The Coen Brothers Crowd Ranking voting is open

“It’s a mess, ain’t it sheriff?”
"If it ain’t, it’ll do til a mess gets here.”

It’s possible that not all of you are fans of the films of the Coen Brothers. In fact, I know that at least one of you isn’t. (Hi, Mom!) But I find that, overwhelmingly, most people I come into contact with deeply love at least one Coen Brothers movie. More often than not, they love a handful. Or most.*

Bill Hanstock's Super Secret Words Club is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’ve recently rewatched all of the Coens’ joint filmography,** and in my estimation, there’s a legitimate argument to be made that when they work together, they’re the finest filmmakers who have ever lived. As such, I’d like to celebrate their oeuvre in this newsletter, and I’d like you (and Twitter and Bluesky) to assist me in compiling a collective, crowdsourced, free and fair ranking.

A group of friends and colleagues of mine have been ranking “Lists of Shit” for a while using this methodology, but thanks to one of those friends we have a Google Form that you can use to vote and rank your own personal list of Coen films, as well as respond to a poll of which of their 18 films you’ve actually seen.

Here is the form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14-zxaxVbO4AX5TI5EFu7N7WiquYipAQjN4CnsVA6WEk/

Feel free to share it around! Voting will close on November 3, and the countdown will begin in this newsletter the following week.

The countdown will take the form of one write-up per film, which will count down one per newsletter til we’re done. These will appear 2-3 times per week until we’ve covered them all, and in the event I don’t have a lot to say about a particular film, the newsletter will be supplemented by other writing or topics.

To that end!

Beginning November 4, this will become a paid newsletter. I am turning on monetization now, but you can continue reading all posts for free until then. On weeks where I run three newsletters, one of them will be free, but I’m trying to maintain the minimum of two newsletters each week. I want to preemptively thank anyone who is willing to pay for my little newsletter, and express my deepest appreciation and gratitude. And I also want to preemptively say I totally understand if you have more important things to spend that money on.

The rate will be $6/month or $50/year for a discount, and if you want to give more, there’s a BONUS DOUBLE COOL KID CLUB where you get an extra piece of writing from me each month, which may sometimes include a chapter from something unpublished, an unseen bit of prose, or a screenplay excerpt.

Thanks to everyone who’s read any of these posts to this point, and please rank your Coens films using that form and tell your film-loving friends to fill it out as well.

*I would say that there are some people out there who love all of the Coen Brothers’ movies, but I’ve seen The Ladykillers, so I know that can’t possibly be true.

**Except for The Ladykillers, which I hope to never look at again.

Bill Hanstock's Super Secret Words Club is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.