POLL: Best Coen Brother's Movie

From the Coen Bros. films I have seen, here is what I think of them.

1. Barton Fink (1991)
GRADE: A+

2. Fargo (1996)
GRADE: A

3. Miller's Crossing (1990)
GRADE: A

4. The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
GRADE: A-

5. The Big Lebowski (1998)
GRADE: B+

6. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
GRADE: B+

7. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
GRADE: B

8. Raising Arizona (1987)
GRADE: B-

9. Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
GRADE: C-

Yes, as everybody knows by now Ethan and Joel Coen have been anointed into the filmmaking pantheon with a bucket full of awards this season, culminating with the Oscars for Best Director(s) and Best Picture for No Country for Old Men. After waiting in vain for the Academy to recognize some of my favorite filmmakers such as Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick who went to their graves not having won Oscars as directors and after the awkwardness of last year when Marty Scorsese was given an excuse-me make-up Oscar for a movie that was not one of his best and not even one of the very best films of that year, I must say it was very heartening to see The Coen Brothers awarded for a great film that is among their best works. Good on you, boys. "Academy Award-winning directors Joel & Ethan Coen". I didn't know if I'd ever live in a world where that was a true statement, but here we are.

I look forward to anything and everything they do but the upcoming Burn After Reading has me very excited.

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Updating my list through their Oscar triumph (and now updated to include Burn After Reading)...



1. Miller's Crossing
"The Old Man's still an artist with the Thompson."
GRADE: A+
2. Barton Fink
"I will show you the life of the mind!"
GRADE: A+
3. No Country for Old Men
"I'm fixin' to do something dumber than Hell, but I'm going anyways."
GRADE: A
4. The Big Lebowski
""You think the carpet-pissers did this?"
GRADE: A
5. Raising Arizona
"Son, you got a panty on your head."
GRADE: A
6. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
"Lots of respectable people been hit by trains!"
GRADE: A
7. The Hudsucker Proxy
"And you...a Muncie girl."
GRADE: A-
8. Fargo
"I suppose that was your accomplice back there in the woodchipper?"
GRADE: A-
9. The Man Who Wasn't There
"He told them not to look at the facts, but at the meaning of the facts. Then he said the facts had no meaning."
GRADE: A-
10. Intolerable Cruelty
"Are you Wheezy Joe?"
GRADE: A-
11. Blood Simple
"But this is Texas, and down here...you're on your own."
GRADE: B+
12. "Tuileries" segment of Paris, je T'aime
What are you looking at, cunt (cunt-person)?
GRADE: B
13. Burn After Reading
"No, no. God, no! Burn the body. Get rid of it."
GRADE: B
14. The Ladykillers
"Madam, we must have waffles! We must all have waffles forthwith!"
GRADE: B-

1. Big Lebowski

2. No Country for Old Men (for me makes fargo all the worse)

3. Miller's Crossing

4. Barton Fink

5. O Brother Where Art Thou

6. Fargo

7. Blood Simple

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And these Oscars cement their reputation forever, but they had already amassed an impressive mantle of awards before this bunch. Their films have generated twenty-one Oscar nominations to date and they have personally won for Original Screenplay (Fargo), Adapted Screenplay and Best Directors (No Country for Old Men). That's about as well as you can aspire to as writer-directors working in American film.



They've also won the highest prizes at Cannes, having been named that festival's Best Directors three times already (Barton Fink, Fargo and The Man Who Wasn't There), and Barton Fink unanimously won the Golden Palm as Best Picture. They won the DGA Award this year for No Country and two WGA Awards (Fargo and No Country). They've twice been named Best Director at the Independent Spirit Awards (Blood Simple and Fargo). They've won many of the most prestigious national and international critics awards. They've won BAFTAs and Golden Globes. Yeah, they are that good.

And they've still got many more years of filmmaking ahead of them. Joel is fifty-three and Ethan is fifty. They "only" have a dozen features to their credit in the twenty-three years since Blood Simple was released, but what a dozen they are. Their next flick, Burn After Reading, promises to be a little lighter than No Country, something more comedy-infused akin to Lebowski about a CIA Agent, stolen discs, blackmail, computer dating, lies, double crosses and a web of mayhem. It stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Richard Jenkins.

One of my favorite things about a Coen Bros. movie is their stable of actors. Frances McDormand obviously has an inside track being married to Joel and she's appeared in six of their films counting Burn, but their stock company also features Steve Buscemi (six times), John Goodman (five times), Jon Polito (five times), John Turturro (four times) and George Clooney (three times), among others.



I love Joel & Ethan, and even their only true misstep thus far, their Americanized Southern fried take on the Ealing classic dark comedy The Ladykillers, wasn't a bad film, it's just not up to their own high standards and ultimately it is an unnecessary remake.

Im gonna go with fargo, but lebowsky is a very close second.

This is how I'd go:

Barton Fink A+

O Brother, Where Art Thou? A+

Fargo A+

The Hudsucker Proxy A

No Country for Old Men A

The Big Lebowski A

The Man Who Wasn't There A

Miller's Crossing A

Blood Simple A-

Intolerable Cruelty B+

Raising Arizona B

The LadyKillers C

I'd rank 'em thusly...


"Mind his little fontanelle, now."

1. Raising Arizona, A+
2. Miller's Crossing, A+
3. The Big Lebowski, A+
4. Barton Fink, A
5. O Brother, Where Art Thou?, A
6. The Man Who Wasn't There, B+
7. The Hudsucker Proxy, B+
8. No Country for Old Men, B
9. Fargo, B
10. Intolerable Cruelty, B
11. Blood Simple, B-
12. The Ladykillers, C+

I'm with you on that one as I've never really seen in Raising Arizona what a lot of people seem to have.

My last post in this thread was over 3 years ago - oh to be 21 again! *cough*

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I must admit to only having seen it once, but then it didn't make me want to see it a second time to see what I'd missed (perhaps). I don't rate Nic Cage as an actor at all, so mebbe that's my sticking point. I'm glad he's not one of the Coens gang

Well, for what it's worth, here are 10 reasons why Raising Arizona is not only my number one Coen Brothers' film, but one of my all-time favorites as well.

Miller's Crossing is one of my all-time favorite movies; it's also that film that makes me wish Gabriel Byrne was in more films! I absolutely love the scene where Finney is running down the street with Danny Boy playing in the background.

I enjoy Fargo a great deal; love McDormand in this.

But, hey, by far, I think No Country for Old Men is their greatest film and one of the best films ever made.

I like most of their films but I can say I didn't like Barton Fink, Ladykillers, and Hudsucker Proxy.

FARGO....Haven't seen the new movie yet though.

Methinks No country is just a wincy bit overrated...

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hmm. I really did like No Country for Old Men, but...the fact that Cormac McCarthy's books dialogue was lifted word for word, and people are attributing the cleverness of the characters and the dialogue to the Coens makes me feel uncomfortable.

I know the Coens have been fulsome in their praise, and I know they have been very intelligent by not mucking around with the original too much, but the fact is that I saw that film played out in my imagination pretty much as I saw it on the screen a few years later, I even saw Tommy Lee Jones as the sherriff as pretty much everyone I know who's read the book has too - maybe even McCarthy did! So although it is a very good film, I can't find it in my heart to rate it as one of my favourite Coens for that reason. Possibly daft, but there you go.

So does that mean that in some ways making a perfect realization of a novel is a no-win situation? Obviously not for the Oscars, but for you?

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It does seem perhaps a stupid thing to think, but I feel a bit bad for the book being neglected and the film getting all the praise. Illogical, completely

It's certainly not a stupid thing to think, but if we accept the premise that liiterature and film are two different art forms, then what the Coens did is still worthly of great praise, since they took a compelling novel and made a compelling film. They also knew when not to muck it up. How many times have we seen filmmakers do just that? They were intelligent enough to know that they could make an entertaining film while still having that film be a thoughtful reflection on a society that had changed.

Their being true to the novel seems to me to be the very reason the film succeeded as well as it did. I thought NCFOM's ending was downright daring because they knew a great story existed here and they weren't about to lose that.

Fargo is good, but, it falls somewhere in the middle of the Coen's body of work, for me. I like quite a few of their other films a lot more...

I have a weird relationship with Fargo. On one hand, I can't really argue with anyone who says it's their definitive masterpiece. It's a truly jaw-dropping film. At the same time, it's quite depressing, and depressing films are hard to watch more than once in awhile for me; even brilliant ones like Fargo.

I own it now, though, and have seen it a couple of times. I suspect I'll become less reserved in my admiration of it once I've seen it a few more times.