Goodfellas, which featured Ray Liotta, Robert de Niro and an Oscar winning supporting role from Joe Pesci, topped the list of 100 movies in a survey of film critics by the British magazine Total Film.
"Goodfellas has everything, in terms of its technical brilliance, its huge influence on modern film-making and its spikiness and rewatchability," Total Film features editor Jamie Graham told Reuters.
Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 classic "Vertigo" took second place, while third went to Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic "Jaws," the tale of a coastal town terrorised by a great white shark.
Goodfellas, which was based on the story of real-life mobster Henry Hill, also beat Citizen Kane, the 1941 Orson Welles film that tops many critics lists but which finished in sixth position in the Total Film poll.
The 10 ten films in the list included two made in the last decade, the 1999 film "Fight Club," starring Brad Pitt, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by Peter Jackson.