. He doesn’t have to move a finger. Everybody do as he says, and if they don’t they get instantly killed. Respect is what every gangster looks for. In the movie we see the life of a specific guy as he passes through his gangster life. He, the protagonist, as the movie progresses, is constantly looking for respect, working for it, which is definitely power.
And finally, we can see the family-like treatment the mafia members give to each other. But when we are talking about gangsters, you can’t make any mistake. As soon as a gangster feels that you aren’t a reliable person or they doubt of your intentions you are eliminated from the equation. Goodfellas presents the gangster just like this. They treat each other as if they were a family but as soon as you make a mistake you are a dead man. This is what Robert DeNiro did with everyone that could make him go down.