You can even break up these die hard fans into subgroups. See, some prefer classic comedic Coen: Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski. Some prefer dark Coen: Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country for Old Men. And then there are the 5 people on the planet who prefer The Ladykillers.

Because of the ranges in tone, story, and genre, it's no wonder why the Coen Brothers' films are so divisive among their viewers -- and because they're so divisive, no one has ever really agreed on a solid ranking of their films. Sure, Fargo, Raising Arizona, and No Country always seem to hover around the top, but the top 5 tends to change quite a bit based on who is compiling the list.


However, Criticwire has done a little studying -- and stuff. They took a look at a bunch of Coen Brothers film rankings from different sites and averaged each film's rank to come up with kind of a definitive ranking of the Brothers' greatest films. They explain how they went about it:

Limiting our scope just to lists that include the Coens' brand-new "Hail, Caesar!," we averaged the rankings published by VultureGQYahooThrillistThompson on Hollywoodthe Washington Post, and the Atlantic, to come up with an overall meta-ranking, which is about as close to consensus as you're going to get. 

So, here they are -- all 16 Coen Brothers films ranked from greatest to Ladykillers.

Fargo

  1. Fargo
  2. Raising Arizona
  3. No Country for Old Men
  4. Blood Simple
  5. Barton Fink
  6. Miller’s Crossing
  7. Inside Llewyn Davis
  8. The Big Lebowski
  9. A Serious Man
  10. The Man Who Wasn’t There
  11. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
  12. Hail, Caesar!
  13. True Grit
  14. The Hudsucker Proxy
  15. Burn After Reading
  16. Intolerable Cruelty
  17. The Ladykillers

Clearly, you can see that Fargo was #1 -- which I'm totally okay with. In fact, I'm okay with the entire top 5 minus Barton Fink -- I think it'd do the ol' switcheroo with The Big Lebowski there, but only because the line "Shut the fuck up, Donny," runs through my head every single day when I get stuck in traffic.

What do you think of the rankings? Which is your favorite Coen Brothers' film? Let us know in the comments!

Source: Criticwire