No Country for Old Men (2007)

The music in No Country for Old Men is so deeply married to the images that you almost can't separate them. It stays in your head days later and when you hear it again the emotions return immediately.

I went into No Country for Old Men knowing nothing — no trailer, no plot summary. I strongly recommend that approach. The evil that cannot be reasoned with hits much harder when you haven't been primed for it. Go in cold.

No Country for Old Men is not background viewing. Every scene requires you. Put your phone down, dim the lights. Joel and Ethan Coen is doing too much to be half-watched. Give it the attention it deserves.

No Country for Old Men deals with fate and mortality in a way that's genuinely uncomfortable at times. But that discomfort is the point. Joel and Ethan Coen never lets you look away, and the film is better for it.

No Country for Old Men ended and I sat with it for weeks. The evil that cannot be reasoned with theme kept circling back. I'd be doing something mundane and the gas station coin toss would pop into my head. That kind of resonance is rare.

No Country for Old Men commits to a conclusion that not everyone will appreciate. I found it perfectly right — it refuses easy comfort. If you want tidy resolution you may be frustrated. If you want truth, it delivers.

Some elements of No Country for Old Men show their age, but the core of it — fate and mortality, Javier Bardem's terrifying Chigurh — hasn't diminished at all. Films this good age better than almost anything else.

I didn't expect No Country for Old Men to affect me so deeply. The way Joel and Ethan Coen handles evil that cannot be reasoned with is unlike anything I'd seen before. I came out of it looking at the world differently.

Whatever you think of the story, No Country for Old Men is one of the most visually extraordinary films ever shot. There are frames here that belong in a gallery. Worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

I've seen No Country for Old Men multiple times now and it just keeps getting better. Javier Bardem's terrifying Chigurh is something rarely matched in cinema. If you haven't watched it yet, clear your evening.