Director's Spotlight: The Coen Brothers

They are one (two) of my favorite filmmakers, and their work just gets better and better every time I watch it. Even their lesser movie are worth re-watches. They are masterful visual filmmakers, but never to a distracting level, I don’t think. The visuals are always perfectly suited to the story they’re telling. Their odd, dark yet ridiculous and sometimes even juvenile sense of humor is certainly an acquired taste, but I generally love it. Each one of their movies has big laughs in it, and I think one of the few things they don’t typically have is an emotionality to their work. But even with that, there are scenes in No Country for Old Men and Miller’s Crossing that can bring tears to my eyes. When I made my list of top directors a couple years ago I put them as #9, and I think that's a little low now.

They skip across genres like the western, broad slapstick comedy, noir, musical, and often just blend them all up into one. But even working across all of those genres, each and every one of their movies feels and looks like a Coen Brothers movie. There's never any doubt about that. They are singular filmmakers, despite there being two of them.

1. No Country For Old Men – 10/10
2. The Big Lebowski – 10/10
3. Miller's Crossing – 10/10
4. Raising Arizona – 9/10
5. Blood Simple – 9/10
6. A Serious Man – 9/10
7. True Grit – 9/10
8. Fargo – 8/10
9. O Brother, Where Art Thou? – 8/10
10. The Man Who Wasn't There – 7/10
11. Inside Llewyn Davis – 7/10
12. Barton Fink – 6/10