Gangsters, killers and tenpin bowlers: Every Coen Brothers’ film ranked from worst to best
From crowd favourite The Big Lebowski to award-winning No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers know how to make a film. We’ve ranked all 18 — perfect for your isolation movie marathon.
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It’s been almost 40 years since two filmmaking brothers from Minnesota exploded onto the scene with their acclaimed debut feature Blood Simple.
It was just the first taste of four decades of murder, mayhem, quirky characters and mad-hatter plots that would become the trademark of a Joel and Ethan Coen movie experience.
With the coronavirus lockdown proving the perfect time for a movie binge session, we’ve taken a look back at the entire Coen’s catalogue – from worst to best.
So pour yourself a White Russian dive headfirst into the dark but hilarious worlds of two brothers who became a cinema genre all of their own.
18. THE LADY KILLERS (2004)
RATING: Average 4/10
Every director is allowed one bad film and this remake of the 1950s British classic about a heist gone wrong is easily the Coen Brothers’ worst. However, perhaps their card is marked harder due to their outstanding body of work.
Film fact: This was the first, and only time, the brothers collaborated with Tom Hanks.
17. INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (2003)
RATING: OK 5/10
There’s nothing essentially wrong with this George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones led rom-com except it's a touch benign compared to the Coens’ trademark genre-bending stylised action. The brothers’ most mainstream friendly film to date.
Film fact: Editor “Roderick Jaynes” is not a real person but actually an alias the brothers adopted so it did not look like they did everything on a film. The alias was first used on Fargo which garnered an Oscar nomination for best editing.
16. THE HUDSUCKER PROXY (1994)
RATING: Very good 7/10
The Coens – after working with modest budgets – were handed a fat dime to make this fantasy/comedy about boardroom skulduggery amid the invention of the hula hoop. Tim Robbins and Paul Newman led what would be the brothers’ most elaborate production for more than two decades.
Film fact: Hudsucker was the Coens’ first box office disaster pulling only $2.8 million against a $25 million budget.
15. HAIL, CAESAR! (2016)
RATING: Very good 7/10
Another elaborate production, this underrated take on the last days of Hollywood’s Golden Age with a bit of communist paranoia simmering in the background is possibly the closest thing the brothers have made which resembles an autobiography. Coen regulars Josh Brolin and George Clooney anchor the plot but newcomer Alden Ehrenreich stole the show.
Film fact: 1980s action man Dolph Lundgren has a cameo in the film along with cult Highlander actor Christopher Lambert and Seinfeld’s Wayne Knight.
14. THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS (2018)
RATING: Very good 7/10
Straight to Netflix for this western anthology of short films each linked with the brothers’ trademark dark themes and black humour. Pick of the bunch is “Meal Ticket”. Liam Neeson stars as an ageing showman whose main attraction – an armless and legless actor – becomes a liability. One could almost take that as an ironical metaphor for conventional cinema versus streaming. Among the Coens’ best work. Time will be kind to Buster Scruggs.
Film fact: Tim Blake Nelson, who played Buster Scruggs, was handed a script in 2002 but production didn’t kick-off until 2016.
13. RAISING ARIZONA (1987)
RATING: Very good 7/10
This crime comedy about a loser convict and his ex-cop wife who kidnap a baby amid frontier chaos put the Coen Brothers on the filmmaking map. Their second film delivered future Coen staples including unconventional characters, black-humour and madcap plots which gave audiences a taste of things to come.
Film fact: Rumour has it Nicolas Cage’s on set relationship with the Coens was “turbulent” with the actor giving the directors many ideas which they ignored. Cage and the brothers never worked together again.
12. BLOOD SIMPLE (1985)
RATING: Great 7.5/10
Where it all began for the Coens who hit the ground running with their debut feature, a tightly shot neo-noir made on a shoestring budget. Their own take on the crime genre was full of deceit, kidnapping and murder.
Film fact: The Coens dragged a projector and their Blood Simple preview to countless potential investors in a bid to get the film funded. It took them a year to raise the $1.5 million budget, and the rest is history.
11. THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE (2001)
RATING: Great 8/10
Billy Bob Thornton stars as an unassuming barber who finds himself caught up in a world of, yep you guessed it, murder and deceit. This tight, neo-noir thriller – much like its main character – could be the least remembered or thought of all the Coen Brothers’ movies but it could be one of their best. Pre-Sopranos James Gandolfini is a scene-stealer.
Film fact: Watch for a young Scarlett Johansson in one of her first serious roles.
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10. O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000)
RATING: Great 8/10
The Coens’ first adaptation is loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey but set in Mississippi during the Great Depression. Three convicts escape the chain gang to travel across the state in search of treasure. George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson are front and centre of this misadventure where they unwittingly record a hit song as the Soggy Bottom Boys.
Film fact: Neither Joel nor Ethan had read The Odyssey at the time of shooting. Blake Nelson, who studied the Classics at College, was the only person on set who had read it.
9. BURN AFTER READING (2008)
RATING: Exceptional 8.5/10
Probably the most-underrated film of their career. Hollywood stars Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and John Malkovich play the fools in this cold-war spoof set within the current-day American intelligence community where the central characters – mostly idiots – don’t really know what they’re doing and nothing really matters.
Film fact: Critics have since praised the film for its foreshadowing of the United States under Trump.
8. TRUE GRIT (2010)
RATING: Exceptional 8.5/10
Totally underrated western about a young girl seeking retribution for her murdered father is as straight a genre piece you are going to get from the Coens. Hailee Steinfeld burns the screen down with one of the best individual performances in all the Coen Brothers’ films. Jeff Bridges as hired gun Rooster Cogburn adds strong support. The film is an adaptation of True Grit the novel and not a remake of the 1969 John Wayne film as it was wrongly labelled at its release.
Film fact: Steinfeld, at age 14, was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar but lost to Melissa Leo for The Fighter.
7. A SERIOUS MAN (2009)
RATING: Exceptional 9/10
It’s 1967 and a Jewish man from Minnesota questions his faith after his life crumbles around him. The Jewish folklore prologue is possibly the brothers’ single best piece of cinema but can you figure out its connection to the movie because they won’t say. Michael Stuhlbarg puts in a career best performance in the lead role.
Film fact: The Coen brothers grew up in a Jewish family in Minnesota in the 1960s.
6. THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998)
RATING: Exceptional 9/10
Winner of the popular vote. This neo-noir comedy about a bowling pacifist roped into a game of kidnapping, extortion and deceit partly because he wanted a replacement rug is clearly the brothers’ most famous work. Jeff Bridges in his pop culture icon role leads the all-star cast of John Goodman, John Turturro, Julianne Moore and Steve Buscemi.
Film fact: A spin-off film based on Turturro’s character Jesus Quintana, The Jesus Rolls, was released in 2019 but it was a box-office bomb panned by critics.
5. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (2013)
RATING: Exceptional 9/10
A beatnik tale set in New York in 1961 is as straight as it comes for the Coen brothers. Oscar Isaacs is the titular down-and-out folk musician living day-to-day who is unwilling to do any favours for himself or others bar trying to return a lost cat.
Film fact: Isaacs and co-stars Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver performed the music featured in the film live without lip-synching.
4. BARTON FINK (1991)
RATING: Masterpiece 9.5/10
Symbolism and metaphor abound in the Coen Brothers’ neo-noir psychological thriller about a New York playwright working as a screenwriter with writer’s block in Los Angeles. John Turturro anchors the film in title role but he is matched for presence by John Goodman who plays a mysterious salesman living next door to Fink. Much of the action takes place at an art-deco hotel which becomes the other major character.
Film fact: This was the first of 12 Coen Bothers films’ that dual Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins worked on.
3. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)
RATING: Masterpiece 10/10
Controversial. Most people will say the Coens’ sweeping western/crime Best Picture winner about a quest for drug money, a retiring sheriff trying to make sense of a new world and a game of deadly cat-and-mouse between an unstoppable assassin and a hunter is their best film – and they’re probably right. Faultless.
Film fact: No Country swept the Oscars in a crack year which included competition from There Will be Blood, Zodiac and The Assassination of Jesse James.
2. MILLER’S CROSSING (1990)
RATING: Masterpiece 10/10
The brothers landed an absolute monster with their third film. This massively underrated neo-noir gangster film is arguably the brothers’ most accomplished work. Gabriel Byrne is the cool hat-wearing gangster playing both sides in a mob war set during prohibition.
Anyone who has seen this film could never forget the iconic opening sequence of the fedora floating through the woods. The Byrne marching John Turturro to his execution scene is up there with the Coens’ strongest work.
Film fact: Joel and Ethan returned to New York after hitting major writer’s block while penning the script. During this short hiatus the brothers wrote their next film, Barton Fink, in just three weeks.
1. FARGO (1996)
RATING: Masterpiece 10/10
Is any director bold enough or gifted enough to turn a car travelling through snow into one of the most memorable opening sequences of all time? This Oscar-winning crime classic about a small town cop tracking down ruthless killers, a failed kidnap plot and a bumbling extortionist set amid the winter backdrop of America’s Midwest was gold the second it was released. Frances McDormand (Best Actress winner) and William H. Macy are at the top of a stellar book of performances. The movie spawned a successful TV series, and countless tourists asking Minnesota locals to please “do the Fargo accent”.
Film Fact: The disclaimer, “this is a true story”, at the start of the film is not entirely true. The brothers were inspired by a real life murder but most of the story was fictionalised.
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