10 Movies To Watch If You Like Burn After Reading

In 2008, the Coen Brothers released their dark comedy Burn After Reading to a polarizing critical reception. The film had the brothers’ eccentric sensibilities in spades. Burn After Reading has an all-star cast that includes George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, and John Malkovich, but the strange structure and comically dark script turned many viewers off.

However, for those who enjoy the Coen Brothers at their strangest, Burn After Reading offers a lot to love. The movie is about a former CIA analyst (Malkovich) who lost his memoirs. When two dimwitted gym employees (Pitt and Frances McDormand) find them, they try to get a reward for it but instead find themselves in way over their heads in the world of espionage.

10 Barton Fink (1991)

For anyone that loves the strangeness of a Coen Brothers movie, Barton Fink is one of the brothers’ best films. John Turturro is a Broadway playwright in the ’40s. He needs money, so he takes a job for a major studio to write a movie for them and ends up assigned a wrestling film, something he knows little about.

Fink moves into a hotel to start writing, but he ends up with a case of writer’s block exasperated by a man next door (John Goodman) who might or might not be a serial killer and wallpaper that almost seems to be melting.

9 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

While many people see Iron Man as the comeback movie for Robert Downey Jr. after a decade of legal and substance abuse problems, the film that really brought him back was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Written and directed by Shane Black, the film is about a small-time criminal (Downey) who is on the run from the police and ends up at a casting call for a movie, where he wins the starring role. He then trains with a real PI (Val Kilmer) for the role, and the two end up involved in a case together.

8 Fargo (1996)

Arguably, the Coen Brothers’ best comedy is Fargo, released in 1996 and starring Frances McDormand. She plays a pregnant police officer in Fargo, North Dakota, who investigates a kidnapping case.

The case involved a sales manager (William H. Macy) for a car dealership whose wife is kidnapped by two criminals (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) and held for ransom, with them demanding the money from the wife’s wealthy father. McDormand won an Oscar for her performance, and the movie was nominated for Best Picture.

7 In The Loop (2009)

If the Coen Brothers made a British movie, it would look a lot like In the Loop. The movie is a black comedy by Armando Iannucci, the man who co-created the Alan Partridge character with Steve Coogan. In the Loop is a story of the uneasy alliance between the United Kingdom and the United States militaries.

Peter Capaldi is the Prime Minster’s Director of Communication, tasked with weathering the windfall of an inept politician saying that war with the Middle East is “unforeseeable.” The cast includes James Gandolfini as a U.S. general.

6 True Romance (1993)

In 1993, Tony Scott directed the crime drama True Romance based on a script written by Quentin Tarantino. With Scott’s flair for directing and the cracking script by Tarantino, the movie was an instant classic.

Christian Slater falls in love with and marries a call girl played by Patricia Arquette. However, when he goes to her pimp (Gary Oldman) to get her suitcase, he grabs a suitcase full of drugs instead, and the two decide to try to sell the drugs while running for their lives.

5 Inherent Vice (2014)

P.T. Anderson is one of the most celebrated directors working today. Along with his critically acclaimed masterpieces, he also takes the time to direct some very off-kilter dark comedies. One of these is Inherent Vice, based on the Thomas Pynchon novel of the same name.

Inherent Vice stars Joaquin Phoenix as a private investigator in 1970 who gets involved in a case of a missing husband. Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, and Benicio del Toro all-star in the movie, which won the Robert Altman Award at the Independent Spirit Awards.

4 Hail, Caesar! (2016)

One of the Coen Brothers’ most misunderstood movies arrived in 2016 with Hail, Caesar! Much like Burn After Reading, this is an acquired taste, but it is the brothers’ love letter to classic Hollywood moviemaking.

Josh Brolin is Eddie Mannix, a Hollywood fixer who helps erase problems concerning scandalous stars. George Clooney is Baird Whitlock, a clueless movie star kidnapped by a group of would-be communists in Hollywood, and Alden Ehrenreich is a former silent movie cowboy star who is struggling to make it now that he has actually to talk in movies. Hail Caesar! tells their stories.

3 In Bruges (2008)

Martin McDonagh is a successful playwright who moved on to direct a few Hollywood movies, and they shared his stage sensibilities, resulting in some fantastic films.

In Bruges is a black comedy crime film about a hitman (Colin Farrell) who accidentally kills a child during confession and has to go into hiding. He is sent into hiding with a fellow hitman (Brendan Gleeson), who is ordered to kill his friend. The two end up in a battle across Bruges, with hilarious results.

2 The Big Lebowski (1998)

Easily, the most beloved Coen Brothers film of all-time is their 1998 release, The Big Lebowski. This is an absurdist comedy about a slacker known as The Dude (Jeff Daniels), who is mistaken for another man named Lebowski.

When they realize he is the wrong man, they urinate on his rug. The Dude’s bowling partners (John Goodman and Steve Buscemi) convince him to do something about it, and The Dude sets out on a quest that puts his life in danger at every step.

1 Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Seven Psychopaths is another Martin McDonagh movie, and while not as beloved as In Bruges, it might be even funnier. This is another black comedy crime flick, and this one delivers some fantastic performances by everyone in the cast.

Colin Farrell is a struggling writer who interviews psychopaths for his next book. This includes characters played by Christopher Walken, who steals every scene he is in, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, and Olga Kurylenko.

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