Cult 101: No Country for Old Men (2007)
Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Run Time: 122 min. Release Year: 2007
Starring: Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Kelly Macdonald, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson
Country: United States
Language: English, Spanish
Cult 101 at Gateway Film Center
A celebration of the best cult films of all time.
See more Cult 101About the film:
Winner of four Oscars; Best Picture, Supporting Actor, Achievement in Directing, and Adapted Screenplay; at the 2008 Academy Awards.
When a man stumbles on a bloody crime scene, a pickup truck loaded with heroin and two million dollars in cash, his decision to take the money sets off an unstoppable chain reaction of violence. As an enigmatic killer who determines the fate of his victims with the flip of a coin sets out in pursuit of Moss, the disillusioned Sheriff Bell struggles to contain the rapidly escalating violence that seems to be consuming his once-peaceful Lone Star State town.
“An intense, nihilistic thriller as well as a model of implacable storytelling, this is a film you can’t stop watching even though you very much wish you could.”
—Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
About the filmmaker:
Ethan and Joel Coen (The Coen Brothers) are award-winning writer-directors who have worked to craft some of the most innovative and distinctive stories of the last few decades, beginning with their 1984 feature debut Blood Simple. Known for blending genres, the Coen Brothers have won top prizes at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, and festivals around the world. Their projects include the Palme d’Or-winning Barton Fink (1991), the Academy Award-winning Fargo (1996) and No Country for Old Men (2007) as well as The Big Lebowski (1998), True Grit (2010), O Brother, Where Are Thou? (2000), The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) was the Coen Brothers’ final collaboration together, as they shift their focus on to individual projects. Joel Coen recently directed The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), and Ethan Coen’s newest film Drive-Away Dolls (2024) was released earlier this year.
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