4. True Grit (2011)
With a hit rate as high as the brothers Coen's, it wasn't surprising that their adaptation of classic Charles Portis novel True Grit arrived as another great among their astoundingly near-faultless filmography. With sharp dialogue (while that sounds Coen-esque, the brothers show little desire to tinker with Portis's original dialogue), finely-tuned performances and a scene with a man wearing a bear, True Grit is an enjoyably intimate example of the Western. Location work is sprawling, but extended conversation scenes and a focus on character almost make it feel like theatre. Jeff Bridges, as a more-iconic-than-John-Wayne Rooster Cogburn, looks like a man that's been force-fed gin for a year then left in a drain to die - he's a lived-in, barely breathing wreck of a tired old Marshal, a perfect late-career role for Bridges. Yet Cogburn is not the highlight he was in the original 1969 True Grit, which has been accepted as a classic even though it's awful. That's because there is no real highlight here; this is a Coen brothers Western, and as a result the entire film, down to each minor character, is a joy.