As Joel and Ethan Coen bask in the glow of another critical darling with the brilliant A Serious Man, we thought it might be time to look back over the quarter-century of filmmaking that these two amazing filmmakers have already produced and rank their already-beloved output. Yes, they've only directed fourteen films. So, the challenge is not narrowing a list of films down to ten but ranking them. And it's far more challenging with the Coens than you might expect.

 

The first decision that needs to be made is whether or not to include A Serious Man. Based on first viewing, the Coens latest dramedy is easily one of their best, probably top five material. But we realized when making this list that the films of the Coens that truly stand among their best have an immense re-watchability. Just ask the people who have seen Raising Arizona, Fargo, or The Big Lebowski a dozen or so times. And they change with repeated viewing and over the years. Having seen Miller’s Crossing several times in the nearly two decades since it was released, how can we possibly compare it to one viewing of A Serious Man? So, it's off the list. But know that it's good. Damn good.

This leaves us with thirteen films to choose from. Which three do we cut? Sadly, the controversial comedies, the two that didn't quite click with critics or viewers - Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers - are the obvious choices and, although we don't always agree with the obvious, this time it makes sense to leave them as runner-ups. Number eleven is a tougher choice but O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a film that has always left us colder than most. It was the Coens’ first misstep – every film they made before it you'll find in the top ten – and the first time that the word disappointment ever came into use when discussing their repertoire. It's certainly not a bad film, but it doesn't stand up to the work they did before and a few they did after.

 

 

"You're in league with that moronic woman. You are part of a league of morons."

Most people would probably rank Burn After Reading at #13 out of 13 in the Coen filmography. Screw most people. Burn After Reading is the underrated, dark comedy thematic follow-up to No Country For Old Men. That film posited that the world was going to hell in a hand basket and Burn After Reading elaborated by pointing out that the reason we're headed in that direction (or already there) is because most people are absolute morons. The world of Burn After Reading is one where everybody is reaching to satisfy an urge that they think the world owes them. They've seen so many movies and TV shows that they're ready for their shot at the spotlight ... except they're idiots. With underrated performances by John Malkovich, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, and Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading is just damn funny and features the sometimes misanthropic Coens letting that side of their cinematic personality run wild. They're not laughing WITH you, they're laughing AT you.

 

 

 

 

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners."

The Dude is not just a movie character, he's an icon. While you sit comfortably reading this, somewhere there is a room full of stoned college kids quoting lines from The Big Lebowski, watching the movie, or both at the same time. People adore The Big Lebowski largely because it's a rare comedy that doesn't rely on first viewing to be funny. There are plenty of comedies that can produce laughs the first time you see them, but it's the ones that strike your funny bone on the second, third, or fifteenth viewing that stand the test of time and there's something about The Big Lebowski (and several Coen comedies) that makes it immensely re-watchable. Part of it is due to the incredible cast with underrated work by Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, and Steve Buscemi. But it's mostly in the attitude of The Dude. He's a guy you just want to hang out with again and again. And when you're not hanging out with him, it's just good knowin' he's out there. If only we could all just abide more often.

 

 

 

 

"And that's the story of how Norville Barnes climbed waaay up to the forty-fourth floor of the Hudsucker Building, and then fell all the way down but didn't quite squish hisself. You know, they say there was a man who jumped from the forty-FIFTH floor? But that's another story."

The Hudsucker Proxy is one of the Coens' most underrated films largely because it's the comedy stuck between the more serious Barton Fink and Fargo. (I expect Burn After Reading to fall through the same crack being the "lesser" film between No Country and A Serious Man.) It's not the first movie most people think of when it comes to the Coens' early work but it is another near-flawless comedy, a great dark take on the films of Frank Capra with some spectacular performances by Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Paul Newman, and some of the best design work of their career. When we think of Hudsucker, after fondly remembering the amazing hula hoop sequence, we think of exaggerated, beautiful design. Those enormous offices, the giant clock, the perfect costume design – The Hudsucker Proxy is a movie that is simply beautiful to look at, an homage to the films that clearly inspired the Coens to make movies in the first place.

 

 

 

 

"I was a ghost. I didn't see anyone. No one saw me. I was the barber."

Easily the most overall underrated film of the Coens' career, this is another example of a film that is immensely visually memorable. With some of the best work of the career of the amazing Roger Deakins, The Man Who Wasn't There is a master’s class in how to use shadow and light in modern black and white filmmaking. But it's not just a pretty picture. The Coens started their career in the world of noir with Blood Simple and it's clearly a genre they know and love. They had already made a modern noir, so why not go back and make a classic one? The Man Who Wasn't There features a fantastic lead performance by Billy Bob Thornton (and one of the Coens' best supporting ones from a scene-stealing Tony Shalhoub), as a man caught in a situation from which there is no escape. Heavily influenced by the work of James M. Cain (Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice), The Man Who Wasn't There is another example of Joel and Ethan Coen bringing a relatively dead genre that inspired them back to life.

 

 

 

 

"If you point a gun at someone, you'd better make sure you shoot him, and if you shoot him you'd better make sure he's dead, because if he isn't then he's gonna get up and try to kill you."

What an amazing debut. The talent on display in the work of Joel and Ethan Coen was there from film one, a quarter-century ago. Watched now, Blood Simple seems like a perfect overture to their entire career. It features the shocking violence that would pervade a lot of their work and it features characters who think they have a firm grasp on what's going on in their lives or the world in general but discover that they tragically do not. The title reportedly comes from a Dashiell Hammett novel called Red Harvest and refers to the mindset that people find themselves in when put in violent situations. The characters in Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Miller's Crossing, The Man Who Wasn't There, even the comedies of the Coens – aren't they all a little "blood simple" at times? Even ignoring the reading of Blood Simple as an opening act to the Coens' career, the film is a thing of beauty on its own. It's a wonderfully spare film – the road, a bar, a woman, a murder – and it's also arguably the Coens' most honestly creepy and effectively dark film pre No Country. In 1985, Richard Corliss wrote in Time, "Watch this film, and these film makers, closely. Neither will disappoint." Who knew how right he would be?

 

 

 

 

"I gotta tell you, the life of the mind ... There's no roadmap for that territory ...  And exploring it can be painful."

The most obviously symbolism-heavy of the Coens' films, Barton Fink is yet another of their movies that gets deeper and more interesting with repeated viewings. Is it a story of the pressure of being a writer? Is it a commentary on the difficulty of capturing the common man? Is it a horror film? Another noir? At this point in their careers, Joel and Ethan Coen had been pretty genre-specific, making a noir, a comedy, and a gangster movie. Barton Fink felt like part of all three genres and its own. It had the mystery of the femme fatale a la noir, it had some very funny moments, and it ends in a hail of violence. And then there's the subtext of Barton Fink, the material that can get viewers discussing in coffee houses for days. How about his one? What if the hotel that Barton resides in isn't real? It's all just a journey literally into the head of a neurotic writer. As his sanity starts to unravel, the hotel falls into disarray. He kills his muse and ignores the common man in the room next door who got him to this point in his career. Until the common man revolts. There are other readings of the film that deserve discussion. All are right, all are wrong. It's a truly great movie that can support various interpretations to different people and still be just as interesting to each. Even read as a literal story of a struggling writer, Barton Fink, winner of the Palme d'or at Cannes, is an amazing film. With a supporting performance by John Goodman that deserved Oscar consideration and the brothers' most detailed design elements to date, Barton Fink is arguably the most ambitious film of their career.

 

 

 

"This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I'm liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah."

Simply one of the funniest movies ever made and if you don't think so, really, how did you get this far into a Coen brothers' list? If Blood Simple was the prelude to the darker material of the career of the Coens, Raising Arizona hinted at the comedy style that the boys would use again and again – unbelievably imaginative visuals, exaggerated characters, arguable misanthropy, and laugh-out-loud stupidity. H.I. and Ed are classic characters, brought vividly to life by Holly Hunter and Nicolas Cage. Raising Arizona may not feature the ambitious design of some of their later films or as much of the intriguing symbolism of most of their work (although it does have more of that than it's often given credit for), but it is unbelievably enjoyable, a film that's near-impossible to not smile through its entire running time. We miss the fun Holly Hunter of Arizona and the Nicolas Cage who was willing to laugh at himself. Heck, we miss the characters of H.I. and Ed and wonder what they're up to now. Maybe they're in Utah.

 

 

 

 

"Maybe that's why I like you, Tom. I've never met anyone who made being a son of a bitch such a point of pride."

Nineteen hundred and ninety is often seen as the year that produced one of the best gangster movies ever made in Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas. What is often missed is that it produced two of the best gangster movies ever made. Both films that history has proven superior to the Best Picture winner for that year (Dances with Wolves), Miller's Crossing stands with Scorsese's masterpiece as a genre classic. Of course, the Italian mob of GoodFellas has very little to do with the Irish war of Miller's Crossing, but we can remember marveling at the fact that as Scorsese was returning to a world of men with guns that he clearly knew so well two young filmmakers were exploring it for the first time with only their third film and delivering arguably the same caliber of filmmaking. Miller's Crossing is the film in which Joel and Ethan Coen went from "promising" to writer/directors who were clearly going to be a major part of the film world in the 1990s and beyond. They had made a great noir and a great comedy, but who knew they had the range to deliver something as intricate and remarkable as Miller's Crossing? With iconic imagery and the best ensemble performance of the career of the Coens to this point, Miller's Crossing works on every single level proving that the argument of style over substance holds no impact with these filmmakers. The style – the world of Miller's Crossing almost seems more created by the movies that preceded it about its era more than the era itself – IS a part of the substance. Miller's Crossing is a Depression-era gangster flick made by people who love Depression-era gangster flicks. Here's where the Coens started pulling out the inspirations that made them writer/directors and using them to inspire us.

 

 

 

 

"But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, ‘O.K., I'll be part of this world.’"

On a different day, this might have been #1. From year to year, it's hard to say which of the two crime epics that the Coens have been given Oscars for is the better of the two. Today, No Country falls to the second spot. Ask us again next month and we may change our minds. The Coens have returned repeatedly to two themes – "the journey or road of life" (think of all the shots of roads or travel in films like Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, Blood Simple) and "the everyman caught in a life-changing situation" (A Serious Man, Barton Fink, Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn't There). No Country for Old Men beautifully merges both. So much has been written about what works about No Country from the perfect performances to the amazing cinematography, but in a feature that's so pro-Coen, perhaps an interesting way to look at the film might be in the context of the other movies on this list. Is Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) really that different than the mythical biker who practically sprouts from the mind of H.I. (Nicolas Cage) in Raising Arizona to hunt him down after, like Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), H.I. takes his shot at happiness? Isn't Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) cut from the same often world-weary, everyman (or woman) cloth as Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) in Fargo? And isn't Llewelyn Moss just another Coen everyman dealing with a situation completely out of his hands? For years, the Coens had made films that took the classic movies that inspired them and reinterpreted them with their own vision. With No Country for Old Men, they practically did that with their own movies, taking the themes that they had explored before and going one step deeper.

 

 

 

 

"So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it."

There's not much fault to be found in any film on this list, but the reason Fargo tops it is simple – it's perfect. Having seen the movie a half-dozen times, there's not a single shot that looks wrong, not one line reading that feels insincere, and not one plot development that doesn't register as springing from the minds of two of the most imaginative filmmakers of the last thirty years. Frances McDormand's work is some of the best of the 1990s. Ditto William H. Macy. Double ditto Roger Deakins' beautiful, snow-covered cinematography. Everything about Fargo works. It may not be as thematically daring as No Country or even Barton Fink, but when we think of absolutely flawless filmmaking, Fargo is one of the first films to come to mind. Much was made of the Coens finally winning a Best Picture trophy for No Country, but they should have won a decade earlier for not only the best film of the 1996 (it lost to the good but absolutely inferior The English Patient) but one of the best films of the decade. Funny, dark, suspenseful, imaginative – Joel and Ethan Coen make absolutely no mistakes in Fargo. Most filmmakers, even the good ones, will never make a movie as good as Fargo. The fact that the Coens made so many on this list that came close hints at how much they've accomplished in just 14 films. Can you imagine what the next 14 will be like?