The 2010 remake of True Grit (1969) is a very decent, old-fashioned Western with strong, rock-solid performances. But, with its thin, slim-feeling story and relatively low impact, it is a slight disappointment from directors Ethan Coen and Joel Coen after the brilliance of their No Country for Old Men.

Though Oscar nominated, a merely competent Jeff Bridges provides no competition for John Wayne’s exuberant Oscar-winning turn in the original film version as one-eyed, boozy, tough US Marshal Rooster Cogburn, who is hired by a stubborn young girl to track down her dad’s killer.

Hailee Steinfeld is excellent as the girl, Mattie Ross, splendidly feisty, appealing and credible...

Josh Brolin stars as Eddie Mannix, a Hollywood fixer for Capitol Pictures in the Fifties, who solves problems for big Tinseltown names. George Clooney co-stars as studio star Baird Whitlock, who disappears, kidnapped from the set of a Ben Hur-like sword-and-sandal movie, giving Mannix a major headache as he tries to find out what’s happened to him.

Mannix has other problems. Cute young budding star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) is a dim and useless actor fluffing his lines on the set of a drawing-room drama directed by the waspish Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes), while hard-living starlet DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) is causing serious problems in the morality department.

The Coen Brothers’ smart comedy about the golden age of movie-making is both mischievous and silly...

As World War Two rages, writer-director Preston Sturges calls Hollywood to task for its frivolity in his brilliant 1941 serio-comic road movie. Sturges’s movie is a classic satire, still funny, relevant and worthwhile.

Joel McCrea stars as the escapist comedy film director-movie mogul Sullivan who abandons his privileged lifestyle to make a deeply worthy drama he plans to call O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Lacking the appropriate experience of the life of the common man, he sets out with just 10 cents to travel America and research life in the raw, ending up on a chain gang. In the end, though, the message is that happiness resides in simplicity and a Walt Disney cartoon – Playful Pluto.

There is distinguished acting work from the underrated McCrea and Veronica Lake as the starlet who ...

Hooray for the Coen Brothers’ second movie, providing a dazzling follow-up to their stunning film noir debut with Blood Simple in 1984. Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter star as a petty crook H.I. McDonnough (‘Hi’) and his policewoman wife Edwina in this brilliantly stylish and hilariously wacky 1987 lunatic comedy. 

Cage relishes one of his iconic roles as a befuddled convenience store robber who falls in love with Hunter’s Ed while she’s taking his mug shots, only to marry and discover Hunter is unable to conceive a child. So naturally they soon hatch up a plot to kidnap just one quintuplet out of a fivesome belonging furniture tycoon Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson), but somehow end up with the whole lot.

It’s a uniquely exhilarating movie, thanks to Ethan and Joel Coen’s funny, wit...

The Coen Brothers’ inspired 1994 satirical screwball comedy about big business and a corporate stock scam is a stunning-looking retro art object, with bravura visuals, witty dialogue, a great score by Carter Burwell and a neat line in wry, cynical humour.

The movie harks back to the style of Thirties golden era Hollywood film comedies, but the story is set in the Fifties. It is the old, famous, archetypal one about an idealistic, innocent hick from the sticks from Muncie, Indiana, confronting the corrupt big city of New York. The Coens are clearly channelling vintage stars Gary Cooper or James Stewart and directors Frank Capra or Preston Sturges.

This time the hick is corporate sucker Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), a naïve business-school graduate who has just started in the mail r...

The tenth movie from the Coen Brothers in 2001 sees them returning to the Forties-style film-noir terrain of their debut film, Blood Simple, in a clever, atmospheric, compellingly twisting tale of infidelity, blackmail and death.

Billy Bob Thornton is terrific as Ed Crane, a meek, chain-smoking small-town barber who’s dissatisfied with his mundane life in northern California in the late 40s, working for his brother-in-law, Frank (Michael Badalucco).

An encounter with a fat, greasy travelling entrepreneur, Creighton Tolliver (Jon Polito), and the discovery of his brassy two-timing wife Doris (Frances McDormand)’s infidelity with Big Dave Brewster (James Gandolfini) present Ed with an opportunity for revenge and blackmail that he hopes will help him to change his luck.

However, Thornton’...

Gorgeous George Clooney is the making of the Coen Brothers’ entertaining 2003 old-style Hollywood romantic comedy, but with a deliciously dark, cynical edge. The Coen Brothers dark and cynical? That’s a weird one!

Clooney plays – oh so suavely – a slimy LA divorce lawyer called Miles Massey who vanquishes all opponents. Enter Catherine Zeta-Jones, a cunning gold-digger named Marilyn Rexoth who’s after a fortune to divorce Clooney’s client, Edward Herrmann.

As Zeta-Jones has never looked lovelier, it’s not surprising that Clooney falls for her, yet he still stitches her up in court with a surprise witness. The game of revenge is on as Zeta-Jones marries oil tycoon Billy Bob Thornton, who gets Clooney to draw up a pre-nup pact.

Though the story and screenplay by Robert Ramse...