Maybe you should start with a proper spilling of “which?”
“Trapping”?
@Dzimas & Roscoe: Mar Del Plata, Argentina
I don’t have an answer, but I would start by immediately striking The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers from the ballot.
@Dizmas, I belive that spilling and spelling are not the same word. Your probably wanted to write “spelling”. You complain about my writing, but yours isn’t any better. Besides, I made a typing mistake and this site wouldn’t let me change the title. If you pay attention I wrote the question again in my post.
but I would start by immediately striking The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers from the ballot.
Dude, you’re striking out Hudsucker Proxy with 2 of the best Coen characters-performances (nah, I don’t mean Tim Robbins of course) but NOT Intolerable Cruelty, probably a completely irrelevant film for the Coens, even next to the dreadful Ladykillers remake?
(although I wouldn’t vouch that Burn After Reading is anything “interesting” either)
F.B. — can you elaborate on how FARGO is “trapping”? Typos are typos, of course, but….
Fargo does sort of, um…trap you in its world.
I would go with Fargo because it’s most successful at presenting a devastating view of human nature. Even the bad guys never intended so many people to get killed, but we still see they are willing to risk their lives and take the lives of others for a slight difference in payoff.
Take Steve Buscemi’s character. Why did he argue over splitting the cost of the van when he was getting away with almost a million dollars? We take the position of the pregnant cop, we see it and just don’t understand.
My other favorites are A Serious Man and No Country. A love the way A Serious Man teases the Hollywood ending only to give us no answers and inescapable tragedy.
I’ve only seen half of their stuff so far (the two supposedly really notable ones that I haven’t seen being Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing), but my favourite is A Serious Man. It’s such a meticulously made and fascinating film, and the ending sends chills down my spine. I also really love Fargo. The Big Lebowski is kind of disappointing, I’ve watched it twice now and still don’t find it that funny.
It’s not worth trying to figure out which movie is categorically the best, but I do have a soft spot for The Man Who Wasn’t There. It probably follows noir conventions too closely for some, but that’s a part of what I loved about it.
Barton Fink followed by A Serious Man are my favorites …
Barton Fink carries a tone like no other and is probably the best work I’ve seen Deakins do for the Coens …
A Serious Man for the same reasons Cecil mentioned on top of just being some of their best writing.
A Serious Man is my favorite, its just so well made.
Millers Crossing, and The Big Lebowski. both for John Turturro alone
Sometimes I find the Coen’s brand of nihilism a bit heavy handed, so I prefer the ones tinged with humor, or in the case of my favorite Coen Brother’s movie, The Big Lebowski, dominated by it.
That’s easy. Fargo followed closely by Blood Simple and The Big Lebowski.
My head says No Country For Old Men. My heart says The Big Lebowski.
not saying it’s the best but my favorite is miller’s crossing. it’s such a marvelously detailed homage to the gangster genre. and yes turturro is awesome in it
Am I the only one annoyed by Turturro in Miller’s Crossing? He cheapened the film.
Barton Fink followed by A Serious Man are my favorites …
Agree, but for pure fun, I love The Big Lebowski.
Am I the only one annoyed by Turturro in Miller’s Crossing?
He was supposed to be annoying, and did a very very good job of it.
I’m pretty much with Schmidt – ‘Barton Fink’ and ‘A Serious Man’ are probably my two favourites. Turturro gives what could be his best performance as Fink – hilarious and scary.
I also have a soft spot for O Brother Where Art Thou? – it’s crazy but fun, and the flood scene at the end is one of the great surreal cinema moments.
fargo
barton fink or big lebowski depending on the mood.
raising arizona is probably the one i always watch though.
Fargo, closely followed by Miller’s Crossing. Lebowski and Raising Arizona are fun, but not in the same league. The other films, I don’t care for.
I’m not a huge fan of Miller’s Crossing and Barton Fink. Miller’s Crossing doesn’t hit the same discordance of opportunism with humanism as their other dark films like Blood Simple and Fargo, and in Barton Fink John Goodman’s character didn’t work for me, as well as the meta-indulgent bits about artistic vision.
Raising Arizona and Big Lebowski aren’t as good as their top tier but they are some of the funnest films ever to come out. And, O Brother Where Art Thou gave me a perfect Mother’s Day gift, and I really like the music.
I like Barton Fink as a satire of intellectuals and studio moguls; as for its mise-en-scène, I’d opine that the writer’s block and general confusion and uncertainty is displayed fairly effectively. Perhaps a little overly dramatic and uneven in places, but it’s still the only Coen Brothers film I’ve seen that strikes a chord with me personally.
Blood Simple.
Raw, rough, pure, undiluted Coen magic. M. Emmet Walsh gives my favorite performance of any Coen film easily, could be in my top 10 fav. turns of all time. Also has my favorite Burwell score. Easy pick.
F.B. Elliott
WHICH COEN BROTHERS MOVIE IS THE BEST AND WHY? Personally, I think that Fargo is their best. Not only because it is a thrilling, trapping and well done film, but also beacuse I believed it is the perfect combination between all the genres that these two directors have worked with.