Josh Brolin, the actor perhaps best known for his role as the villainous monster Thanos in the MCU, has shared his appreciation for another of his most discussed movies: No Country for Old Men, written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen. The neo-noir thriller features Brolin playing a war veteran who finds a lot of cash in the desert, and decides to run away with it while a cold-blooded hit man is hired to hunt him and the local sheriff tries his best to recover the money. It’s one of Brolin’s best performances, and the movie that put him in the spotlight again after a period spent focusing on smaller roles in the early 2000s.
Brolin recently spoke about No Country for Old Men when he was a featured guest on the Criterion Closet series. The videos show numerous celebrities entering a closet full of Criterion releases and picking some to take home. The Academy Award-nominated actor chose classics like Mikey and Nicky, Traffic, Lost Highway, and Sid & Nancy, among others. He also decided to add one of his own films to the selection:
“I did see a movie down here that I haven’t watched in a while, but I think is a very solid film, and that’s the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life because we had fun. I don’t know if Javier [Bardem] had fun. I had fun and I made Javier have fun.
“And it started my friendships with both Joel and Ethan Coen, and making the movie, we thought that, ‘Oh, this is fun. A few people will see this movie, it’s a little movie.’ And then when I saw the movie – I remember I was with my son, Trevor, when I saw the movie. And we didn’t talk for 20 minutes after the movie, which I don’t know if that’s happened before or since. Objectively saying that’s how you want to be affected by a film. You want to be slapped quiet. And that’s what No Country for Old Men did for me as a film lover.”
Is ‘No Country for Old Men’ the Best Film by the Coen Brothers?
The Western neo-noir is not only one of Ethan and Joel Coen’s most acclaimed films, it’s also been hailed as one of the best films of the 2000s — and the 21st century overall. During the 2008 awards season, No Country for Old Men became one of the strongest contenders, nominated for eight Academy Awards and winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
With a 93% Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score (and 86% audience score), it’s one of the highest-rated films made by the siblings, topped only by Fargo, Blood Simple, and True Grit, which range between 94% and 95% on the review aggregation website.
- Release Date
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November 21, 2007
- Runtime
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122 minutes