I’ve loved the Coen brothers’ movies for a long time now. I can’t remember exactly which of their movies I saw first — I think “Raising Arizona” — but I know that I have yet to see a bad movie from this legendary duo. So when I saw that there were three Coen brothers among the 108 movies that were just added to Paramount Plus on Dec. 1, I decided to put together a guide on which ones you can start streaming today.
However, given there are just three movies, and you should watch them all, I’ve taken the extra step of putting the movies in the order I think you should watch them. A surprisingly difficult task, given that two of these films are among the greatest ever.
Malcolm McMillan
Malcolm has been covering the latest in streaming shows and movies since 2023. Every week, he hunts down the top shows and movies to watch on Netflix, Paramount Plus and other top streaming services. He has some hot takes, including that his favorite Coen brothers movie is “Burn After Reading.”
3 Coen brothers movies to stream right now
‘Fargo’
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For a lot of people, “Fargo” was their first experience with Joel and Ethan Coen. So starting with it on this list made sense, as it gives you a sense of both the darkness and the humor that the brothers bring to their films. Plus, the other two movies on this list are Westerns, so thematically, it made sense to pair them together.
This crime film stars Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson, the police chief of Brainerd, Minnesota, and William H. Macy as Jerry Lundegaard, a car salesman in (relatively) nearby Minneapolis. Their paths cross when Marge begins to investigate a triple homicide perpetrated by a pair of hitmen (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) who Jerry hired to kidnap his own wife, Jean (Kristin Rudrüd).
From that point on, hilarity ensues, along with a ton of violence. If you’ve ever seen a clip of a man feeding body parts into a wood chipper, that’s from this movie. So hit play and buckle up, because you’re in for a wild ride.
Stream “Fargo” on Paramount Plus now
‘True Grit’ (2010)
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To call this the lesser of the three movies in this list would not do “True Grit” justice. An adaptation of the 1968 Charles Portis novel of the same name (previously adapted by John Wayne in 1969), it’s still an incredibly good movie. It’s just not quite as good as “Fargo” or “No Country for Old Men,” though, admittedly, most movies aren’t.
This Western stars Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, a drunkard lawman who won’t hesitate to shoot a gun. He’s hired by 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld, in a breakout performance) to hunt down the outlaw Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), who murdered her father. They’re joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who is also hunting Chaney and has issues with Cogburn.
This is probably the most mainstream film the Coens have ever made. It still bears their witty dialogue and artful cinematography, but it’s not quite as quirky as a lot of the films the brothers had made before this point. It doesn’t matter, though, because the end result is still excellent.
Stream “True Grit” (2010) on Paramount Plus now
‘No Country for Old Men’
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If there’s one thing I took away from my college film study course on the Coen brothers, it’s that “No Country for Old Men” is a masterpiece. This movie is genuinely stunning, and the fact that Roger Deakins didn’t win Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards is baffling, though winning Best Picture probably softened the blow.
“No Country for Old Men” is adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel of the same name, and follows three main characters across the course of the movie. There’s Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who stumbles on a large sum of money in the desert while out hunting. It belongs to Mexican drug dealers who died in a drug deal gone wrong, but there are some alive who want that money back. They hire Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a psychopathic hitman. Unbeknownst to them, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is also on the case, investigating the initial botched drug deal that started it all.
There are Coen brothers that I find more enjoyable to watch, but this movie is unequivocally their best. Since you should always save the best for last, I’m putting it here, as the third Coen brothers movie you should stream on Paramount Plus.
Stream “No Country for Old Men” on Paramount Plus now
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