The Coen brothers are two of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time. They're certainly in the top ten, maybe even the top five. Much of their work has been widely acclaimed and showered with awards, including movies like Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and No Country for Old Men.
Of course, like most auteurs, their filmography can be a little divisive, and not everyone unanimously enjoys the same movies. Some, for whatever reason, just didn't click for general audiences. The result is one of the weirdest filmographies in recent times. These are the five best and five worst Coen brother movies, according to IMDb.
10 Best: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) - 7.7
O Brother, Where Are Thou? is unmistakably one of the Coen brothers' most unique films. For one thing, it's a modern retelling of Homer's The Odyssey that mixes in elements and pieces of mythology of the American South.
That alone is unique enough, but you also have to consider the period folk soundtrack and the sepia-tint that was the result of digital color correction (one of the first movies to take advantage of the new technology). It's pure filmmaking, and that is just what the Coen brothers do best.
9 Worst: Burn After Reading (2008) - 7.0
Burn After Reading had the unfortunate distinction of following No Country for Old Men, which is typically regarded as one of the finest movies of the century (uh, spoiler alert). This could have negatively affected its rating and reputation, but maybe it was just the quality of the film itself.
Unfortunately, not much is remembered about this one, aside from that amazing sequence featuring Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Maybe the plot was just too goofy and aimless for general audiences. It was a little more complicated and scattered than it perhaps needed to be.
8 Best: Miller's Crossing (1990) - 7.8
Miller's Crossing is one of the first Coen brothers films, and arguably the one that launched them to stardom. At least in the eyes of the critics.
This movie is a bit more straightforward and "traditional" than most Coen brothers' films, as it tells a fairly standard gangster story of warring crime families. And while it only raked in $5 million at the box office (making it a bomb), it scored 91% on Rotten Tomatoes thanks to its "distinctive style." It's an oft-forgotten Coen film, but a great one nonetheless.
7 Worst: A Serious Man (2009) - 7.0
You know, it's actually a pretty good track record when two of your five lowest-rated movies are still at a 7.0! A Serious Man is more introspective and philosophical than most Coen films, which could be one of the reasons for its relatively low rating. This movie follows a small town physics teacher named Larry Gopnik who searches for "answers" and "meaning" as his life slowly crumbles around him.
Of course, this being a Coen brothers movie, those answers are hard to come by and very, very scary. It's a fascinating story, but maybe it's a little too slow and "story-less" for general audiences.
6 Best: Fargo (1996) - 8.1
If Miller's Crossing didn't get the Coen brothers a seat at the high table, then Fargo certainly did. The film grossed $60 million, received two Academy Awards, and was declared the 84th greatest movie ever made by the American Film Institute in 1998.
Like most Coen works, Fargo contains elements of the bizarre and the unanswerable, particularly when it comes to human behavior. But it's also perhaps their most moral film, and this inherent goodness and purity is represented in the brilliant Marge Gunderson, one of cinema's greatest protagonists.
5 Worst: Hail, Caesar! (2016) - 6.3
Now we're getting to the true doldrums of the Coen filmography. Hail, Caesar! is their second most recent work (just behind The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), but it's already been forgotten by the general population.
In fact, not many people knew about it in the first place. Despite an all-star cast, this movie never really got off the ground. It was given a C- rating on CinemaScore and a 6.3 on IMDb, which clearly indicates general audiences' lack of enthusiasm. Critics enjoyed it a little more, but even they seemed to agree that it wasn't one of the Coens' finer efforts.
4 Best: The Big Lebowski (1998) - 8.1
Immediately following Fargo was The Big Lebowski, making this the greatest one-two punch in the Coen brothers' filmography. Despite receiving relatively "meh" reviews from critics (for a Coen brothers movie that is - 82% RT, 71 Metascore), The Big Lebowski continues to linger in the pop culture consciousness.
The movie is essentially a meme at this point (in fact, two of its most famous scenes did become memes!), and many of its most iconic lines are still quoted to this day. It's a modern day masterpiece.
3 Worst: Intolerable Cruelty (2003) - 6.2
You know what's not a modern day masterpiece? Intolerable Cruelty. This isn't really a Coen brothers movie, as they lack a "story by" credit and it was co-written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone (the Coens usually write and direct themselves).
Still, they did direct it, so we're counting it. This is actually a romantic comedy, which is far outside of the Coen brothers' wheelhouse. While critics enjoyed the "funny oddball touches" traditional of a Coen brothers' film, it seems like general audiences couldn't have cared less.
2 Best: No Country For Old Men (2007) - 8.1
The third and final Coen brothers' film with an 8.1 rating is their masterpiece No Country for Old Men. We say "their masterpiece" not just because of its high IMDb rating, but because of its numerous accolades and distinctions.
It appeared on more critics' top ten lists than any other movie released in 2007 (and that year saw There Will Be Blood!), and it was named the 10th best film of the century in a massive critics' poll conducted by the BBC in 2016. So, yeah, we'd say it's pretty beloved.
1 Worst: The Ladykillers (2004) - 6.2
If there's one Coen brothers movie that everyone forgets (even more so than Intolerable Cruelty), it's The Ladykillers. We don't know what went wrong this one. Maybe it's because it was an adaptation and not a Coen brothers original, but that's disproved by No Country for Old Men.
Either way, it seems like no one likes this one. It holds a 6.2 on IMDb (their lowest-rated effort) and a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics calling it "a relatively minor offering from the Coen brothers." And that about sums it up. It's not terrible by any means. It's just...so, so average. And therefore, so, so disappointing.
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