The startling truth about Coen Brothers movie trailers

As you undoubtedly have heard, the Brothers Coen “are back.” Those nice Midwestern Jewish boys have had a hell of a long, unusual, and interesting career. They’ve given us some of the most memorable, and quotable, movies of our time. They’ve created wonderfully askew vehicles in which good actors get to do great work. Jeff Bridges as The Dude? Nic Cage and Holly Hunter as the McDunnoughs? Tim Robbins as the Hudsucker Proxy? Goodman as Madman Mundt? Have these actors done better work?

And sure, sometimes the brothers miss the mark. Boy do they. But they always bounce back. Just when you think it’s time to count them out, as many (yours truly included) had around, oh, Ladykillers time, they get up, brush themselves off, and throw a punch that lands.

And when a new trailer appears for a new Coens flick, it’s often very telling. Do their strongest films follow their strongest trailers? Does an unusually conventional, or even awkward preview signal the start of a slump? Decide for yourself.

Here are the original theatrical trailers for every single one of the Coen Brothers’ movies. Assembled like this, back to back, from Blood Simple to A Serious Man, the trailers tell their own interesting tale.

Blood Simple, 1984

Raising Arizona, 1987

Miller’s Crossing, 1990

Barton Fink, 1991

The Hudsucker Proxy, 1994

Fargo, 1996

The Big Lebowski, 1998

O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 2000

The Man Who Wasn’t There, 2001

Intolerable Cruelty, 2003

The Ladykillers, 2004

No Country For Old Men, 2007

Burn After Reading, 2008

A Serious Man, 2009