If you Google ‘best Coen Brothers movie’ you will receive about a thousand different articles ranking their films, and each one will have a different order. While there are a few Coen films that are generally agreed on as masterpieces (a few of which will also appear on this list, the 1001 article ranking the Coens), there’s no definitive best. For some it’s heavy hitters like No Country for Old Men or The Big Lebowski, for others it’s more ‘underrated’ works like Raising Arizona or A Serious Man.
There is no right answer to what’s ‘best’ because there is no wrong answer. Joel and Ethan Coen have made seventeen films in their career and they are pretty much all interesting, funny, smart, well-made and well-liked.
With that in mind, here are our humble offerings for the best Coen brothers film, as Blood Simple receives a limited re-release in cinemas…