Hail, Caesar!, opening in theaters nationwide today, marks the 17th feature film from the highly decorated and much cinephile-obsessed over sibling auteurs Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Joel is the elder by 3 years and after he worked as an assistant on Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, the brothers made their first feature, Blood Simple (1984) which caused a mini sensation at festivals and the arthouse. From there on out they slowly became more mainstream directors in the best way possible: they brought the mainstream to them rather than changing their genre-hopping singular ways. Thirty-two years later they're now a showbiz institution with four Oscars and actual big hits on their resume.
Their seventeenth feature is only their second movie about movies. The first was the rather discomfiting Barton Fink (1991) which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Will Hail, Caesar! age as well? How many of their films have you seen?
all the posters after after the jump...
Here's how I'd rank them...
- Fargo
- Raising Arizona
- No Country For Old Men
I can't live without those three. The fourth I don't love it as much as everyone else. But still... - The Big Lebowski
After those inarguable classics, three undervalued gems... - Hudsucker Proxy
- The Man Who Wasn't There
- Burn After Reading
The one I'm always changing my mind about... - Barton Fink
The rest have good moments but feel overvalued as whole films... - Inside Llewyn Davis
- O Brother Where Art Thou?
- True Grit
- A Serious Man
- Intolerable Cruelty
I'd need to see Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple again before feeling comfortable ranking them (very foggy memories). The only one I haven't seen is The Ladykillers as reviews scared me away. And I'm off to Hail, Caesar! this weekend.
You? So how many have you seen? Do you like them best with noir, drama, or comedy? Do share in the comments.