Ranking The Coen Brothers Movies From Worst To Best

Raising Arizona was the Coen’s follow up to their critically praised first film, Blood Simple, and by the Coen’s own admission they set out to make a film completely different in tone to their debut effort. Raising Arizona is exactly that, and it works extremely well for it.

Raising Arizona follows Nicolas Cage’s ex-convict H.I. who marries a former police officer played by Holly Hunter. Cage’s character is determined to put his past life behind him but his old life of course has other ideas. The film is a mad-cap comedy, in stark contrast to the much more sombre Blood Simple, and it is exceptionally funny and enjoyable throughout.

The jokes are fast and frequent and both Cage and Hunter carry the film with some of their career best work. It also features several memorable cameos from frequent Coen collaborators such as John Goodman and Frances McDormand, each as enjoyable and fever pitch funny as the last. The film was a foreshadowing for the Coens ability to seamlessly switch from genre to genre without ever looking out of their depth and remains one of their funniest efforts to date.