TheCoen brothersunderstandthe minutiae of movies. They take the slippery undertones that go over people’s heads and lay them bare, front and center. The directors juggle nuance in the best way they know how: dark humor. Characters are comfortable with discomfort. Their actions are, at times, unintentionally funny.They speak their mindsfreely and candidly, some more innocent than others. The guilty parties cannot deny just how dark they get.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggsis a Western anthology about the escapades of the titular singing cowboy. He walks into a saloon, where the house rules require patrons to disarm at the door. Buster obliges and joins a group of men at a poker table.
The cowboy in white does not want to play, but the tallest man known as Surly Joe stands up and brandishes his pistol. Buster notices Joe has disobeyed the saloon’s firearm policy. In response, Buster kicks a loose plank in the table, causing Joe to shoot himself multiple times.
Why It Makes the List
The Coen brothers took a juvenile joke (stop hitting yourself!) and turned it into a dark comedy. Buster breaks into song about the dead man, setting the barroom at ease. The contrast of a good-natured, clean-suited man committing a murder he is happy to commit is as dark as a fly in your ointment.
Stream on Netflix
9Barton Fink (1991) - Room Service
Barton Fink
Barton Finkis a verbose playwright from New York, hired to compose scripts for a Hollywood picture. He is given strict deadlines and little direction for a wrestling movie, a subject he has no experience with. He stays at the Hotel Earle to complete his work, but is distracted by noises emanating from next door.
He meets insurance salesman Charlie Meadows, who apologizes to Fink for the volume. With rising difficulties from studio executives, Fink seeks help from an alcoholic scriptwriter’s secretary. The woman is murdered by serial killer Karl “Madman” Mundt whose alias was Charlie Meadows. When the police come to investigate the hotel, Mundt guns them down, leaving Fink as the only witness.
There are not many people who can say they befriended a serial killer. Barton Fink was mild-mannered, reasonable, and unassuming. Without judgment, Barton treated Charlie like a human being and earned his trust. That was before he knew Charlie was Karl, who likes to behead his victims. The darkest part of all is the ambiguity Karl leaves behind with Barton.
Rent on Apple TV
8Blood Simple (1984) - Renting is Murder
Blood Simpleis a neo-noir about a bartender, an unfaithful wife, and a private detective. PI Loren Visser investigates the infidelity, proving to the bar owner, Julian Marty, that his wife Abby has slept with his employee, Ray. Visser is paid a handsome sum of money to kill the two lovers. He returns with doctored photos of the killing and instead kills Marty, takes the money, and runs.
Ray realizes too late that Abby was framed for Marty’s murder and gets shot dead by Visser. Abby is left inside the apartment bathroom until she escapes into the window of the apartment next door. She outwits and outguns him after a close call in the dark.
Abby is both innocent and guilty from the start. She has an affair due to a poor marriage while thwarting a murder scheme. The dark part is, she never killed anyone before. She was just promiscuous. In the end, she killed the killer, but becomes a killer. The string of murders could easily be connected to Abby.
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7Burn After Reading (2008) - Closet Conspiracy
Burn After Reading
Burn After Readingis a black comedy following gym employees Chad and Linda. They discover a CD with information from CIA analyst Osbourne Cox. Their failed attempts to blackmail Cox leads Chad to steal more files at Cox’s house. Chad hides in his closet, but is discovered, shot, and killed.
The genius of Chad’s stupidity cannot be ignored. His ineptitude is the perfect tool for espionage. When Linda has him remove items from his person that would identify him, Cox believes Chad is a government agent. His death spurred a conspiracy of ignorance and sabotage that never happened.
Related:10 Movies to Check Out if You Love Coen Brothers Films
6Fargo (1996) - Traffic Stop
Fargois a makeshift crime orchestrated by car sales manager Jerry Lundegaard. He hires two criminals, Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud, to kidnap his wife Jean to get ransom money from his rich father-in-law. On their way to a rendezvous point, a cop pulls them over. The officer hears the restrained Jean in their car, forcing Gaear to shoot him in the middle of nowhere.
The unforgiving snowy country against the sharp violence of the crime gone wrong is unexpected. A simple kidnapping turns into a bloody trail. Gaear shooting the policeman was unavoidable, showing how the inevitable exists even in the most desolate places.
Related:These 10 Actors Have Been in the Most Coen Brothers Movies
5The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) - Close Shave
The Man Who Wasn’t There
The Man Who Wasn’t Therefollows barber Ed Crane, who blackmails “Big Dave” Brewster, the boss of his wife, Doris, believing that they are having an affair. His scheme goes awry when his customer reveals the plot to Brewster. Doris' boss confronts Ed, only to receive a self-defensive but murderous shave and a haircut. As the litigation gets involved, they find Doris responsible. Before court proceedings, Doris was found hanged in her jail cell.
Ed knew Doris had an affair. His blackmailing put his wife in harm’s way more than the affair could have. While he was free until evidence implicated him for a different murder he did not commit, Doris felt just as guilty. When her truth was known, she decided to take herself and her unborn child with her.
4Miller’s Crossing (1990) - Into the Woods
Miller’s Crossingis about a feud escalating between Irish and Italian mobs. Tom Reagan is the go-between for the Irish, ousting Bernie, a member stealing money from the boss. Tom later pretends to execute Bernie and spares his life. Bernie endangers Tom when he kills and uses the body of an Italian gangster’s lover in place of his own.
The liminal stateTom puts himself in is already treacherous. Working on both sides of the street is likely to get you killed. Tom had no quarrels with Bernie, but the latter was more trouble alive than he was dead. Tom’s revenge was a twisted second chance at leading a normal life. All it took was taking another man’s life.
3No Country for Old Men (2007) - Home Free
No Country for Old Men
No Country for Old Mentakes place in Texas, where a drug deal ends poorly. Llewyn Moss stumbles upon a suitcase full of drug money and steals it for himself. Hitman Anton Chigurh is after Moss and the money, with authorities on their trail. Chigurh threatens to kill Moss' wife, Carla Jean, and he eventually meets her to present an ambiguous ending.
Anton likes to leave his actions up to others through chance. Letting a flipped coin decide another’s fate makes Anton feel less chaotic and more chaotic neutral. When Carla Jean challenges Anton’s sense of morals, he checks his boots (most likely for blood) as he leaves her house.
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2A Serious Man (2009) - Calming the Storm
A Serious Man
A Serious Manis a religious black comedy about Jewish professor Larry Gopnik. Life never seems to go his way. His wife leaves him to marry a widower, his kids become ne’er-do-wells, and the school committee attempt to deny him tenure. Larry calls his faith into question as events fall through.
Hard as Larry tries, honest as Larry is, no one and nothing is in his favor. His expectation is that doing right by others will churn out rewards. Larry fails to realize that no good deed goes unpunished. The manifestation of a tornado heading for the school illustrates this dour truth.
1True Grit (2010) - Double the Grit
True Gritis based on the Charles Portis western novel of the same name. Mattie Ross offers lawman Rooster Cogburn a reward to kill outlaw Tom Chaney, who killed her father. They interrogate two outlaws, Ouincy and Moon, about Chaney’s whereabouts before Cogburn shoots the former aggressor in the head, with the latter dying from injuries.
Rooster Cogburn talks of gritand holds the high expectation for those around him. His grit is tested in a dark dugout while Mattie watches on. The vulnerable situation leaves truth and innocence at risk of being lost on a dead man’s tongue. Cogburn’s grit comes when he kills one of the outlaws, even if he did not want to in front of Mattie.
