OPINION: The Top 10 Coen Brothers Films

The Coen Brothers are one of Hollywood's most magnificent gifts to the world of cinema. They crank out pictures that appeal to a mainstream audience while often being extremely bizarre and personal. Perhaps more importantly, for the purposes of this list, they are incredibly consistent, with only a few lacklustre films to their extensive directorial résumé. To celebrate the release of their latest, Hail, Caesar, I’ve put together a list of my top ten favourite Coen Brothers movies.

10. Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading manages to commit wholeheartedly to the Coens’ predilection for nihilism while being ridiculously goofy, to the point where it arguably becomes self-parodic. Featuring a very funny Brad Pitt as a witless fitness instructor and John Malkovich as a violent ex-CIA agent, Burn After Reading is a hilarious shaggy dog story, punctured by moments of uncomfortable violence, but it also feels un-substantial.

9. Hail, Caesar

The Coen Brothers latest is also perhaps their loosest. Hail, Caesar makes a cogent point about what it means to be an idealized Christian (which is strange, since it comes from two Jewish guys who seem to look at every religion cock-eyed), but that point is buried under an episodic tale of Golden Age Hollywood. It often feels like a collection of extraordinarily funny vignettes, but it’s all held together by its unwavering religious thread. The powerful thematic undercurrent raises Hail, Caesar above is disjointed structure into something subtly powerful.

8. Fargo

Arguably the most celebrated Coen Brothers work, Fargo is a fantastic mixture of the wacky dark comedy and discomfiting violence on which the two have built their careers. Personally, while I can’t fault it much, I find Fargo a bit too simplistic – both structurally and thematically – to truly soar. It’s a film I respect, deeply, but not one I can truly love.

7. Raising Arizona

My first Coen Brothers experience, and one that has stuck with me ever since. As a huge Nicolas Cage apologist/defendant, Raising Arizona is basically my catnip, as his wacked out performance perfectly meshes with this bizarre satire of the American dream. Everyone is on fire here (even the baby!), and its pace and jokes are unmatched by any other film on this list.

6. Barton Fink

I remember the first time I saw Barton Fink; I was baffled. Basically nothing made sense to me. So I saw it again. And again. I still don’t really get it, at all. But where I once found frustration in my inability to make heads or tails of it, I now find wonder. Barton Fink was born out of the Coens’ writers block during the making of Miller’s Crossing, so it seems appropriate that it exists in a realm full of unexplainable occurrences and unfinished thoughts. What makes the film so magnificent though, is the way that it makes all of its confusion feel, not only purposeful, but satisfactory.

5. No Country for Old Men

Adapting from Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name, No Country for Old Men may not feature much of the Coens’ quirky personal voice, but it so perfectly tailors to their darkest sensibilities that it feels completely at home within their oeuvre. Using a seemingly complicated story of a drug deal gone wrong to show the dying of the old west, No Country never wastes a second, never drags, and is never less than terrifying.

4.The Big Lebowski

Though kind of ignored upon its original release, The Big Lebowski has since grown to such influential cult status that it has its own religion. It’s a film full of digressions, non sequiturs, fantasy sequences, and, occasionally, beautiful lyricism. Supremely quotable, consistently hilarious, and utterly singular, The Big Lebowski may take the title belt for the Coens’ weirdest film, but it also shows that weird doesn’t matter when you’ve got the grounded presence of Jeff Bridges tying the room together.

3. Inside Llewyn Davis

A tragic character study about a man who refuses to utilize even one ounce of self-awareness, Inside Llewyn Davis is a startlingly beautiful depiction of the times moving past the stubborn. In that vein, it’s cut from the same cloth as No Country, simply replacing unflinching violence with unflinching assholery. Davis himself is a masterful creation, played perfectly by Oscar Isaac; a truly talented guy with no desire to evolve. Shot in purgatorial blues and blacks by Bruce Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis is a wistful and poetic film, and one of the best about an artistic landscape.

2. A Serious Man

This is another one that I couldn’t get into the first time around. A Serious Man, much like Barton Fink, is full of purposefully unexplained events. Unlike Barton Fink, however, A Serious Man continually and hilariously brings up this fact (“Embrace the mystery”) until its purposeful obfuscation of meaning becomes its very point. A Serious Man could be a powerful exploration of Judaism in an unfair world, or it could just be about a dude having a couple of really shitty weeks. It could be anything and everything; the only thing that matters is that it somehow feels spiritual and ritualistic in its destruction of Larry Gopnik’s life. It’s infinitely re-watchable and rewarding.

1. Miller’s Crossing

I’ll state it simply: Miller’s Crossing is the best Coen Brothers film because it understands the moral grey area that permeates its world (and the world it homages and references) perfectly. Every character is wrong and right, every situation tense and calm, every set piece funny and scary. It is a film about finding one’s place in a world that’s on a constantly sliding scale. Gabriel Byrne’s Tom is forced to decide whether loyalty even exists in this liminal plane, and his journey towards his decision is the best story the Coens have ever told. Its pacing, its characters, its action – nothing else measures up. In perfect revisionist fashion, Miller’s Crossing acknowledges its influences while transcending them. This is my favourite gangster film, and one of my favourite films, period.