Every Coen Brothers’ Movie Ranked, from ‘The Big Lebowski’ and ‘No Country for Old Men’ to Their Solo Projects

20. “The Ladykillers” (2004)

The only real failure in the Coen Brothers’ career is this shrill 2004 black comedy, a remake of an acclaimed 1955 British film of the same name that had starred Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness. The 2004 “Ladykillers” casts America’s dad Tom Hanks drastically against type as Professor G.H. Dorr, a maniacal criminal who poses as a courtly Southern professor to rent extra rooms from the kind, elderly Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall). When Marve discovers his plot to rob a local casino, Dorr and his band of criminals (played by the likes of Marlon Wayans, J. K. Simmons, Tzi Ma, and Ryan Hurst) plot to murder her — only to fail thanks to some slapstick antics. It sounds like a recipe for a good time, but “The Ladykillers” just never takes off — the screenplay feels too broad and nonspecific to delight, and the comedy and suspense never cohere or gel convincingly. The result is an utter dud where the specificity of the Brothers’ voices gets diluted to nothingness, and their weaknesses are amplified to unpleasant ends. —WC 

19. “Intolerable Cruelty” (2003)

The Coens initially wrote this ostensibly traditional rom-com as a work-for-hire, polishing a preexisting script for Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment. Once Howard and subsequent director Jonathan Demme fell out, however, the Coens decided to helm the film themselves at George Clooney’s behest. The result is an odd but interesting hybrid in which the Coens’ natural eccentricities seem to be at odds with their original mandate to deliver an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser (at one point the film was set to star Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant). It’s a beautifully photographed and superficially romantic film that glides along the eyes, but keeps hitting speed bumps as darker impulses emerge around the edges. Whether the wild tonal shifts are part of the film’s charm or its chief drawback is in the eye of the beholder. —JH

18. “Drive-Away Dolls” (2024)

Authorship is a major point of contention in queer cinema, so let’s get one thing straight: Ethan Coen’s solo directorial debut is co-written and edited by Tricia Cooke, a lesbian who is also his spouse. Yes, that’s a present tense use of “spouse.” If Cooke and Coen’s unique personal arrangement shocks you, then good luck enjoying a single frame of the married filmmakers’ wildly endearing, decidedly shaggy, and gay as fuck comedy caper. It’s steeped in mismatched genre styles and dark red blood; not to mention, it’s chockful of dildo jokes sure to put a lovable new spin on contemporary audiences’ evolving definitions of found family… member.

This spiritually sticky but still dreamlike vision of the U.S. in 1999 dares to sink into the salacious depths of queer night life, while steadfastly propping up its gay heroines as earnestly sweet and crush-worthy. Traveling from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) is a fast-talking womanizer from Texas with an insatiable appetite for patronizing, regionally specific nicknames who has pretty good intentions regardless. The soft masc-turned-walking pickup line — who sports the best chain necklace you have ever seen, by the way — tags along the semi-scenic Route 1 with the buttoned-up Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) after Jamie gets caught cheating on her police officer girlfriend, Sukie (Beanie Feldstein). When Jamie hijacks their suddenly shared ride — a Dodge Aries with dangerous hidden cargo that was meant to be picked up by someone else — the southern skirt chaser embarks on a clueless mission to get her persnickety copilot laid just the same.  

“Drive-Away Dolls” features as many pussy jokes and stylish flashes of ultraviolence as it has kitschy scene transitions and Linda Ronstadt needle drops. Still, it rarely feels too stupid or too serious to enjoy at face value as a dumb, feel-good movie for dykes. A boundary-breaking storyteller in her own right, Cooke has graced “The Big Lebowski” and other so-called dude movies with her subtly sapphic touch for years. (“Do you like sex, Mr. Lebowski?”) But here Cooke and Coen’s lesbian audience is finally given a front bench seat to a bumpy ride through intrastate criminal scheming told explicitly via outrageous queer film that centers and celebrates women. It’s a movie for lesbians who already love Coen brothers movies, and a perfect entry point for anyone (understandably!) curious about either of those things. —AF

Read IndieWire’s Complete Review of “Drive-Away Dolls.” 

17. “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” (2018)

The last Coen Brothers film before the two split off to pursue their passion projects feels a bit slight by their standards, but a breezy charm is perhaps to be expected from an anthology that fits six vignettes into a two-hour runtime. Another one of the duo’s Westerns, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” follows six violent, comedic tales of wanderers across the American Frontier in the era immediately following the Civil War. Like any anthology, there are highs and lows (“All Gold Canyon,” a sparse snapshot of a prospector played by Tom Waits, is particularly satisfying, while the Zoe Kazan-led “The Gal Who Got Rattled” stays long past its welcome), but a uniformly fantastic cast (including Tim Blake Nelson as a cartoonish singing gunslinger) keeps things afloat. The stories verge wildly, from joyful and farcical to melancholic and dour, which feels like the point in a way, adding up to a full portrait of the world the stories embody, and a subtle flex of just how much the Coens are capable of. —WC

16. “The Tragedy of Macbeth” (2021)

It’s genuinely nice to remember sometimes that movies can look like anything. Joel Coen’s first solo outing is as big a visual swing as any tonal one he’s ever made, with the kind of monumental and stark black and white set design that only Apple’s money can buy you. But “The Tragedy of Macbeth” feels special because of its performances. Kathryn Hunter’s take on The Witches is probably the best in cinema history, and Denzel Washington does Denzel Washington things with the Scottish tyrant, making both the ancient rhythms of Shakespeare’s verse and Coen’s own editing bend around him and feel spontaneous, alive. Everyone in this play — because for worse and mostly for better it feels like a play — is on point, from Frances McDormand’s Lady M to Corey Hawkins’ MacDuff to Alex Hassell’s especially haunted Ross. “The Tragedy of Macbeth” goes hard, which feels especially appropriate for the Scottish play. —SS

15. “True Grit” (2010)

After the mild disaster of “The Ladykillers,” the Coens’ second remake (technically just a second adaptation of the same 1968 Charles Portis novel, but still) went over much smoother. The highest-grossing film of their entire career, 2010’s “True Grit” grossed over $250 million at the global box office, and managed to stand firm with the 1969 version that won John Wayne his sole Oscar. Their lyrical, slightly nostalgic but real take on the Western story stars Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, a farm girl who hires alcoholic U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to help her track down the outlaw who murdered her father. Accompanied by Matt Damon as a Texas Ranger, the duo go on a perilous journey, and the familial connection they form as Mattie gets exposed to the harsh realities of the world makes the film one of the Coens’ most sincerely emotional films. Bridges is in perfect grumbly, weathered form, but the film’s lasting legacy is Steinfeld’s career-making newcomer performance, expertly calibrated work from the then 14-year-old that ranks among the best acting in any of the Brothers’ films. —WC 

14. “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994)

Cinephiles who never got over the Coens’ scrapped plans to cast Marlon Brando in “The Big Lebowski” can take solace in the fact that they worked with another one of the 20th century’s defining movie stars in “The Hudsucker Proxy.” Paul Newman gives one of the last truly memorable performances of his career as the scheming industrialist Sidney J. Mussburger, who orchestrates the kind of boneheaded stock price manipulation scheme that /r/wallstreetbets users can only fantasize about. When his plot to tank his company’s stock price by hiring a naive simpleton (Tim Robbins) to run the company goes awry due to the surprise success of the hula hoop, it sets the stage for what might be the most underrated comedy in the Coen brothers’ oeuvre. —CZ

13. “Hail, Caesar!” (2016)

The Coen’s ensemble comedy set during the Golden Age of Hollywood proved divisive upon its 2016 release, and it’s undoubtedly a messy project, frequently draggy and featuring an overarching plot that often feels entirely incidental. Josh Brolin leads a large ensemble cast (also including George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Channing Tatum) as Hollywood fixer Eddie Mannix (basically the only real person in an otherwise highly fictionalized entertainment landscape) who gets hired to help solve a ransom case involving the dimwitted lead of a biblical epic.

That overarching mystery falls by the wayside more often than not as the Coens use the setting to pay tribute to various classic movie genres, from Westerns to Busby Berkeley-style musicals. What keeps “Hail, Caesar!” from becoming a pure lark is its alternating cynicism and wonder; as much as the Coens stuff the film with loving odes and references to classic cinema, they’re still exacting about the brutal realities of showbiz and unchecked capitalism. And the parodies are often hilarious, with highlights including Tatum’s thinly queer-coded Navy-themed dance number and Ehrenreich’s hilarious turn as a singing cowboy cast disastrously against type in an urbane melodrama —WC

12. “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000)

One of the Coen films that tends to get flagged for its technical innovation, as the cutting edge (for 2000) color grading process does a ton to give “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” its own canted version of The Great Depression and the Coens take great joy in using that imagery for comedic effect. If nothing else, the movie should get points for having one of the best movie soundtracks, ever. Its in moments where the heightened setting and the musicality meet — as with the call of the sirens our heroes stumble across or in the various versions of “I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow” or the perverse coordination of a Klan rally — where “O Brother” feels like something really special, both within the Coens’ body of work and about America. This movie is bona-fide. —SS

11. “Burn After Reading” (2008)

Long before Ryan Gosling charmed the world with his Oscar-nominated performance as Ken, the title of the 21st century’s most iconic cinematic himbo belonged to Brad Pitt’s Chad Feldheimer in “Burn After Reading.” The hunky dullard and Hardbodies Gym employee remains one of the best comedic performances of Pitt’s career, stealing every scene in a saga about the Coen brothers’ favorite theme: utter buffoons finding themselves at the center of consequential events. While Joel and Ethan spent much of the 2000s leaning into the darker side of their artistic sensibilities, “Burn After Reading” stands out as a mid-career reminder that they can still churn out farces better than anyone else in Hollywood. —CZ

10. “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001)

The Coens try on the worlds of James M. Cain and cigarette-stained, black-and-white noir for this Santa Rosa-set, morbidly funny existential slow drip starring Billy Bob Thornton as a barber who “just cuts the hair.” Until he’s embroiled in a pyramid-turned-murder scheme involving dry cleaning, his floozy bookkeeper wife (Frances McDormand), and the department store head (James Gandolfini) she’s bedding. Cinematographer Roger Deakins shot “The Man Who Wasn’t There” in color and later converted it to B&W, which lends perfectly to the sorts of kitschy “Twilight Zone”-esque sci-fi narratives the film ultimately winds up sending up. Ed Crane (Thornton) cuts a mean figure as a miserable Sartre everyman for the ages, with the Coens hurtling toward — what else but — futile observations on how misunderstandings pile up into one’s demise, but nothing really matters anyway. —RL

9. “Blood Simple” (1984)

The sound in this one! When you look back on it, “Blood Simple” has a spare setup that it simply keeps following through to its logical, brutal conclusion. But the magic of the film, and of the best of the Coen Brothers’ work, is that it feels impossible and astounding while you’re in it. The brothers’ first collaboration is still one of their most alive and authoritative twists on a genre, seeming to show us everything but, like good magicians, misdirecting us with the hand that’s going to be nailed to a windowsill in a minute. The strong sense of place, the creeping dread, the fishes, and Frances McDormand: the ingredients that the Coens use to make great movies were all in there, right from their first film. —SS

8. “Raising Arizona” (1987)

The Coen Brothers’ first comedy film, “Raising Arizona” sticks out today as possibly the duo’s gentlest, sweetest movie, a hilariously funny but deeply empathetic story of love and family. Holly Hunter and Nicolas Cage make for one of cinema’s all-time great romantic pairings as Ed and Hi, a police officer and convenience store robber who meet when he’s being carted to prison and fall madly in love. Desperate to have children, they discover they’re infertile, and decide to steal a quintuplet son of a regional furniture salesman (Trey Wilson), setting off a madcap chase as the boy’s family attempts to get him back. Despite its frenetic pace and broad humor, “Raising Arizona” ultimately works because its characters are so deeply lovable and heartbreaking, good people whose determination for family leads them down the wrong path. —WC 

7. “The Big Lebowski” (1998)

Possibly the happiest accident in the past three decades of American cinema, the enduring appeal of “The Big Lebowski” is only enhanced by the knowledge that the Coen brothers never expected it to be much of a hit. While it was conceived as a simple parody of the film noir genre (its title is a reference to “The Big Sleep”), the film’s endless quotability and full-throated support for the art of taking it easy have elevated it into the kind of impossible-to-replicate cult classic that only comes around once in a generation. Jeff Bridges’ performance as “The Dude” juxtaposes perfectly against the film’s Gulf War backdrop, creating an iconic portrait of the last dying gasps of 1960s counterculture as America entered a new century. It’s a flawless blend of timing and material that you couldn’t reverse engineer if you tried… but sometimes there’s a man. —CZ

6. “Barton Fink” (1991)

Joel and Ethan Coen, channeling their own writers’ block on this post-“Miller’s Crossing” outing, explore the mind of a for-hire Golden Age of Hollywood writer (think F. Scott Fitzgerald or William Faulkner) who, dissipated and compromising his own believed integrity, figuratively sells himself to the devil for the sake of a paycheck. That devil without a pitchfork manifests in the form of John Goodman as the insurance salesman next door to Barton Fink (John Turturro, with full “Eraserhead” hair) at the grimy Hollywood hotel they’re sharing as playwright Fink churns out a soulless screenplay. “Barton Fink” enjoyed the sort of sweep at the Cannes Film Festival that the event has now made against the rules — it won the Palme d’Or, plus Best Director for the filmmakers, and Best Actor for Turturro. The Coens have been lucky to prosper in a career without compromise, but “Barton Fink” foreshadows what might’ve happened, with Turturro as their stand-in, had they sold themselves out. A murky murder plot is enveloping a grimness as the paint peeling on the walls of the Earle hotel, and watch out for Judy Davis, scene-stealing as ever as a secretary for a fellow writer who lost his perspective amid ghostwriting. —RL

5. “Fargo” (1996)

With the possible exception of “The Big Lebowski,” “Fargo” is likely the Coens’ most iconic film; its distinctive mix of snowy landscapes, hyperviolence, and Midwestern-accented politeness embedded itself firmly enough in pop culture that FX would resurrect it as a (very successful) anthology series a good two decades later. But with respect to the best seasons of Noah Hawley’s series, the original is still the best crime story set in the broader Upper Midwest region of the United States ever told. Frances McDormand, in her first Oscar-winning role, plays very pregnant and very kind police officer Marge Gunderson, who investigates a triple homicide that results from a disastrous and convoluted kidnapping plot involving a failing car salesman (William H. Macy), two career criminals (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare), and the car salesman’s wife. It’s a funny journey, with a wry sense of humor based on the specific culture of the Midwest, but it succeeds because the Coens sincerely invest in Marge and her emotional journey, as she’s faced with greed and ruthlessness that challenges her optimistic and kind nature. McDormand’s performance is perfectly calibrated, melding the film’s humor and thrills with incisive precision. —WC  

4. “No Country for Old Men” (2007)

“You can’t stop what’s coming.” Joel and Ethan Coen’s rigorously faithful Cormac McCarthy adaptation, “No Country for Old Men,” is so oozing with ominous portent that its very dangers, namely in the threat of serial killer Anton Chigurh, don’t need a cathartic payoff to seep into your soul. Sure, the death of Llewelyn Moss in an off-camera, violent Mexican gangster shootout isn’t shown to us, but it’s the filmmakers’ very denials of dramatic payoff that register as so haunting, bewildering moviegoers at the time. The directors’ established imprimatur aside, it’s astonishing that this pessimistic neo-Western won Best Picture at all, as its approach — almost no score, edits that elide whatever big bad thing just happened, no gunslinging horsemen riding off into a fading sunset — feels so anti-commercial and unlike any American studio movie before it. At the end, Tommy Lee Jones’ jaded and out-of-his-depth Ed Tom Bell stares into a void that only stares back, recalling a series of dreams first of a better world, and then of one whose light, when snuffed out, offers no hope at all. For all this masterful film’s philosophical leanings, it’s a masterpiece of form, so impeccably threaded and airtight that its horrors, if you care about movies and how they’re made, live inside you forever. —RL

3. “Miller’s Crossing” (1990)

After the raucous comedy of “Raising Arizona” the Coens took a 180-degree turn for this somber (though not without considerable wry humor) gangster tale, a visually stunning and spectacularly acted masterpiece that compares favorably with the many other mob films (“GoodFellas,” “The Godfather Part III,” “State of Grace,” “King of New York”) that all came out around the same time (fall of 1990). The screenplay remains the Coens’ best, an intricately plotted, thematically layered morality play filled with quotable dialogue and richly drawn characters. As they often do in their best work, the Coens manage to have their cake and eat it too, using iconography of past films as shorthand while synthesizing their influences into something wholly new, original, and emotionally shattering. —JH

2. “A Serious Man” (2009)

The Coens have never made a bald-faced autobiographical film exactly, but “A Serious Man” is their one story that most lines up with the details of their personal history. The two were raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota in the 1960s, by a Jewish university professor father. The 2009 film stars Michael Stuhlbarg as a Jewish university professor living in 1960s St. Louis Park, although its plotline of religious doubt and sudden personal change is (presumably) imagined. Maybe that closeness to their truth is what makes the underrated 2009 dramedy so effective; a philosophical and painfully relatable tale that contends with big questions and is smart enough to leave them open to audience debate. Stuhlbarg is particularly incredible as the lead, a man who responds to various shifts in his life both professionally and personally by seeking out religious leaders’ advice, only to end the film with more doubt than he starts with. Its abrupt end, with new tragedies on the horizon, is a jarring but effective reminder that new struggles will always come in life, making the film the most blisteringly honest in the Coen catalogue. —WC

1. “Inside Llewyn Davis” (2013)

The Coen Brothers have always excelled at crafting intensely lovable losers — criminals and freaks and sadsacks and has-beens and wannabes — but even by their standards, the eponymous Llewyn Davis (a pre-“Star Wars” Oscar Isaac, on the cusp of all that implies) is one-of-a-kind. Loosely based on the life (and stalled-out) career of folk singer Dave Van Ronk, the ‘60s-set “Inside Llewyn Davis” follows its title character over the course of one week in his knockabout life. While the week itself — complete with bad shows, worse recording sessions, a flirtation with frostbite, and a delightful orange tabby cat — is emblematic of Llewyn’s everyday existence, the Coens (and Isaac) never lose track of the fact that this is just one slice of his life. 

As entertaining and rich as the film is, many of its pleasures and truths work because it’s clear how much more is going on in both Llewyn’s life and the dirty, cold, magical NYC he’s trapped inside. Impeccably crafted from top to bottom, from a Coens-penned script that teeters between wrenching drama and throw-up-your-hands, “that’s life!” comedy to cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel’s loving lensing of a period New York. And that’s to say nothing of the music — the music! — from T Bone Burnett and Marcus Mumford that set Llewyn firmly into an era he never existed inside while also crafting a new musical legacy. Just like the film they inhabit, they zing from wacky jams (before his “Star Wars” turn, Adam Driver was out there issuing “wooopps” on “Please Mr. Kennedy” with his same Oscar-level attention) to heartbreakers like “Fare Thee Well.” It’s got everything, and all of it feels achingly real. —KE