The Coen Brothers have a filmography like no other. Filled with adaptations, remakes, original narrative films, and screenplays for other directors, their work is something that varies person to person. So how exactly does one rank their movies? Is it even possible to do so at all?
Personally, I can. And I have. It wasn’t easy; I had to watch a lot of Coen Brothers movies that I maybe never would have, but in finishing Joel and Ethan Coen’s filmography, you can see exactly what works for them as filmmakers and what is maybe better left on the cutting room floor.
In my list, I have included movies that the brothers wrote but maybe didn’t direct (your Bridge of Spies and Gambits, if you will). Their entire filmography as a duo is, of course, also present, but movies like The Tragedy of Macbeth and Drive-Away Dolls are not included, as those are solo projects for Joel Coen and Ethan Coen respectively. This list is about joint projects.
So, without further ado, let us embark on a journey through the work of the Coen Brothers.
25. Suburbicon
Written by Ethan and Joel Coen, Suburbicon tries to do way too many things and nothing at all. The film is directed by George Clooney and maybe that’s where the lack of Coen Brothers charm kicks in because there is a disconnect between the quirky characters and the subject matter at hand. If it weren’t for Noah Jupe as Nicky and how hot Oscar Isaac looks when he shows up trying to figure out what happened to insurance money, this would be unwatchable.
But there are moments, like Nicky’s budding friendship with his neighbor who he just wants to play baseball with. For the most part, though, the movie is lost in so many moving parts that you never quite know what it is trying to say. Is it a commentary on the racism prevalent in this neighborhood? Is it pointing a spotlight on men like Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) who will kill his own family for a buck? Or is there something else there? I don’t know and I just watched it!
24. Intolerable Cruelty
A pile of fine, what makes Intolerable Cruelty the least exciting of the Coen Brothers collaborations is just simply that there isn’t that charm to it that the rest of their filmography has. Instead, you’re just watching it and wondering why you are supposed to care about these characters in any capacity.
George Clooney plays Miles Massey, a rich lawyer who gets played by a gold digging woman named Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones). She continues to make money on the deaths of her husbands and somehow, Miles thinks he will be different. It is … fine.
Directed by Joel Coen and written by himself and Ethan Coen, there was just so much that didn’t work for me with this one.
23. The Ladykillers
An extremely unnecessary remake, The Ladykillers has a lot of moments when you find yourself asking, “What are we doing here?” Directed by both Joel and Ethan Coen, this movie takes us into the mind of Professor G.H. Dorr (Tom Hanks) who has plans to rob a casino by using his landlord’s basement.
Dorr collects an eccentric team of specialists who all then have to pretend to be classic musicians in order for his landlord to not suspect anything. A remake based on the 1955 film starring Sir Alex Guinness, this take from the Coen Brothers just doesn’t feel like it is saying anything different, which is disappointing because the cast is incredible with Tom Hanks, Marlon Wayans, Aldis Hodge, J.K. Simmons, and more! But it is just not worth it.
22. Paris Je T’aime
Now, the short film that the Coen Brothers directed within this larger anthology is brilliant. But you have to sit through some ROUGH ones to get to it. There is joy to be found in the celebration of Paris taking place within this film, but not all of the films flow together and it makes it feel disjointed at times.
Their short is titled Tuileries and features Steve Buscemi as a tourist waiting for the train. It is quirky, sweet, and that oddball kind of charming that we have come to expect from the Coen Brothers. Some of the shorts you have to watch to get there though are just a lot.
21. To Each His Own Cinema
For this anthology, having only seen their short from it, I don’t know how much of the film is a struggle. But I will say that their short World Cinema is worth a lot. The film stars Josh Brolin as a cowboy who is going to the movies, with the ticket seller (Grant Heslov) suggesting which movie he should see.
It is simple and sweet because the cowboy comes out of the movie just so excited to talk about what he’s seen. He’s searching for that same ticket seller to tell him thank you, and that is what makes it special: It’s just a celebration of movies and how we feel when we watch them.
20. Crimewave
If you pair the chaotic nature of the Coen Brothers with Sam Raimi, you get Crimewave. I say that because the Coens wrote this movie and Raimi directed it. Well, Raimi also helped write it, so everything that happens in this movie makes sense when you think about it through that lens. Starring Reed Birney as Victor Ajax, it is a slapstick comedy about lies, crime, and Bruce Campbell in a suit.
Part of why I love this movie is because I do love whenever Bruce Campbell appears in literally anything. So while there were many moments in this movie where I just fully did not understand what was going on, I was still having a fun time.
19. Blood Simple
The first movie for the duo, Blood Simple is a typical idea from the Coen Brothers but without their wit. You can see the foundation of what makes a Coen Bros. movie so much fun to watch, but it is lost in this real-world-stakes vibe that the characters bring to the story. It’s like if you took Fargo and made it so incredibly serious.
It features Frances McDormand as Abby, a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage with Julian (Dan Hedaya). When her lover Ray (John Getz) finds Julian shot dead, he decides to try to hide the body, and it drives him to presumed madness as he is being hunted to cover up the crime.
If I had never seen a Coen Brothers movie, I feel like I would have liked Blood Simple more. But a lot of this movie had me just wishing it had the energy of other films in their catalog.
18. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Before I watched The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, I thought that Tim Blake Nelson played a larger role. In the film itself, we see segments of a story connected together through the backdrop of the old west. The post-Civil War setting gives us a specific time in our cowboy lore, but the movie as a whole is focused more intently on each vignette and its importance in that moment.
Different from Paris Je T’aime and To Each His Own Cinema because Ethan and Joel Coen directed the entire thing, it still has moments where you wonder why exactly you’re watching this story. Still, it’s fun to dive into and its format gives us a chance to understand more characters in this world rather than if we were with Nelson’s Buster Scruggs the entire time.
17. Burn After Reading
Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) think they are smart enough to get money for the memoirs of a former CIA analyst (John Malkovich). It’s a Coen Brothers movie so you know that it isn’t that simple. Out of their quirky comedy heist movies, this is probably the one that I could take or leave. And still, it’s pretty great.
Filled with characters that are constantly rubbing their only two braincells together, Burn After Reading is one of those movies where if you had to show someone the “schtick” of the Coen Brothers, you could just show them this, and they’d pretty much understand.
16. The Man Who Wasn’t There
Billy Bob Thorton plays a barber named Ed Crane who falls into a world completely different from his typical barber shop days. When he discovers that his wife, Doris (Frances McDormand), is cheating on him, he decides he needs a change. Shot completely in black and white, it has a noir feel to it but still feels slightly lackluster throughout the film.
While it’s still filled with the quirk we have come to know from the brothers, with just Joel Coen’s direction, we are left with a somewhat boring movie until the third act, which really sells the mystery and crime elements it’s taken the rest of the movie to set up.
15. Gambit
The remake of Gambit, written by the Coen Brothers and directed by Michael Hoffman, is cute. I don’t know if cute is what the movie is going for when it’s a movie all about tricking a wealthy man (Alan Rickman) out of his money and into trusting his better employee (Colin Firth). What is cute about it does boil down to Firth running around in his underwear.
While the plot is pretty basic, it is a fun watch that doesn’t really sway you either way on the movie as a whole, but getting to see Alan Rickman and Colin Firth go toe to toe is worth it.
14. Barton Fink
What in the world is John Turturro up to and why do I love it so? Turturro plays Barton Fink, a playwright who comes to Los Angeles from New York and is confronted with Hollywood in the worst possible ways. Forced to write a boxing movie, holed up in a broken down hotel, and surrounded by characters he doesn’t want to meet, Fink has to find a way to be true to his art while still appeasing the Hollywood machine.
He meets his neighbor Charlie (John Goodman), and the two strike up an unlikely friendship as Fink struggles to finish his screenplay. Weird as can be and uneasy at times, Barton Fink has just the right amount of Coen oddity mixed in to make it intriguing and fun to watch.
13. Bridge of Spies
The Steven Spielberg film Bridge of Spies is a standout for the Coen Brothers. While they have taken a more “serious” turn in the past, what works with the combination of their tone and Spielberg’s direction comes from the courtroom moments of this film.
Spielberg making a historical film is not a rare thing. For the Coen Brothers, it is less of a norm for them. So, to see how they tackle a story like lawyer James Donovan’s involvement in helping to bridge the gap between countries to save individuals is honestly pretty great and makes Bridge of Spies something special.
12. Unbroken
Continuing their true story films, next comes Unbroken. Directed by Angelina Jolie, the movie is focused on Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) when he is brought into World War II after his time as a Olympic runner. Look, did this man really fight off a shark and also kill a shark and eat it? I don’t know, but he could run really fast, and the movie does make that very clear.
Unbroken was the last of the Coen Brothers movies that I needed to watch to complete the filmography. Maybe that made me love the absolutely unhinged moments in this movie, but it did make me cry in the end when actual Zamperini ran at the Olympics again in Japan, as an older man. Then Coldplay started to play and I was laugh-crying. Anyway, Italians, we’ll kill sharks if we have to, apparently!
11. A Serious Man
Never has a man’s midlife crisis been more fascinating to watch. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is left by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) to go out with his annoying friend, Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed). Watching as Larry has to come to terms with his less than exciting life and how that has been uprooted is surprisingly fun.
It’s probably completely down to Stuhlbarg’s performance and his ability to make you care about what a character has to say with just one glance, but still, A Serious Man should not be as fascinating as it is, and yet you will find yourself captivated by it.
10. Miller’s Crossing
Rough times are out there when liquor isn’t freely flowing. Miller’s Crossing feels like the typical kind of Coen Brothers vibe but it had a bit of a dark twist to it that makes their fun chaotic energy not really a focal point. Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) is caught between two mafia gangs and trying to still have his cake and eat it too, especially when it comes to Verna Bernbaum (Marcia Gay Harden).
Switching sides and working with the Italian mafia, Reagan is trying to just stay alive and stay in the game. It’s truly and easy watch and something that is surprisingly thrilling to embark on.
9. The Hudsucker Proxy
You can be a good employee or face sudden death. The Hudsucker Proxy allows for the absurd to be normalized, and it leads to Tim Robbins creating the hoola-hoop. Barnes (Robbins) starts in the mailroom, and when a letter needs to get to Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman), he takes it and has his shot to rise to the top of the company.
Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and when she begins investigating Mussburger and the company, she ends up falling in love with Norville. It’s weird, zany, and maybe the hottest Tim Robbins has ever looked.
8. Hail, Caesar!
The pictures! Alden Ehrenreich! It’s perfect. Hail, Caesar! may not be at the top of everyone’s list, but it is up there for me. A love letter to movies and Hollywood as a whole, Hail, Caesar! is honestly a better movie than things like Babylon, but maybe that is just a me thing. Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) has a lot on his plate. He’s in charge of making sure the actors and the studio are happy, but when Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) gets kidnapped, all hell breaks loose trying to keep the movies alive.
Hail, Caesar! is my celebration of Hollywood! It’s the movie that I think really captures what we know and love about the process of making movies but also makes sure to give us distinctly different characters and references to connect with and is just an overall fun time to watch.
7. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Now, O Brother, Where Art Thou? was a movie that I’d heard tell of but had never seen. Watching it and seeing the Odyssey brought to life was a fascinating ride from start to finish. Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) doesn’t really see himself completing his sentence, so he flees his work on the railroad with the two prisoners attached to him: Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) and Pete (John Turturro). Trying to escape the law and stay alive, the three find themselves in terrifying situations.
What ensues is them becoming The Soggy Bottom Boys. It really is a “Where’s Fluffy” situation, but if it were set in Mississippi and based on The Odyssey.
6. Fargo
I waited a long time to watch Fargo for whatever reason, and while I ended up loving it, it still didn’t crack my top 5. With a murder in small town Minnesota (and also North Dakota), many get lost in the accents and the jokes, but the fun of Fargo comes down to the outrageous characters we are on this journey with.
I think it is very much the foundation of a lot of our new love of detective stories (and did spawn a show of the same name), but I do think there are other Coen Brothers movies I like more.
5. No Country for Old Men
There is nothing quite like a Cormac McCarthy novel. That’s something I’ve thought to myself often since going through my McCarthy phase when I was in high school, and one of his most famous novels is No Country for Old Men. A novel that is enthralling and captivating (if you can ignore the lack of punctuation that exists in all of McCarthy’s work), this story just has something about it that we cannot get enough of. And mixing that with the Coen Brothers’ style really makes for a winning combination.
Find some money out in the wilderness while you’re hunting? Maybe leave it there. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin)Â comes upon a drug deal gone wrong and takes the cash for himself. What it results in is Chigurh (Javier Bardem) hunting him instead. Dark, dangerous, and gory, the Coen Brothers’ adaptation of No Country for Old Men is one of my favorite novel-to-film adaptations of all time.
4. True Grit
Did I cry over this movie because Jeff Bridges and my dad looked alike? I will never tell! (I did.) True Grit is a remake of the 1969 film of the same name. Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) is hired by Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) to avenge her father. Killed at the hand of Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), Mattie and Rooster begin a quest to find him, but they’re not the only ones on the hunt for Chaney. Along their journey, they discover a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) also searching for him, and the three embark on an Old West journey together.
It is no surprise that I love a Jeff Bridges movie. Since I was a child, I have said that Bridges and my father look alike, and they even act alike. Maybe that was spawned from another Coen Brothers movie, but True Grit showed not only how Bridges can adapt to any role but how he can work with the Coen Brothers in a different genre than before, and it really is a beautiful remaking of the ’69 film.
3. Raising Arizona
Nic Cage! Holly Hunter! Chaos! Stolen babies! I love Raising Arizona so incredibly much. When I think of Cage movies that I show people to highlight how good he is when he’s tuned in, I instantly think of Raising Arizona. H. I. McDunnough (Cage) is in jail when he meets his love, Ed (Hunter). The two fall in love, but they can’t have children of their own. So why not just steal one?
Even the rich love all of their children, even if they have multiple babies to love instead, and the farce becomes a hilarious race to return a baby that was never H.I. and Ed’s to its rightful parents. This kind of comedy from the Coen Brothers is just so tuned in and fast-paced, and I absolutely love how much fun this movie is.
2. The Big Lebowski
When I say my dad is the Dude, I mean it. Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is mistaken for a rich man with the same name, and people piss on his rug. And if there is one thing the Dude cannot abide, it is someone ruining his rug. There are so many staples of the Coen Brothers’ filmography that stem from how beloved The Big Lebowski is. We all know that when you see a White Russian, you’re talking about the Dude.
If you see that sweater, you think about him sitting in a bowling alley and talking to Sam Elliot. You cannot see a Folgers can without thinking about how Donny (Steve Buscemi) is in there. So much of who I am (and who other Coen Bros. fans are) stems from my deep love of this movie. It is just a pinnacle of their filmmaking ability and the movie that really encompasses everything about their style that makes them special.
1. Inside Llewyn Davis
Inside Llewyn Davis altered my brain chemistry in some kind of way the first time I saw it. Tie it to my love of Bob Dylan, or maybe it is just that I too would carry a cat in my arms, but there is so much about this movie that just dug its claws into me and stayed there, making it one of my favorite movies of all time, not just of the Coen Brothers’ filmography.
Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a musician who gets in his own way. Constantly doubting himself, those around him, and everything else in his life, he begins to think he can make a name for himself in folk music during arguably the worst time to do it (the rise of Bob Dylan). It is heartbreaking to watch Llewyn finally come around to believing in himself and watching it crash around him, and so much of his own issues come from Llewyn making the worst decisions.
I love everything about this movie and it is truly the best of the Coen Brothers’ filmography and one of the best movies ever made.
(featured image: 20th Century Studios/CBS Films/Focus Features/Paramount Pictures)
Published: Mar 8, 2024 11:05 am