Best Coen Brothers Movie - 2017

You could make the case for many of these, but I think Fargo is as close to a perfect film as they'll ever make, for reasons Ebert outlined in his No Country review:

Many of the scenes in "No Country for Old Men" are so flawlessly constructed that you want them to simply continue, and yet they create an emotional suction drawing you to the next scene. Another movie that made me feel that way was "Fargo." To make one such film is a miracle. Here is another.

I really love The Man Who Wasn't There, despite thinking it goes off the rails somewhere near the end. I couldn't make an argument for it being their best.

that might be my least favorite? at least, it made no emotional mark on me at all. i saw it in the theater and never revisited.

it's terrible

insert Film That Wasn't There joek

I can't watch FARGO again. I disliked it then.

it's overrated imo. to me the best thing about it is Margie and her husband's blandly reassuring domesticity

the closing line w/the shot of what is essentially a blank canvas (ie flat, snow white landscape) says it all

had to check this wasnt simpson thread

Starting with NCFOM, which I like a less than the other films they've made in the last ten years, their filmmaking has become more accommodating to the quirks of people instead of resisting them or pinning them against a wall; there are bits in BAR and TG that remind me of the Demme of Melvin and Howard.

"The Big Lebowski" because this is a comforting movie in the worst of times

the big lebowski is so long. every time i've seen it and it gets to the dream sequence i think to myself "i can't believe theres another half hour/forty five minutes left")

I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but I can see True Grit eventually being my fave Coens film.

not that far but i think its a complete effort in a way a lot of their stuff isnt

I haven't seen enough of their 2000s work (sounds like I need to watch Serious Man, at the least), but Lebowski is still by far the one I'm most likely to watch again. Though seeing it at my local theater a few years ago with the audience quoting every line was too much to take. I get why people say it's overrated

I think the coens hit their peaks when they get to tell shaggy dog stories

agree with this. the unassuming lead getting confused as they stumble through trying to make sense of it all is a winning formula for them. didn't get much out of no country, might need to rewatch, but I often find TLJ offputtingly hokey

when i first saw Lebowsk, after my friends having hyped it to me for years, I was like, THAT's what you've been raving about and quoting for years??

same thing happened to me

Yah

when big lebowski came out it was widely regarded as a pretty minor effort iirc, especially in the wake of Fargo. i saw it years later and i guess it wasn't but but...there's a reason it has a lotta crossover w/Boondock Saints stans imo.

O Brother is delightful, the frothiness of their farcical confections with the sheer comfortable rewatchability of Lebowski

A Serious Man made no impact on me whatsoever - both it and The Man Who Wasn't There I have never felt any urge to rewatch. But ASM is also the only one since Fink that I didn't see in the cinema (bar Ladykillers, which I will never watch).

Bad Santa should really be on the list too - it feels far more a piece of their work than, say, Crimewave.

O Brother is really outstanding, probably a bit overshadowed on its release by its soundtrack and the sense at the time that the Coens had kinda peaked, but it's their best movie between miller's crossing and NCFOM imo.

no country gets my vote here btw.

It's kinda nice to have the luxury of so many strong contenders for their best. I voted for A Serious Man, but I'd put a bunch of their films up there as excellent ones: Miller's Crossing, Big Lebowski, O Brother, No Country, and True Grit belong right up there at the top. And the also-rans I rate below that aren't exactly chopped liver either.

I ranked A Serious Man because for me it was like a magic trick, pulling a great movie out of thin air, as unexpected as a live rabbit pulled from a hat. It was crushingly funny and slyly true to life at the same time. Even better, the characters were foolish without ever being imbecilic, allowing for a kind of tenderness and deep understanding of the characters that's rare in a Coens' comedy. Just great stuff from start to finish. But you should have some familiarity with American jews to really appreciate everything they put in it.

alright guys i'm sold gonna finally watch O Brother this week

Do we give a shit about the Odyssey adaptation aspect of O Brother? It adds a level of enjoyment for me.
Aimless OTM above, also iatee with the "shaggy dog" comment. I always feel the Coens most strongly when the quotidian is foregrounded in a story ostensibly about bigger things - Margie and Norm bantering while a series of murders is unleashed, or the continual sidetracking of their protagonists by the random real stuff of life (i.e. the entirety of Lebowski).

It would be interesting to know how the Coens rank their films from favorite to least favorite.

a serious man may well be one of my favorite films ever

do you drink wine? because this is... an incredible bottle. this is not mogen david. this is-- a wine, larry. a bordeaux. open it--let it breathe--ten minutes. letting it breathe. so important. i insist! no reason for discomfort. i'll be uncomfortable if you don't take it. these are signs and tokens, larry.

I think I'll plump for A Serious Man too, perfect right to the final frame. I remember watching it and thinking "oh shit how cool would it be if they just cut here" AND THEY DID. No spoilers for the yet-to-enjoy of course.

i can't think of many other films that feel both warm and humane and completely bleak and shattering in quite the same way that one is

both alive and dead

intense focus on language and the frustrations of communicating

i am the walrus??

a serious man may well be one of my favorite films ever

there's a reason it has a lotta crossover w/Boondock Saints stans imo

What do you mean by this mean exactly? There's no comparison between the two films in terms of the quality of the writing, directing and performances. I understand Lebowski isn't everyone's cup of tea (and you're right that it was regarded as a disappointment at the time) but saying stuff like this veers a little too close to "the wrong kind of people like it" for me

Also underwhelmed when i first saw Lebowski, definitely suffers from being considered a classic in popular culture. But it's a film that shines best when you're bored and you stumble across it on tv, which is how it finally hit me emotionally. Ross is otm about how comforting it is, it's a movie you soak in like a warm bath.

A Serious Man really didn't make a mark on me at all, I should probably rewatch it.

That said, maybe I'm an outlier. I liked Ladykillers, True Grit and Hail Caesar. Damn it, I loved Intolerable Cruelty. And the answer to the poll is probably Burn After Reading.

when big lebowski came out it was widely regarded as a pretty minor effort iirc, especially in the wake of Fargo. i saw it years later and i guess it wasn't but but...there's a reason it has a lotta crossover w/Boondock Saints stans imo.

this is perhaps the most egregiously wrongheaded challop ever posted on ilx

boondock saints is the gaudy irish theme pub of post-tarantino cinema

gaudy Irish theme pub in Magaluf

with fewer sympathetic characters

id love to disagree but yep yep yep

A Serious Man really didn't make a mark on me at all, I should probably rewatch it.

Do non-Jews like this movie too? It felt very culturally specific to my experience (suburban reform/lite-orthodox Jewishness) in a way that nothing else I've seen (or read) has, except maybe "White Teeth".

(Which is to say, I think it's one of the rare movies you probably get more out of, if you're Jewish. Although my parents - both Coen fans - hated it.)

I'm a non-jew and I agree with

a serious man may well be one of my favorite films ever

One of the v few movies my dad (an atheist) and I agree on

My slightly challopsy curent ranking would probably be, from fave to least fave (leaving out the ones I've not seen, or not rewatched in an eon, which rules out Raising Arizona):

A Serious Man (2009)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Burn After Reading (2008)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Miller’s Crossing (1990)
Barton Fink (1991)
Fargo (1996)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Hail, Caesar! (2016)
Blood Simple (1984)
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

yes but read inascending or descending?

xpost

Fair enough! Some of the scenes are so specific - the barmitzvah, losing your place in the Talmud, all that stuff - I really got a kick out of seeing them onscreen for the first time.

serious man might be maxed out if youre jewish but as a lapsed irish catholic it still strikes powerfully imo

amen to that

(works on lapsed french-cdn catholics too)