10 Overlooked First Films By Great Directors
5. Blood Simple - The Coen Brothers
Joel and Ethan Coen are so synonymous with each other that it's genuinely unsettling when one of them does something without the other.
They should be surgically grafted to one another - medical ethics be damned!
The siblings are responsible for some very famous films, including Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, the 2010 True Grit remake, and No Country For Old Men. If you haven't at least heard of one of those, then seriously, how did you find this?
Their success can be traced back to a picture from 1984 called Blood Simple.
A mixture of noir crime, psychological thriller, and straigjht-up horror, Blood Simple is about the horrifying fallout of a bartender having an affair with his boss' wife. Don't mix business and pleasure, people, come on!
It's very well-acted with future Oscar winner Frances McDormand in the lead female role. It's also shot beautifully, adding a new spin to the traditional crime story formula.
It's not hard to predict the brothers' trajectory based on Blood Simple. Their films continue to be dark, broody, and full of shady characters to this very day. Only difference is they've got more money to play with.
Like, a lot more.