Coffee and Cigarettes

Portland Oregonian Karen Karbo

Like dark chocolate -- not semi-sweet, but the exotic, nearly black stuff -- Coffee and Cigarettes won't appeal to everyone. Jarmusch is the 70 percent cacao of contemporary filmmakers, and people who love this kind of chocolate swear by it.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Just when you're certain that Jarmusch is treading water with his borderline-tedious cleverness, something happens: Coffee and Cigarettes turns into a movie FULL of talk -- rich, supple, hilarious, masterfully orchestrated talk.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

By the end the movie has pretty much ceased taking itself at all seriously, devolving into a nonchalant giggliness of the stoned variety that's completely apropos.

Time Richard Schickel

It feels as if it has been recovered from a time capsule, and what larger meaning it may have is anyone's guess. But it is way cool -- and funny -- in ways that more expensive comedies trying harder rarely are.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

As the film goes along, themes and even lines of dialogue resurface, and Jarmusch's comic sensibilities grow more assured.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Known for an elegant visual style, Jarmusch has a great gift for playing actors against one another, for finding complementary eccentrics (Murray and RZA) and uncovering rare gems (Bill Rice and Taylor Mead in "Champagne").

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

In Jarmusch's capable hands, the mundane has never been so delightful.

LA Weekly John Powers

It's worth fidgeting through the mediocre stuff to get to three good pieces. In one, Cate Blanchett turns in a tour de force as both herself and her aggressive, resentful Aussie cousin in an awkward encounter that captures the pathological relationship between ordinary people and celebrities.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Jarmusch's use of yin/yang, dark/light and good/evil symbolism makes glorious if goofy sense.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

It's a movie about discomfort and distance, like an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "The Larry Sanders Show" shot in deadpan black-and-white.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Odd but engaging film.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

At the heart of most of these encounters is talk about the nature of relationships -- cousins, twins, and peers. Mostly, though, Jarmusch displays an unexpected interest in the ironies and banalities of fame.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Sometimes movies tire us by trying too relentlessly to pound us with their brilliance and energy. Here is a movie pitched at about the energy level of a coffee break. That the people are oddly assorted and sometimes very strange is not so very unusual, considering some of the conversations you overhear in Starbucks.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Sometimes sly and witty, sometimes dull and forced, Coffee and Cigarettes is Jim Jarmusch's testimony to the difficulties and delights of communication.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Jarmusch makes it a feast that plays like a haunting concept album.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A series of vignettes...Some are weak, some are superb -- there's a priceless one with Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan as Brits with different feelings about learning they're cousins -- but they get better as they go along.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Indie hipster Jarmusch's distinctive brand of effortless cool and quirky humor percolate through each of 11 vignettes, all shot fairly statically in crisp, aesthetically pleasing black and white.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

What unites everything is Jarmusch’s playful, hang-dog absurdism.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The implication that beauty and meaning can be found in odd places at unlikely, idle moments resonates through this lovely film.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Like "Mystery Train" and "Night on Earth," this feature by Jim Jarmusch is a short story collection, but it's funnier and more formally adventurous than either--also ultimately greater than the sum of its parts.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Although these vignettes are unified visually -- they're all in black-and-white and they all have the same gorgeous, silky visual texture -- they were shot by several different cinematographers.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Many will be left scratching their heads at the point of the entire enterprise, but fans of Jarmusch's askew view will clink coffee mugs and toast to the glories of human eccentricity.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Very slight and, in the early going, slightly annoying, Coffee and Cigarettes is a long-borning Jarmusch project.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

The draggy ones make you restless while the best ones, like the movie's title ingredients, provide a buzz that doesn't last long enough.

Empire Ian Freer

Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina deliver a terrific meditation on insincere actors.

Variety Deborah Young

Holding the film together are simple but strong B&W visuals of offbeat types sitting around a table smoking and drinking java while they talk.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

C&C hardly coalesces, but then again, it doesn't try to--never more or less than what it appears to be, the film is a slow honky-tonk thud-beat, only intermittently punctuated by a joke or idea.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The lone gem of the anthology takes place in the loft of a trendy L.A. restaurant where a snooty Steve Coogan learns from starstruck Alfred Molina that the actors are cousins...This is the longest of the shorts, and has a payoff ending that nearly makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Slate David Edelstein

Despite glimmers of wit and a hipper-than-thou cast, it's painstakingly smug, and smaller than the sum of its parts.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

While sometimes evocative, they don't add up to a satisfying movie any more than, as several characters are cautioned, coffee and cigarettes constitute a healthy lunch.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The best way to watch this film is while sipping coffee in a café. Nicotine optional.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Serves up a weak brew.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The skits that comprise Coffee and Cigarettes aren't fully realized short pieces as much as riffs or fragments; their appeal is mostly in their stars.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Too slight and pointless.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Flat and uninspired.