Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 37 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 995 Ratings

  • Starring: Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones
  • Summary: The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. The story begins when Llewelyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a sentry of dead men. A load of heroin and 2 million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law, in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell, can contain. As Moss tries to evade his pursuers--in particular, a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives--the film simultaneously strips down the American crime drama and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning's headline. (Miramax) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 35 out of 37
  2. Negative: 1 out of 37
  1. 100
    Joel and Ethan Coen's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel is an indisputably great movie, at this point the year's very best.
  2. The Coens' typically superior filmmaking sustains the electrifying mood for most of the picture, but they are undone by being too faithful to the source novel by Cormac McCarthy.
  3. I appreciate No Country for Old Men for the skill in the film craft. I understand No Country for Old Men for its penetrating disquisition on narrative conventions and its heroic will in subverting them. I admire No Country for Old Men for the way it tightens its grip as it progresses, taking us deeper and deeper into a hellish world. I just don't like it very much.
  4. A very well-made genre exercise, but I can’t understand why it’s been accorded so much importance, unless it’s because it strokes some ideological impulse.

See all 37 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. KH.
    9
    The story works at a few levels and some folks were only looking at the basic plot and hence disliked the compressed narrative near the end. Some stories concern themselves with more than just the relating of plot. This movie is one of the more complicated movies. If you're looking for shooting action with a bad guy and a hero, you'll be disappointed and give this movie a low score. Expand
  2. Javier Bardem really makes this film, His performance is not only haunting but its amazing. His supporting cast is good as well. The film is interesting ,as is the plot, but I just cant put it up there with other top films. Its the performances that make this film and it shows through out. Expand
  3. Don't get me wrong, I believe that NCFOM is Oscar worthy, but the movie had that kind of needless "There will be Blood" depressiveness. I'm not talking about the mood of the film. I'm referring to the fact that the only sympathetic character in the film was Tommy Lee Jones' character. I would have genuinely been upset if his character were killed. I can't really say the same thing about the rest of the characters. Expand
  4. TedT.
    3
    What was all the hype about???? You must be kidding me. This was shot like something from the 70's. If thats what turned you on..then watch something from the 70's. I'm still scratching my head over why I heard so many people say "best movie I've seen" are you serious? This was nothing more than...nothing. Collapse

See all 544 User Reviews

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