Jeff Bridges is the Dude, a drop out looking for his virtue, and his rug, in the moral free-zone of contemporary Malibu. The Coens are consummate pastiche artists, and the framework here is taken wholesale from Raymond Chandler by way of Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye and Jeff Bridges’ early 80s noir, Cutter’s Way. But transposing the mechanics of the mystery thriller to the early 90s trips us into a stoner screwball misadventure, a recurring comic nightmare.
Staff Pick: Casey
The plot — thick as Kahlua — accommodates nihilist former krautrockers, fluxus artists, porn moguls, tearaway Minnesota farm girls, paraplegic fake millionaires, TV Western writers in iron lungs, neo-Jewish Vietnam vets, pedophile bowlers and Saddam Hussein… Key ingredients include the endlessly quotable dialogue, an inspired cast of actors clearly relishing their lines, and T Bone Burnett’s jukebox soundtrack.
Nick Bradshaw, The DVD Stack
Media Partner
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddlestone, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, David Thewlis, Ben Gazzara, Sam Elliott
USA
1998
English
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Credits
Screenwriter
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cinematography
Roger Deakins
Original Music
Carter Burwell
Production Design
Rick Heinrichs
Art Director
John Dexter
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
One False Move
Billy Bob Thornton and his partners in crime (Michael Beach, and Cynda Williams) hightail it out of Los Angeles with a trunk-ful of dope, but drive into a world of trouble. This unjustly forgotten thriller will keep you on your toes.
Wayne's World
Mike Myers' Canadian roots show through in this smart faux dumb American headbanger comedy directed by Penelope Spheeris (Decline of the American Empire). You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl!
Unforgiven
Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood) is face down in pig shit when we first see him. He's a bad farmer, but has a natural facility for killing people – a vocation to which he returns in a quest that combines both profit and justice. Or so he chooses to believe.
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Coppola's woozy, cinematically audacious take on the vampire myth is like a symphonic silent movie in full colour, a delirium of romantic angst with Gary Oldman as the shape-shifting immortal.
Malcolm X
In an indelible role, Denzel Washington give us a layered, compassionate, conflicted man who finds the strength in Islam to transcend his demons and confront the inequity and racism in America head-on. Along with Do the Right Thing, this is Spike Lee's greatest film.
The Crying Game
Notwithstanding its famous twist, Neil Jordan's moody thriller works differently on a second viewing, and hits different in 2026, with its rich and "problematic" stew of identity politics, love, violence and desire.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Short Cuts
Altman's adaptation of Raymond Carver short stories, Short Cuts weaves between 8 or 9 overlapping storylines and 22 characters. it's a teeming, caustic and compassionate human comedy; a singularly astringent, often cynical view of America and Americana.
Three Colours: Blue
The first of Kieslowski's acclaimed Three Colours Trilogy, inspired by the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity and the French flag, the Tricolour. Blue stars Juliette Binoche as a young woman grieving her husband and child.
Three Colours: Red
Irène Jacob plays Valentine, a runway model living in Geneva, who crosses paths with a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who's a bit of an eavesdropper. Initially repelled, she becomes intrigued by this man, as do we... Kieslowski's sublime adieu.