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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Blood Simple: The Director's Cut
Universal acclaim
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Ethan Coen
Joel Coen
Directed by: Joel Coen
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 7, 2000
DVD: September 18, 2001
Running Time: 97 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for violence and language
Starring John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, and M. Emmet Walsh
The restored and re-edited director's cut of the Coen Brothers' 1984 crime thriller stars Hedaya as a jealous bar owner who hires a nefarious detective (Walsh) to kill his young wife (McDormand).
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Barton Fink Burn After Reading Fargo Intolerable Cruelty Miller's Crossing No Country for Old Men O Brother, Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona The Big Lebowski The Hudsucker Proxy The Ladykillers The Man Who Wasn't There
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
If you are squeamish, here is the film to make you squeam.
Read Full Review >New York Post Hannah Brown
It's like watching Alfred Hitchcock try to solve a Rubik's cube in a roadside diner.
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
All in all, Blood Simple looks better than ever.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
Filled with wonderful performances, especially by Hedaya and Walsh, Blood Simple remains a tight, beautifully ugly, neo-noir classic.
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Savor their technique and the sizzling performances of Frances McDormand as an adulterous wife, Dan Hedaya as her vengeful husband and M. Emmet Walsh as a private detective from hell.
Washington Post Desson Thomson
I love the movie's originality, its sense of macabre humor, its resourcefulness, and the great Walsh, whose memorable narration kicks off the movie.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
As good as it ever was, and improved slightly by hindsight, experience, and extra cash.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
It's the boys' most immediately gratifying movie: The goods are delivered in a hearse.
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
(The Coens have) never again achieved the one-two punch of Blood Simple and "Raising Arizona" - the first darkly cynical, the second light-headedly comical.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
This is not an inspirational drama about finding yourself; it's a Hitchcockian comedy about adultery, murder and losing a corpse.
Los Angeles Times Chris Barton
Don't miss this opportunity to see a film that many believe started the renaissance of indie films as it was intended to be shown.
TV Guide Editor
The Coens' concern isn't emotional intensity but bravura camera moves and chic lighting of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Clever as it is, Blood Simple is derivative and self-consciously stylized.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
Grisly, stylish and often weirdly funny, Blood Simple is a reminder of how rarely an original artistic sensibility is announced to the world and how much better movies are when that sensibility is allowed to keep going its own way.
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
If you can handle its horror-comic grotesquerie, you'll find an enormous amount of cinematic imagination at work.
Read Full Review >Film.com Ernest Hardy
All these years later, the film is far more infuriating than it is exciting.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
It is an exploitation picture disguised as a hipster comedy.
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Remains mired in a smart-alecky film-school sensibility.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
On viewing, the cuts seem negligible, but what is new and clearly improved is the sound, which now booms with each door slam and gunshot.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Bill C gave it a7:
A movie that doesn't follow a set pattern and you never know what is next. Bravo!
J. Ryan G. gave it a9:
Like "Fargo" and "Raising Arizona," and unlike just about every other deliriously overrated Coen movie, this one is stripped down to its twisted soul. It exposes people who are at their worst regardless of the place or time of day - and aren't there so many of them walking the earth! One can see from this early film that the Coens had Orson Wellesian potential, though it was only seen again (and fully realized) in "Fargo."
Cameron S. gave it a 10:
Beautiful in the most unconventional way, "Blood Simple" is one of two odes the Coen's do - film noir. Every silhouette is atmospheric, and the all events unfold with all due interest like an engaging pulp novel, with the characters in situations that they know how they got into but have no idea how to get out.
Pat C. gave it an 8:
Vintage Coen. Their style is too quirky and volatile to manufacture a reliable product. They go too far into themselves in their creative process to step back and evaluate their ongoing work. Good thing I'm here. Fargo & Raising Arizona were superior efforts. You can see their better influences in this early work. Definitely not for all tastes, but I say Go with it.
Yoon C. gave it a 7:
An indie movie that showed alot of promise and cleverness, and for better or worse, anticipated both the talent and shortcomings of the Coen Brothers in their successive films. It's at its best with the oddball private detective around and mostly rudimentary regurgitation of noir coventions with the other three principals.
Rick J. G. gave it a 10:
There must have been at least a decade time gap between my viewing of the original and the director's cut, so I have no idea what is different about the two versions. My impression of this great movie was not changed in the least by this version of it. One of the great American movies.
Beau F. gave it a 10:
I never saw the original version, but the Director's Cut is incredibly good. M. Emmet Walsh as you've never seen him!
