Retreading Ground: The Best Coen Brothers Movie

Raising Arizona and Fargo are the top two for me.

So many great lines in Raising Arizona. One from memory from Goodman (that I hope I'm not butchering)

"I know you're partial to convenience stores, H I, but the sun don't rise and set on the corner grocery"

 

Blood Simple
Fargo
Raising Arizona

 

1. Fargo
2. O'Brother
3. Barton Fink
4. Miller's Crossing
5. Lebowski
6. Simple Man
7. Hudsucker (am I the only person in the world that likes this film?)

Somehow haven't seen No Country (2 small kids and I work too much I guess). Never liked Raising Arizona for some reason. Can't sit through the whole thing.

 

I'll give you Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation and Wild At Heart (as someone else mentioned), Matchstick Men and even Vampire's Kiss, but the rest might as well be remakes of Zandalee. I expect his next movie to be "Ghost Rider Treasure Hunter Gone from the Theater in 60 Seconds."

 

The beauty of the Coen Brothers' movies is that any one of them can be No. 1 depending on what mood you're in. The only current director in their league as far as versatility of style is Steven Soderbergh.

 

1. No Country For Old Men
2. Miller's Crossing
3. Fargo
4. Blood Simple
5. Raising Arizona

Worst: Intolerable Cruelty

 

"800 leaf tables and no chairs? You can't sell leaf tables and no chairs. Chairs you got a dinette set, no chairs you got dick! I ask my wife, she got more sense."

1. Raising Arizona
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Blood Simple
4. Barton Fink
5. Fargo

Don't know how many times I've seen Raising Arizona, but I suspect it's approaching double digits.

I need to give Miller's Crossing another chance. Saw it years ago and it just didn't connect, for whatever reason.

Agreed with Intolerable Cruelty as the worst. It might have been OK from another director, but I expect a hell of a lot more from the Coen Brothers.

 

"The Ladykillers"?

"The Man Who Wasn't There"?

 

Man Who Wasn't There is criminally underrated.

I can't rank them. I love them all.

In the top tier, though:

NCFOM
Lebowski
Fargo
Miller's Crossing

Just below:

O, Brother
Barton Fink
True Grit
Man Who Wasn't There
Raising Arizona

 

I really enjoy Coen Bros. movies because they are interesting, first and foremost. They splice genres, they write great dialogue and seem to pay attention to all aspects to a film, the setting, music, the look.
But I can't say I've ever been totally blown away by one of their movies, more just an appreciation to their craft and creativity.

 

Not a Nic Cage fan by any stretch, but his performance in Leaving Las Vegas was unbelievable.

No Country for Old Men is a great, great movie.

The Big Lebowski is a cult classic.

I generally like Malkovich, Brad Pitt and George Clooney, but Burn After Reading.......I don't know. Just didn't do it for me.

 

I thought Burn After Reading was beyond awful.