Every Coen Brothers Movie Ranked

When it comes to American cinema's most distinctive voices, few duos have carved out as singular a niche as Joel and Ethan Coen. For over four decades, the brothers have built a filmography that cannot be categorised – moving between pitch-black neo-noir and screwball farce, it all maintains an unmistakably Coen-esque sensibility that blends dark humour, meticulous details, and plenty of absurdism.

From the blood-soaked highways of No Country For Old Men to the sunny bowling alleys of The Big Lebowski, the Coens have consistently demonstrated an ability to hop between genres while never losing their directorial fingerprints. Their world is one where hapless protagonists stumble into increasingly dire circumstances, where fate seems to have a particularly twisted sense of humour, and where every frame is composed with pure precision. Whether they're channelling classic Hollywood through their own warped lens or creating entirely new forms of cinematic mayhem, Joel and Ethan have proven themselves to be true auteurs.

Following the release of Ethan’s latest crime caper Honey Don’t, Team Empire gathered to rank the brothers' complete filmography. From barbers to bounty hunters, pregnant cops to philosophical hit men, there's a Coen creation for every mood – though fair warning, that mood will likely involve at least a touch of existential dread served with a side of dry wit.

20) The Ladykillers

“It was a great plan, except for the human element. So many plans fail to take into account the human element,” drawled Alec Guinness’ sinister Professor Marcus in the 1955 Ealing-comedy classic The Ladykillers. The Coens remaking said classic seemed like a great plan itself: the tale of a band of hardened criminals taking on a sweet old widow seemed like prime grist for the brothers’ sly mill. And yet… the human element bungled the whole damn scheme. With the action transplanted from London to Mississippi, even Tom Hanks comes off as charmless, and the less said about JK Simmons’ character Garth Pancake (who suffers from IBS; LOL) the better. Shrill, manic and noisy — Roger Ebert called the performances “over-the-top in a way rarely seen outside Looney Tunes” — it’s the Coens’ worst film. NDS

Read Empire's review of The Ladykillers.

19) Intolerable Cruelty

What do you get when you take two of American cinema's great 'outside of the box' filmmakers and have them try and colour within the lines for a change? The answer is Intolerable Cruelty. Actually fairly tolerable and nice enough as it goes, the Coens' 10th directorial outing — a screwball divorce comedy driven by prime George Clooney's unparalleled rizz and Catherine Zeta-Jones channelling her inner Lauren Bacall to go (almost) full femme-fatale — is a crowd-pleaser by design, and to that end it's a resounding success. You just can't help feeling it's not quite their design. Still, the abundant laughs, star power, and lovely cinematography are enough to ensure that even a quote-unquote 'lesser' Coens joint is still a damn good time at the movies. JK

Read Empire's review of Intolerable Cruelty.

18) The Man Who Wasn’t There

Having riffed on Dashiell Hammett (Miller's Crossing) and Raymond Chandler (The Big Lebowski) already, the Coens turned to another great American crime writer, Double Indemnity author James M. Cain, for inspiration when it came to The Man Who Wasn't There. A monochromatic yarn spun around a barber (Billy Bob Thornton in a toupée) whose wife (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with her boss (James Gandolfini), the Coens' decision to follow up the zesty madness of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (more on that further down) with a largely downbeat loser-noir joint may be a cynical bridge too far for some — even those accepting of the brothers' famously misanthropic moviemaking disposition. But for its defenders, this 2001 oddity sits as a sort of experimental, lesser cited B-Side triumph amid the generational hits that came before and after. JK

Read Empire's review of The Man Who Wasn't There.

17) Drive-Away Dolls

Ostensibly Ethan Coen’s first solo outing (rock doc Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble In Mind aside), Drive-Away Dolls actually begins another partnership – it was conceived and co-written with his wife Tricia Cooke. The result is a winning queer twist on the road-trip movie, following friends-with-a-vibe Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) as they travel from Philadelphia to Tallahassee while unknowingly carrying a suitcase containing dangerous bounty in their car, with crooks hot on their trail. There’s more heart to be found in this ‘90s-set crime caper than many of the brothers’ paired ventures, with Qualley and Viswanathan’s chemistry the film’s driving force. It doesn’t sacrifice big laughs, either, particularly once the nature of said bounty is revealed. It’s pure pulp fiction, but Pulp Fiction this ain’t. BW

Read Empire's review of Drive-Away Dolls.

16) The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs

We’re guessing that if Joel and Ethan ever visited Disneyland as kids, they dashed straight for Frontierland. In this sun-sizzled anthology – the Coens’ first movie to use digital cameras – they have the time of their life romping around the Wild West: there are pistol-fights (one deploying a mirror to ingenious effect), greedy gold prospectors, wagons, stagecoaches and enough cowboys to pack out Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Playful and morbid by turns, it’s stuffed with iconic names, from Tom Waits to Liam Neeson, but best of all is Coens regular Tim Blake Nelson as the titular Scruggs, a cartoonish troubadour with a goofy grin and deadly aim. It doesn’t all work, but when it does it’s a hell of a lot of fun. The MVP: obviously, the mathematical chicken. NDS

Read Empire's review of The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs.

15) Hail, Caesar!

Would that it were so simple? Hail, Caesar! sees the Coens homage the ‘50s studio system, channelling the glitz and thrills of Hollywood’s Golden Age via Josh Brolin’s Eddie Manix – a studio “fixer” cleaning up the entertaining messes caused by the stars of Capitol Pictures. When one of their own, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), is kidnapped, Eddie must call upon the industry at large in a bid to track him down. The film is a smorgasbord of beguiling performances, chiefly Alden Ehrenreich as a fish-out-of-water Western actor trying to pivot to comedy-of-manners, while Channing Tatum throws every inch of his dance expertise at his Gene Kelly archetype. For all its dazzling veneer, there’s plenty of wry wit for Hail, Caesar! to hold its own in the Coen canon. BW

Read Empire's review of Hail, Caesar.

14) The Tragedy Of Macbeth

Denzel Washington’s first lines in Joel Coen's Shakespeare adaptation match exactly those of the source material – “So foul and fair a day I have not seen" – and from there, the stage is set for a traditional take on the Bard's epic tragedy. The Tragedy Of Macbeth marked the first time the Coen brothers fully parted ways, and with its striking black and white cinematography, brooding performances, and complete absence of humour, it unmistakably highlights the Joel side of the brothers’ equation. Yet with Washington in his element and Kathryn Hunter delivering the most unforgettable take on those pesky witches to date, the film stands tall as a haunting, singular vision – a loyal take on a classic tale. HS

Read Empire's review of The Tragedy Of Macbeth.

13) The Hudsucker Proxy

“You know — for kids!” So goes the repeated refrain in one of the Coens’ most oddball entries, which is anything but suitable for children (suicide and stock fraud are among its themes). Only their fifth film, it was an early sign that these two would not just be churning out the same old stuff, their interests too esoteric to be pinned down. Set in the 1950s, Tim Robbins plays the hapless young inventor of the hula hoop, Paul Newman his scurrilous cigar-chomping boss, and — in a film-stealing role — Jennifer Jason Leigh as the fast-talking, fast-typing crack reporter hot on their tails. It bombed in 1994, its throwback screwball sensibilities perhaps too strange, but a cult fan base now rightly appreciates its art deco stylings, sly humour, and endlessly quotable dialogue. JN

Read Empire's review of The Hudsucker Proxy.

12) Burn After Reading

Released at the tail end of the Bush administration, Burn After Reading channels an era of American idiocy in a goofy – and occasionally gory – political satire. John Malkovich is on deliciously droll form as Osborne Cox, the ex-CIA analyst whose leaked memoir threatens the release of classified state secrets, which Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand’s gym-bunny dummies hope to extort. The result is a freewheeling farce in which an all-star ensemble (George Clooney and Tilda Swinton are here too) chases after lost intelligence while displaying little of their own – an intentionally convoluted “clusterfuck” summarised in a gloriously funny closing reel with JK Simmons. Post-No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading initially received mixed reviews for its slightness – now more celebrated as a short, sharp, silly blast. BT

Read Empire's review of Burn After Reading.

11) True Grit

For all their desert-set fare, the Coens had never really made a straight-up Western until they decided to put their spin on a 1969 John Wayne classic – reteaming with ‘The Dude’ himself, Jeff Bridges, while also shepherding an all-timer acting debut from Hailee Steinfeld. As the fiercely determined Mattie Ross, Steinfeld goes toe-to-toe with acting titans, dragging Bridges’ drunken, trigger-happy Rooster Cogburn on the trail of her father’s killer. The mismatched pair make for one of the Coens’ finest double acts, their bickering banter playing out against a brutal, barren West that somehow still carries a surprising thread of warmth. The result is a film full of bullets, booze and bravado, but at its heart, oh so bittersweet. HS

Read Empire's review of True Grit.

10) Blood Simple

So green were the Coens when they shot their debut that they assumed they’d have to make sandwiches for the crew, not realising that was someone else’s job. Yet the film, which was partly funded by dentists, turned out to be stunningly assured. Despite the dark logline — a man hires a sordid private eye to kill his philandering wife and her lover — it has a sense of impish elan; most famously, the moment in which the camera, gliding down a bar, hops over the head of a sleeping drunk. But it’s also completely compelling as a hardboiled noir, with M. Emmet Walsh magnificent as the grubby PI. “If the pay’s right and it’s legal, I’ll do it,” he declares. When informed the job isn’t legal, he pauses for a short instant to reconsider, then drawls, “Well, if the pay’s right, I’ll do it.” NDS

Read Empire's review of Blood Simple.

9) Barton Fink

John Turturro and the Coens: a marriage made in heaven. Or, in the case of Barton Fink, hell. Turturro seems to exist to give the Coens’ most outrageous characters human form – between 1990 and 2000 he starred in four of their films – and his turn in Barton Fink is possibly the most Coen-y of them all. As an idealistic New York playwright having a go at screenwriting in California, he is horrified and terrified, increasingly beaten to shreds by a positively sadistic film industry. For this is the brothers’ take on the system, to all intents and purposes a horror film, fuelled by cynicism and bile – in case you wondered how they felt about Hollywood, here portrayed as a diabolical purgatory. Burn it all down. AG

Read Empire's review of Barton Fink.

8) O Brother, Where Art Thou?

If Christopher Nolan doesn’t tell his Odyssey through the lens of three bluegrass-singing ex-cons then, frankly, he’s not even trying. O Brother is the Coens at their loopiest, a deranged take on Homer’s epic featuring John Goodman as an eye-patched cyclops, washerwomen sirens and a distinctly non-canon run in with the KKK. As the ‘Soggy Bottom Boys’, George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson make for a charmingly dense and extremely rootable central trio, captured against a woozy, sepia-tinged Mississippi by Roger Deakins. Quirky and chaotic, O Brother stands as arguably the most flat-out fun movie the brothers have ever produced. And if you’re in the market for a grin-inducing, foot-tapping musical climax, you can’t do much better than The Boys’ triumphant radio debut – fake beards and all. JD

Read Empire's review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

7) Miller’s Crossing

1991 saw two great gangster movies exchange gunfire at the box office: GoodFellas and Miller’s Crossing. It was the latter’s corpse that hit the sidewalk, with the Coens’ movie making just $5 million next to the Scorsese picture’s $47 million. Yet it has endured, working its odd, mystical spell on pop culture: without Miller’s Crossing, its aching ennui and philosophical crime-lords and threats of violence in bleak forests, would we have The Sopranos? Powered by the unknowable protagonist Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne), the Coens’ masterpiece synthesises all manner of film-noir tropes (it’s especially permeated with the spirit of Dashiel Hammett) into a heady brew. And once seen, you’ll never forget the eerie visual of a fedora blowing in the wind, into the distance. Hats off. NDS

Read Empire's review of Miller's Crossing.

6) A Serious Man

It’s egregious, really, that A Serious Man isn’t a bigger part of the Coen Cultural Conversation, because it’s one of their very best. Maybe it’s because it’s a bit more low-key, but that’s its strength: it’s quietly powerful, drenched in impending doom from beginning to end. And, yes, funny! Michael Stuhlbarg is pitch-perfect as the torturously neurotic, flustered physics-professor Larry Gopnik, a Jewish Minnesotan whose career and marriage are falling apart in 1967. Also brilliant: Richard Kind as Larry’s troubled brother Arthur. But the standout is Fred Melamed, providing an unforgettable performance as lecherous widower Sy Ableman, a true suburban monster, creepy and overbearing. A Serious Man is the Coens at their most subtly apocalyptic. The whole thing haunts you. AG

Read Empire's review of A Serious Man.

5) Raising Arizona

Is there another pre-titles sequence as fast, funny and efficient as Raising Arizona’s? The opening minutes deftly set up one hell of a premise: petty criminal Herbert "H.I." McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) meets police officer Ed “Edwina” (Holly Hunter) mid-mugshot. The pair immediately fall in love and marry. Then, after being unable to conceive a baby, they unwisely decide to steal one of the quintuplets born to local millionaire Nathan Arizona. Thus begins a madcap kidnapping adventure, full of colourful characters, carefully crafted colloquial dialogue, and eerily prophetic dreams. Only the brothers’ second feature, critics at the time weren’t quite sure what to make of it, but today it’s correctly lauded as an oddball classic; Edgar Wright, for example, has cited it as his favourite film. JN

Read Empire's review of Raising Arizona.

4) Inside Llewyn Davis

As Oscar Isaac’s voice echoes the haunting refrain, “Hang me, oh hang me” in the film’s opening moments, the mood for the Coen brothers’ folk fable is instantly set. Inside Llewyn Davis — a melancholic tale of a musician scraping by — is a note-perfect ballad to anyone who’s ever tried navigating the often bleak reality of pursuing a life in art. Its episodic structure, flashes of oddball comedy, and bittersweet reflections on success versus artistic integrity – and the struggle of simply getting by – create a story that only the Coens could have pulled off, a jukebox of the directing duo’s finest instincts. It’s all held together by Isaac’s mesmerising performance and a toe-tapping folk soundtrack that, despite the film’s cynical nature, will have you belting ‘Please Mr. Kennedy’ days after viewing. HS

Read Empire's review of Inside Llewyn Davis.

3) No Country For Old Men

Most Coen films have a warmth to them – even those set in the bleakest cold (see #2). But adapting Cormac McCarthy, the brothers translated the author’s famous linguistic sparsity into a cinematic experience stripped to the bone, every raw nerve exposed. The lean narrative sees Josh Brolin’s Llewelyn Moss nab a bag of cash from a drug deal gone wrong, hunted by dead-eyed, bowl-haired assassin Anton Chigurgh (a chilling Javier Bardem); meanwhile, Tommy Lee Jones’ ageing sheriff can barely keep up with Chigurgh’s trail of violence. With minimal music, you can hear the howling wind in No Country’s canyons, feel the dust on the lens, the snapping teeth of dogs. The result is both cinematically thunderous and deathly subtle, serving up breathlessly tense sequences before a crushingly quiet finale. BT

Read Empire's review of No Country For Old Men.

2) Fargo

The Coens’ big breakthrough was nominated for a whopping seven Oscars, winning two (Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay): amazing, considering all the, you know, murder by woodchipper. Fargo is just such brilliant drama, pierced with sadness against an icy backdrop. Frances McDormand is thoroughly deserving of that Academy Award as police chief Marge Gunderson, a performance for the ages – free of bullshit, but human as it gets. Surrounding her in the snow is basically the Coens’ Suicide Squad – a ragtag assemblage of reprobates, from William H Macy’s disastrously duplicitous car salesman, to Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare’s bickering crooks. Tonally, it’s a miracle, so convincing the Coens had the cojones to pretend it was a true story. Who needs reality when you have Fargo? AG

Read Empire's review of Fargo.

1) The Big Lebowski

If this isn’t your personal favourite Coens movie? Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man. The Big Lebowski distils the brothers’ disparate flavours into one eminently watchable delight. There is a spectre of violence, yes, in the heavies hunting down rich philanthropist Jeffrey Lebowski (and, in a case of mistaken identity, shaking down Jeff Bridges’ Jeff ‘The Dude’ Lebowski instead). But this is also the shaggiest of shaggy-dog stories, a laid-back comic odyssey of oddballs against an Americana backdrop (ten-pin bowling; rolling deserts; the fuckin’ Eagles), soaked in Gen X slacker-dom. Ultra-quotable, genuinely soulful (those Bob Dylan-soundtracked credits are stunning), and propelled by one of the greatest movie characters of all time – you could say it really ties the whole Coens’ filmography together. BT

Read Empire's review of The Big Lebowski.