For close to four decades, the Coen brothers have been one of the leading voices in American cinema, but how do their movies rank? The writer-director-editor team is the brains behind a slew of critically acclaimed and often commercially successful movies that span genres, themes, and styles, all while fitting comfortably under the umbrella of what has come to be known as the Coenesque. Whether it's comedy, thriller, drama, or noir, you know a Coen brothers movie when you see it.
It's tough to pin down what exactly makes a Coen brothers movie so special. While there's a lot of connective tissue between their films - a love for total dopes as heroes, deep irony, existential dread, a blend of jokes and violence - their movies are often as unique as they are familiar. It's a strange cycle of contradictions that defines few other film-makers, and far less on the level of recognition and acclaim as the Coens. What makes them so notable is their consistency, their prolific output, and their continuing evolution as storytellers, even after nearly 40 years in the industry. Often working alongside familiar collaborators – cinematographers Roger Deakins and Bruno Delbonnel, composer Carter Burwell, actors John Turturro, s McDormand (who is married to Joel Coen), John Goodman, George Clooney, and many more – the Coens continue to challenge and surprise even their most cynical viewers.
Coming up next, the Coens are splitting up for one movie, as Joel directs an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth with McDormand and Denzel Washington in the leading roles. That production is currently on pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic but is sure to be on the top of many a film lover’s most anticipated releases. The brothers are also working on the script for the latest remake of Ethan Coen, ranked from worst to best.
18. The Ladykillers
Arguably the only film in their back-catalog that feels like a total misfire, the Coens’ decision to remake The Ladykillers was always going to be a controversial one. The original Ealing comedy from 1955, starring Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers, is an all-time classic, a slow-burn and deeply morbid tale of bad men outwitted by the last person they would ever expect to take them on. On paper, it seems like perfect material for the Coens, but their adaptation is much louder and blunter in its approach. There are funny moments here and there, and Tom Hanks is clearly relishing the opportunity to play such a sleazy individual, but the final product feels labored in a way that doesn’t suit the material or the directors. For the first time, the Coens seem unsure of their own work.
17. Intolerable Cruelty
Given their popularity with critics and audiences alike, it's worth ing that the Coens aren't exactly mainstream film-makers. They don't bend their style or intent to suit Hollywood's tastes or the current industry trends. 2003's Intolerable Cruelty, however, feels as close as the brothers ever got to making an old-fashioned ready-for-primetime romantic comedy. It’s not a perfect fit for the Coens, who are more ironic and caustic than the conventional take on the genre typically allows. George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones have great chemistry in the vein of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey (whose films are a clear influence here), but overall, the film is one of the few unmemorable efforts by the Coens.
16. Hail, Caesar!
A lot of 2016's Josh Brolin plays Eddie Mannix, a real-life fixer for a Hollywood studio who is tasked with keeping the rich and famous in line: A dim-witted leading man has been kidnapped by a group of communist screenwriters; an Esther Williams-esque bathing beauty is dealing with a secret pregnancy; a guileless young cowboy actor struggles with being reinvented as a serious actor.
The best moments of the film come when the movie lets the Coens be Coens, especially in a hilarious scene where George Clooney, who plays the most wonderful doofuses in Coen movies, is increasingly won over by the tenets of communism. While the story is paper-thin, the movie beautifully homages golden age Hollywood tropes, from the Gene Kelly-style dance numbers (performed beautifully by Channing Tatum) to the warring gossip columnists paying tribute to Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper both being played by Tilda Swinton. Alden Ehrenreich walks away with the movie as the singing cowboy forced to be a Cary Grant type.
15. Burn After Reading
There are few things the Coens love more than turning Hollywood’s most darling hunky leading men into utter idiots. It’s the default mode of George Clooney in their work and for Burn After Reading, they also roped in Brad Pitt and gave him one of the best and most hysterical roles of his career. This black comedy about hapless gym employees who come up against equally useless spies and CIA analysts blends the broad laughs of a frat-bro farce with the hardened paranoia of a 1970s political thriller. It mostly works but it's all dependent on how much patience you have for this cavalcade of numbskulls. Brad Pitt in full Looney Tunes mode, however, is a comedic delight, and the Coens' keen eye for detail is on top form.
14. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
As with any and all movie anthologies, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs combines six disparate stories bound by the common theme of death and survival in the old West. Some stories fare better than others. "The Gal Who Got Rattled", for instance, is a stellar piece of work that fiercely captures the inherent contradictions of America's own myth-making surrounding its origins as a nation, and features a heart-breaking performance by Zoe Kazan. The inconsistencies in quality between the stories is to be expected for this medium, but the meticulous craft of each make them worth your while.
13. The Hudsucker Proxy
The Coens have never concealed their love of the works of Preston Sturges and 1940s screwball comedies, and 1994's The Hudsucker Proxy is their most lavish homage to those tales. The movie infamously flopped hard upon release, barely making back a tenth of its budget, and critics slammed it as a thematically empty pastiche. Fortunately, many changed their minds over the years and The Hudsucker Proxy has now won over a mighty fanbase. It's a mile-a-minute and delightfully overloaded screwball tale where everyone is talking as fast as they can and the art deco production design overwhelms the viewer as much as its story skewers the hollowness of big-business buzzwords. Paul Newman and Jennifer Jason Leigh feel right at home with this world and its dialogue. While it’s occasionally drowned out by its own ambition and scale, the laughs fly thick and fast.
12. The Man Who Wasn’t There
A love of film noir has defined the Coen brothers since their earliest days, and The Man Who Wasn't There sees them leaning hard into that ion for the first time since Blood Simple. Slowly paced and often abrasive, especially with Billy Bob Thornton playing the Bogart-esque protagonist with a deeply strange edge, the movie revels in its mixture of dense, near-philosophical themes and total emotional distance. Some viewers may find that off-putting but it works for this story of crimes, misdemeanors, and wrongful charges, while its stunning black-and-white cinematography coupled with an array of stellar performances (including a young Scarlett Johansson) make this film one worth re-watching or revisiting for the first time, as it remains one of the Coens’ most underseen titles.
11. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
It’s easy to forget just how big a deal O Brother, Where Art Thou? was upon release in 2000. The movie, a retelling of The Odyssey in the American South of the Great Depression, made a lot of money and inspired a brief mainstream revival of folk and bluegrass music, with the soundtrack even winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Reimagining a Greek epic, one of the key foundations of millennia of storytelling, as a Preston Sturges movie is the stuff of genius that only the Coens could pull off with this level of effortless panache. The loopy quality of the movie conceals a quietly sinister center, best embodied by John Goodman's character, and the translation of Homer's tale into this format is a cunning reminder of the Coen brothers' ability to remold almost anything into their inimitable style. It helps that the soundtrack is, indeed, splendid.
10. Raising Arizona
Charm often comes naturally to the Coens, albeit with a sly twist, but Raising Arizona sees the pair working at their most buoyantly delightful. A screwball tale that doesn't downplay or dilute is strange darkness, the movie feels like the offspring of a Mel Blanc or Tex Avery cartoon from the 1940s, complete with slapstick chaos and a truly touching family story. Raising Arizona is Coens at their most excesses, as they fling everything at the screen on top of their own growing technical prowess. It helps that the film is truly hilarious, in large part thanks to the committed foolishness of Holly Hunter and the perpetually game Nicolas Cage.
9. Miller’s Crossing
At the time, Miller's Crossing was considered a disappointing step down for the Coens, following the financial success of Raising Arizona. The movie didn't make any money and some wrote it off as trying too hard to subvert the tropes of the gangster genre. All of that cynicism overlooks how skilfully the movie straddles the gap between the past and future of such stories, as well as its thematic and creative denseness. It would take multiple re-watches to fully peel back the seemingly endless layers of Miller’s Crossing, from its old-school Hollywood roots to the ways its deliberately self-conscious approach to storytelling exposes the ludicrous fictions of these characters’ predicaments. Few filmmakers put together ensembles as perfectly cast as the Coens and Miller’s Crossing has one of their best, with John Turturro offering what may be his greatest performance of his storied career so far. It’s the perfect balance of style, substance, and strangeness.
