The Coen brothers rank among the greatest filmmakers to contribute to American cinema. The Coens have always delivered memorable characters in their movies, thanks to inspired writing and a sharp eye for casting, and in the best cases, there are two or more characters with an unforgettable dynamic, played by well-matched actors who suit their roles and share terrific on-screen chemistry.
Throughout the duo’s varied filmography – which has seen them tackle neo-noirs, neo-westerns, slapstick comedies, gangster capers, and visual embodiments of existential crises – there have been plenty of great double acts. So, here’s a list of the best duos from the Coens’ movies.
Gale & Evelle (Raising Arizona)
The Coens’ dark comedy Raising Arizona concerns a couple named H.I. and Ed, who can’t conceive or adopt and decide to kidnap a baby to raise. Gale and Evelle are H.I.’s old cellmates, who crash on his couch after breaking out of jail, complicating things further.
This duo’s muddy prison break sequence is one of the most iconic in the Coens’ filmography, while the third-act bank robbery is a hysterically absurdist deconstruction of heist movie clichés.
Julian Marty & Lorren Visser (Blood Simple)
The Coens’ directorial debut, Blood Simple, is one of the finest film noirs ever produced. At the center of the movie, there are two different villains: Julian Marty, a jealous and unstable husband, and Lorren Visser, a sadistic private eye. Marty hires Visser to follow his wife, Abby, and when he catches Abby sleeping with Ray (a bartender who works at Marty’s bar), Marty attempts to kidnap Abby from Ray’s apartment. Failing that, he hires Visser to kill both Abby and Ray.
In a shocking turn of events, Visser double-crosses Marty, killing him and making it look like Abby did it. In the movie’s final moments, Abby is stunned to discover that the man hunting her is not her husband, but rather a stranger who cracks jokes while he’s bleeding out in a bathroom.
Llewyn Davis & Ulysses (Inside Llewyn Davis)
Okay, this duo isn’t two people; it’s a man and a cat. But there’s no denying that Llewyn Davis and Ulysses are one of the most memorable duos in the Coen brothers’ movies.
Oscar Isaac emerged as one of the finest actors of this generation in the role of Davis, and Ulysses acts as a kind of symbolic plot device, inadvertently dictating the folk singer’s misadventures across New York and Chicago.
Impresario & Harrison (The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs)
In the “Meal Ticket” story in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, we meet an impresario, played by Liam Neeson, and his artist, a young actor with no arms or legs who performs beautiful readings of Shakespearean monologues, Presidential speeches, and Biblical passages (delivered brilliantly by Harry Potter’s Harry Melling). Together, they make a decent living.
But when another impresario presents an even more impressive act, a chicken that solves math problems, the impresario promptly buys the chicken. We don’t explicitly see it happen, but it’s heavily implied that the impresario simply tosses his limbless artist into a river, leaving him to drown while he moves onto the next town to show off the chicken.
Barton Fink & Charlie Meadows (Barton Fink)
When Broadway playwright Barton Fink temporarily relocates to Los Angeles to write a wrestling movie, he stays at the inexpensive Hotel Earle. There, he reluctantly befriends insurance salesman Charlie Meadows, a fellow guest.
The Coens cast John Goodman to play Meadows opposite John Turturro’s Fink because Goodman’s inherent warmth would win the audience’s trust and amplify the shock of the revelation that (SPOILER ALERT!) Meadows is really a beheading serial killer named Karl “Madman” Mundt.
Linda Litzke & Chad Feldheimer (Burn After Reading)
When gym employees Linda Litzke and Chad Feldheimer stumble upon an ex-CIA agent’s memoirs, they waste no time getting in over their heads in a blackmailing scheme.
Frances McDormand juxtaposes Linda’s motivation for blackmail (wanting to pay for a breast enhancement) with a fearless attitude. Brad Pitt’s comic talents, seen in True Romance and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, are on full display in this movie as he plays Chad’s oblivious idiocy with a hilarious level of glee.
Carl Showalter & Gaear Grimsrud (Fargo)
Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud are the partners-in-crime that Jerry Lundegaard hires to abduct his wife to squeeze ransom money out of his father-in-law in Fargo. Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare play the roles brilliantly, with the former getting increasingly more furious and the latter slowly building to his breaking point.
They follow the classic dynamic of the fast-talking loudmouth contrasted with a softly-spoken introvert; they’re like a version of Jay and Silent Bob whose racket is kidnapping, not dealing pot.
Larry & Arthur Gopnik (A Serious Man)
Larry Gopnik, a Biblical figure whose life falls apart spectacularly over the course of a week, is the quintessential Coen brothers protagonist. His brother, Arthur, sleeps on his couch and spends his days drawing a “probability map of the universe.”
When Larry’s wife Judith confesses that she’s fallen in love with another man, she and her new lover Sy insist that Larry move out of the house and into a motel, bringing his brother with him. A well-matched Michael Stuhlbarg and Richard Kind play these brothers’ relationship with real poignancy.
Rooster Cogburn & Mattie Ross (True Grit)
Hailee Steinfeld beat out 15,000 other actors for the role of Mattie Ross in the Coens’ 2010 remake of True Grit, and ended up earning an Oscar nod with a performance that anchored the whole movie.
The directing duo reteamed with their old cohort Jeff Bridges, this time giving him a much gruffer and grizzlier role to play in the form of Rooster Cogburn. The role was made famous by John Wayne, as one of the Duke’s most uncharacteristically dark characters, but Bridges provides his own take on the character, particularly in how Mattie inspires him to become a hero.
The Dude & Walter (The Big Lebowski)
The clash of personalities between Jeff “the Dude” Lebowski and Walter Sobchak in the Coens’ cult classic stoner mystery comedy The Big Lebowski makes their pairing a dynamic for the ages. The Dude is a laidback pacifist. He takes everything in his stride and tries not to cause any trouble. Walter, on the other hand, is unstable, unpredictable, and aggressive.
They don’t agree on a single thing, bringing a layer of conflict to all their scenes, yet they’re the best of friends. Jeff Bridges and John Goodman are perfectly cast in the roles, and also share fantastic on-screen chemistry.
