Ray Liotta wears a Rolex Day-Date

Near the end of Goodfellas, in a celebratory scene scored to Darlene Love's Christmas, Jimmy Conway slips Henry Hill a cut of the Lufthansa heist, and Hill goes home to the most expensive fake tree money can buy. As he hugs and kisses his wife Karen, the camera catches a quick close-up of a yellow gold Rolex Day-Date, fluted bezel and President bracelet, on his wrist. Blink and it is gone.

It is the one blue-chip watch in the film. For most of Goodfellas, Ray Liotta's Hill wears gold but lower-key gold: a gold-tone Seiko Quartz SQ for long stretches, and earlier a square champagne-dialed piece on a leather strap. The Rolex President turns up only late, after Hill is flush with cocaine money, a clear step up from the Seiko on his wrist the rest of the time.

Martin Scorsese adapted Goodfellas with Nicholas Pileggi from Pileggi's book Wiseguy, the true story of Hill's three decades in the New York and New Jersey mob and his turn as an FBI informant. Liotta, who carried the film as Hill, died in his sleep on location in 2022, at the age of 67.