It would be higher on my list, but I want to wait until I see more movies before making a list. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs would be second last on my list. I loved “The Gal Who Got Rattled”, but I didn’t connect with any of the other stories. Last on my list would be Burn After Reading. That kind of nihilistic story, that’s so graphically violent just didn’t appeal to me at all.
It was a good movie, but it was also a remake…and a mostly faithful one at that. It’s just not very exciting.
Yeah, I liked True Grit just fine, but it hasn’t really stuck with me over the years. Not a bad movie by any stretch.
I would put Raising Arizona to the 3 spot and … Move Miller’s Crossing up one… and Oh brother replacing “a serious man”
Fargo is great but not a perfect movie. The subplot with the weirdo who was in love with McDormand was worthless.
1 No Country for Old Men
2 Barton Fink
3 Big Lebowski
4 Raising Arizona
5 Fargo
6 Hudsucker Proxy
7 Miller’s Crossing
Burn After Reading is pretty good. Ditto for O Brother.
Ballad of Buster Scruggs is uneven but I loved 2 of the tales.
Inside Llewelyn Davis… just didn’t stick with me at all. Only Coen I didn’t connect with.
Mike Yanagita. It was a single scene, and a couple of lines of dialogue on the phone, so I’d barely call it a subplot. And worth isn’t entirely defined by contribution to the main storyline, particularly in the hands of masters like the Coens, IMO. Gene Siskel said he felt the scene was there to motivate Marge’s realization that Lundegaard might have been lying on their first interview. That structural rationale hadn’t occurred to me before he said it, and I’m not sure I entirely buy it (she’s a cop so presumably would be able to imagine that interviewees are lying to her). In fact, it was when the scene seemed most extraneous to me that it delighted me the most. It felt like a kind of grace note. And it showed another facet of Marge’s personality, in particular her considerable tact in keeping this guy at a distance.
Personally I think one of the strengths of their films is that they’re okay with being a little shaggy for the sake of character and mood.
I liked the Mike Yanagita scene. Watching Marge handle that awkward and unexpected flirting said a lot about her. Fargo had a lot of little moments like that, stuff not related to the core “idiots commit crimes” plot, but that round out the world and the characters interacting with it.
I’m sure there’s a cinephile term for that kind of scene, probably something French. I’m basically a groundling. I just thought it was cool :)
I guess other people maybe got something out of that scene. But for me, the weirdo was just a one note of pathos. Marge was quite adept at handling all sorts of odd ducks all thru the film, so it shed no new light on her.
As for Siskel’s angle… I’d have to watch it again, but I thought Lundegaard’s desperate bullshit was noticed by Marge during the first encounter.
Yeah, that whole scene between Barry Corbin and Tommy Lee Jones in No Country fits this bill, IMO. Granted some people were put off by that scene.
Not sure where else to put this, yeah I could start a new topic, but whatevs!
I just re-watched Inside Llewyn Davis. I sort of love and hate this movie. On the one hand, I hate the “let’s see how much crap we can pile on the main character and how miserable we can make him” style of film. That’s why I didn’t like “A Serious Man” (which many people rank very highly!) or “Synechdoche, NY” (which isn’t a Coen brothers movie). There is a lot of that in this movie, too; the cat, the missed royalties, the failed auditions, at one point he steps in a puddle and gets his sock wet. Just because. So I hate that about this movie.
But everything else is pretty great. Oscar Isaac is amazing. John Goodman is great, even though the existence of his character in this movie is sort of random. The music is great (not really my thing, but it works well in the movie), and that crazy impossible ending. The ending doesn’t really belong in this movie, but it’s weird and inexplicable enough that I like it, and it doesn’t really matter that it’s too weird. It doesn’t take me out of the movie, and so what if it did, the movie’s over.
And of course, as I never get tired of mentioning, there’s a scene where Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren sing a song about going into space with Justin Timberlake. So, there’s that.
Of the ones I’ve seen:
- Fargo
- Miller’s Crossing
- The Big Lebowski
- No Country For Old Men
- Raising Arizona
- Barton Fink
- True Grit
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
I have to watch a few of these again in order to give them a proper ranking. I’ve only seen No Country For Old Men, Barton Fink and True Grit once each.
I did see Blood Simple but I remember none of it for some reason.
I love ILD. It’s in my top 3 Coen with Fargo and No Country.
it is easier to write down the films that I didn’t like (yet).
It is O Brothers, Ladykillers, Hail Ceasar, Serious man. I probably need to rewatch them, because I watched them only once, and good works usually get better if you engage with them more than once.
Everything else, I just love !!!
Also thanking Fargo for the 3 Fargo seasons (still had no chance for the 4th season).
- A Serious Man
- Miller’s Crossing
- Fargo
- The Big Lebowski
- No Country for Old Men
- Barton Fink
- Ballad of Buster Scruggs
- Burn After Reading
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- The Man Who Wasn’t There
- True Grit
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Blood Simple
- Hail, Caesar!
- The Ladykillers
- Raising Arizona
- The Hudsucker Proxy
There are a few I haven’t watched more than once, but I’m pretty settled on the first ten.
They have such an interesting and diverse cume - top 5 are among my favorite movies ever; next 7 are all movies I’d like to rewatch as I think my admiration for them would largely increase; while the bottom 6 I think would be painful to have to watch again.
No Country for Old Men
Blood Simple
Fargo
Miller’s Crossing
The Big Lebowski
The Man Who Wasn’t There
True Grit
Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Raising Arizona
O Brother, Where Art Thou
A Serious Man
Inside Llewyn Davis
Burn After Reading
The Hudsucker Proxy
Barton Fink
Ladykillers
Hail Caesar
Intolerable Cruelty
- No Country for Old Men
- The Big Lebowski
- Fargo
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Burn After Reading
- Hail, Caesar!
- Raising Arizona
- A Serious Man
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
- The Man Who Wasn’t There*
- Miller’s Crossing*
- Barton Fink*
- True Grit*
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
(*Only watched one time. Would likely appreciate more with repeated viewings.)
Haven’t Seen:
- Blood Simple
- The Hudsucker Proxy
- Intolerable Cruelty
- The Ladykillers
EDIT: Looks like I ranked these back in 2019 too. My opinions on both Hail, Caesar! and Burn After Reading really improved after revisiting them.