MUBI brings you a great new film every day.  Start your 7-day free trial today!
Watch a new film every day for $4.99.
Try MUBI for FREE.
 

Burn After Reading

United States

2008

96 Min
Color
1.85:1
English
  • Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

   |   

DIR Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

EXEC Robert Graf

PROD Tim Bevan, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Eric Fellner

SCR Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

DP Emmanuel Lubezki

CAST George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, J.K. Simmons, Elizabeth Marvel, David Rasche

ED Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

MUSIC Carter Burwell

Venice (Out of Competition)

Synopsis

Osbourne Cox, a Balkan expert, is fired at the CIA, so he begins a memoir. His wife wants a divorce and expects her lover, Harry, a philandering State Department marshal, to leave his wife. A diskette of Osbourne’s musings falls out of a gym bag at a Georgetown fitness center. Two employees there try to turn it into cash: Linda, who wants money for elective surgery, and Chad, an amiable goof. They try to sell the disc back to Osbourne, who has a short fuse, then they visit the Russian embassy. To sweeten the pot, they decide they need more of Osbourne’s secrets. Meanwhile, Linda’s boss likes her, and Harry’s wife leaves for a book tour. All roads lead to Osbourne’s house. —IMDb

Director

Original

Ethan Coen

Born in St. Louis Park, MN, in 1957, Ethan Coen studied philosophy at Princeton University. Soon after he graduated, he and his brother began writing their first screenplays, and, in 1984, they made their debut with Blood Simple. Both of them wrote and edited the film, while Joel took the directing credit and Ethan billed himself as the producer. It earned considerable critical acclaim and established the brothers as fresh, original talent. Their next major effort (after Crimewave, a 1985 film they wrote that was directed by Sam Raimi), 1987’s Raising Arizona was a screwball comedy miles removed from the dark, violent content of their previous movie, and it won over critics and audiences alike. Their fan base growing, the Coens went on to make Miller’s Crossing (1990), a stark gangster epic with a strong performance from John Turturro, whom the brothers also used to great effect in their next film, Barton Fink (1991). Fink earned Joel a Best Director award and a Golden Palm at the 1991… read more

Original

Joel Coen

Combining thoughtful eccentricity, wry humor, arch irony, and often brutal violence, the films of the Coen brothers have become synonymous with a style of filmmaking that pays tribute to classic American movie genres, especially film noir, while sustaining a firmly postmodern feel. Born in St. Louis Park, MN, in 1954, Joel Coen studied at New York University before moving into filmmaking in the early ‘80s. He and his younger brother began writing screenplays while Joel worked as an assistant editor on good friend Sam Raimi’s 1983 film The Evil Dead. In 1984, they made their debut with Blood Simple. Both of them wrote and edited the film (using the name Roderick Jaynes for the latter duty), while Joel took the directing credit and Ethan billed himself as the producer. It earned considerable critical acclaim and established the brothers as fresh, original talent. Their next major effort (after Crimewave, a 1985 film they wrote that was directed by Raimi), 1987’s Raising Arizona was a… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 59 wall posts.
Picture of (☯)

(☯)

19Jan13

"Something snapped in my ass!"

Picture of kopfkompass

kopfkompass

3Oct12

Oder: Forget after watching.

Picture of kopfkompass

kopfkompass

10Sep12

Toll besetzt, großartig gespielt, unterhaltsam erzählt. Allerdings wüsste ich nicht genau, was eigentlich.

Picture of Alex

Alex

5Aug12

Big Lebowski is so great because of the characters, the plot doesn't matter at all, in this one only McDormand, Malkovich and especially Pitt characters are good enough to make the movie a good comedy. 3.5 / 5.

Related Films

Fans

Displaying 5 of 2559 fans.

Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
W184

Movie Poster of the Week: "I Am Love" and the Curious Case of Tilda Swinton

By Adrian Curry on February 26, 2010

What I love about this new poster for Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love (Io sono l'amore) is not just its gorgeous typography, but also how it celebrates

read article

Review: BURN AFTER READING

By Twitchfilm.com on May 17, 2011
The Coen Brothers take a jaunty journey through spy territory to discover America’s dark secret: We’re all a bunch of morons. Not that they’re letting themselves off the hook. By the very fact that they
read on Twitchfilm.com

Review: BURN AFTER READING

By Twitchfilm.net on July 16, 2010
The Coen Brothers take a jaunty journey through spy territory to discover America’s dark secret: We’re all a bunch of morons. Not that they’re letting themselves off the hook. By the very fact that they
read on Twitchfilm.net

Lists

Displaying 5 of 478 lists.

Reviews

Displaying 4 of 12

BURN AFTER READING

By Daniel A. DiCenso on September 4, 2011

No, it isn’t as good as the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men, but Burn after Reading is a perfect follow-up to the previous year’s Oscar winner nonetheless. No Country for Old Men, a drama about…  read review

sorry, i didnt like this

By Marcus WP on July 28, 2010

you know…its like, the coen brothers gain your trust, and then they pull some shit like they did with ‘Burn After Reading’. This movie is a tough one because on one hand, its probably one of the most…  read review

Just Fun

By Conner Rainwat​er on June 12, 2010

I actually really like this and think it’s a very different type of comedy than you might expect. It’s got a lot of kooky characters that aren’t exactly what you call clever trying to do so. In most…  read review

The Bourne Stupidity?

By Daniel McCarth​y on December 2, 2009

To be honest this is sub par Coens but even then there still hitting above what most other filmmakers do at their worst. It’s much better than either Intolerable Cruelty or the pointless Ladykillers…  read review

Forum

Displaying 1 discussion topic.

A Flawed Masterpiece?

46 posts by 18 people 4 months ago