Movies directed by Joel

Hail, Caesar! won’t be remembered as one of the Coen Brothers’ masterpieces. An homage to Hollywood of the 1950s, this is more of a niche film than a mainstream offering. It’s an opportunity for Joel & Ethan Coen to use the era as a cinematic p...

"Out of hope, out of rope, out of time." - William Cobbs in the opening narration of The Hudsucker Proxy Tim Robbins has a knack for finding his way into superior satires. After taking the lead role in Robert Altman's The Player and starring...

A perusal of the Coen Brothers' filmography reveals a penchant for the offbeat and absurd. They almost never do anything conventional, which makes Inside Llewyn Davis surprising. A Valentine to late-'50s and early-'60s folk music (pre-Dylan), the m...

For whatever reason, the Coen Brothers' comedies (such as Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, and The Big Lebowski) have always garnered less critical attention than the filmmakers' more serious fare (such as Blood Simple, Barton Fink, and Fargo)...

The Ladykillers is an interesting concoction - a faithful update of the original Ealing comedy cooked in vat of Coen Brothers' seasoning. Even though this is based on the 1955 British film of the same name, those unfamiliar with The Ladykillers' p...

Last Chance Harvey is a standard-order romantic comedy with a couple of unusual ingredients that make it worthy of notice. It is common, of course, for movies of this genre to focus on young, photogenic individuals. While not unheard of, romantic...

Miller’s Crossing, the Coen Brothers’ third film (following Blood Simple and Raising Arizona) introduced the kind of comedically-tinged approach they would employ for some of their darkest and most compelling films, including the criticall...

It is the unenviable lot of the film critic to endure a long string of so-called "romantic comedies", most of which are only marginally romantic, and not at all funny. So, when there's an exception to the rule, it's worth taking notice. Such is ...

Expecting normalcy from a Coen Brothers production is a pointless endeavor, but anticipating brilliance isn't outlandish. Their latest feature, which has about zero box office potential, provides plenty of the latter and a little of the former. It�...

Since this is a thriller, there must be a twist. One goes into a movie like The Number 23 with this expectation. However, not only is the twist telegraphed early but it is presented in a clumsy and unconvincing manner. Other films have employed ...