New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

34 10,000 B.C.
37 Air I Breathe, The
52 Be Kind Rewind
47 Boarding Gate
46 Bonneville
42 Bucket List, The
70 Caramel
49 Cassandra's Dream
44 Chaos Theory
54 Charlie Bartlett
64 Chronicle of an Escape
63 City of Men
78 Control
66 Darfur Now
59 Definitely, Maybe
41 Drillbit Taylor
36 Eye, The
46 Finishing the Game
35 Flakes
38 Flash Point
57 Flawless
29 Fool's Gold
41 Funny Games
66 George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
65 Grace Is Gone
57 Hammer, The
68 Honeydripper
67 In Bruges
xx Jack and Jill vs. the World
35 Jumper
9 Meet the Spartans
52 My Blueberry Nights
48 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
50 Other Boleyn Girl, The
90 Persepolis
44 Rails & Ties
46 Rambo
36 Remember the Daze
47 Semi-Pro
24 Sex and Death 101
76 Shotgun Stories
63 Signal, The
62 Spiderwick Chronicles, The
12 Strange Wilderness
45 Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
59 Under the Same Moon
40 Vantage Point
55 Walker, The
37 War, Inc.
46 Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
60 What Would Jesus Buy?
51 Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
17 Witless Protection

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Fargo
Gramercy Pictures


8.4

based on 26 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 42 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R for strong violence, language and sexuality

Starring William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Frances McDormand, and Peter Stormare

An unsuccessful car salesman (Macy) plans to wipe out his personal debts by hiring a pair of small-time, out-of-town crooks to kidnap his wife (McDormand), then collect the ransom from her dad (Presnell), a wealthy tightwad.

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Joel Coen Ethan Coen
DIRECTED BY:	Joel Coen
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 15, 2000 Video: June 21, 1999 Theatrical: March 8, 1996
RUNNING TIME:	98 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Rotates its story through satire, comedy, suspense and violence, until it emerges as one of the best films I've ever seen.

100

Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel

The fans of their best work -- "Blood Simple, "Raising Arizona," "Barton Fink" -- now can add Fargo to the list, pushing the Coens to the first rank of contemporary American filmmakers. [8 March 1996, Friday, p.B]

100

Dallas Observer Arnold Wayne Jones

Fargo is a concert performance--an illuminating amalgam of emotion and thought. It glimpses into the heart of man and unearths a blackly comic nature, hellishly mercurial and selfish, yet strangely innocent. If it weren't so funny, it would be unbearably disturbing.

100

TNT RoughCut Gabriel J.P. Goldberg

As gruesome as Fargo is, the Coens keep us laughing with a Hollywood-centric view of middle America.

100

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

It's a miracle: A tough, honest, bloody film set so far from the bright lights it feels as if it's on a different planet, yet knowable and absolutely compelling from start to finish.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

A crime gem that is darkly funny even when it's chilling -- and certain to become a classic.

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Dizzily rich, witty, and satisfying.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

For all its exaggerated ordinariness, this film seems to start where others leave off.

Mr. Showbiz Richard T. Jameson

The Coens are masters at striking a tone and holding it.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Frances McDormand enjoys the comedic role of her career.

Variety Leonard Klady

In the darkly humorous Fargo, iconoclastic filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen manage the precarious balancing act of respecting genre conventions and simultaneously pushing them to an almost surrealistic extreme. Very funny stuff.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

The brothers, who have always seemed fond of their characters, have never taken quite so overt a stand for life's simple joys.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

An immersion into the characters' world in toto, from the "Oh geezes" and the "Oh, yaahs" to the dark and flinty core beneath.

San Francisco Examiner G. Allen Johnson

The Coens haven't been this sharp, focused and fluid since their first film. This is "Blood Simple's" promise fulfilled.

Film.com Elizabeth Weitzman

This mordant, macabre look at the American obsession with fast food, television and murder is icily funny.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

What mainly registers is the quiet desperation and simple pleasures of ordinary midwestern lives, the fatuous ways that people cover up their emotional and intellectual gaps, and the alternating pointlessness and cuteness of human existence. This may be a masterpiece of sorts, but it left me feeling rotten.

Film.com Shannon Gee

Performances are near-perfect.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The Coen brothers wrote McDormand’s role best. Much of the time they seem to have had “Pulp Fiction” in their ears--strings of incongruous banalities; but with this pregnant cop, they struck some gold of their own. [March 25, 1996]

Film.com Bruce Reid

I don't care if they made up the whole thing. Any five minutes of Fargo feels truer than the whole of, say, "Nixon."

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

With the perfect assist from their actors, all of whom are well in on the joke, this affectionate look at the frozen North brings the Coens back in from the cold.

USA Today Mike Clark

Lean, mean and mordant black comedy.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's easy to admire what the Coens are trying to do in Fargo, but more difficult to actually like the film.

Film.com Keith Simanton

Uniquely fascinating.

TV Guide Frank Lovece

Born and raised in Minnesota, the Coens know their targets well and generally hit them squarely.

Salon.com Laura Miller

To the extent that the joke is on us, the audience, and the decadent taste we've acquired for flashy violence, it works; point taken.

Time Richard Corliss

All attitude and low aptitude.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 42 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

matt a gave it a10:
A classic that still seems fresh, funny and completely new over a decade later. P.S. I know it seems nitpicky, but Metacritic, you have in the synopsis that Frances McDormand is the wife who gets kidnapped. She's not. She's the cop. Just thought I'd let you know.

Zack O. gave it a10:
Fargo is a great movie. It is by far the best Coen Brothers movie and also one of the greatest of all time. It is amazing how it can be intense and brutal while three minutes later, funny.

Jake G. gave it a10:
Violent, bloody... but the most important thing is... it´s great. Frances McDormand is the best performance of the film, Buscemi and Macy are brilliant too!! A really master piece.10

Rod G. gave it a9:
Great movie! I may take offense if I were from North Dakota or Minnesota but they were exaggerating the accent a little. I thought all the actors were great.

wongit gave it a5:
Just average. this is one of the most overhyped movies i seen in a while. it was decent. its by no means a bad movie but damn this movie was really overated thats all i got to say. i dont see alot thats so special about it.

Jerry X. gave it a10:
A film more flawless than "Fargo" doesn't come to mind because there isn't one. It is the epitome of the pitch-perfect motion picture, and it features two of the most superb performances in recent history by William H. Macy and Frances McDormand. It's simply one of the greatest thrillers of all-time.

Susan J gave it a10:
One of the funniest movies of all time. This is definitely going into a favorites list. Oh gosh!

Fargo Gramercy Pictures

Fargo
Gramercy Pictures