Coen Brothers: Ranking Their Films From Worst To Best

13. The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

Few American directors have been able to genre-hop the way the Coens do. Like Miller's Crossing and The Hudsucker Proxy before it, The Man Who Wasn't There took a well-established genre - in this case film noir - and simultaneously paid tribute to it whilst flipping it on its head. Billy Bob Thornton stars as the titular man who isn't there; a small-town barber who feels cheated by the society around him. In typical Coen fashion, he decides to take action against said society, and in typical Coen fashion it all blows up in his face. Thornton is supported by an excellent cast including Frances McDormand and the late James Gandolfini, all of whom are framed in moody black and white by cinematographic-deity Roger Deakins. The Man Who Wasn't There tends to be a film that people skip over for one reason or another, but if you've yet to see it, we highly recommend you remedy that immediately.