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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Fargo

Universal acclaim
Based on 26 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 57 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
Directed by: Joel Coen
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 8, 1996
DVD: August 15, 2000
Running Time: 98 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
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.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Barton Fink Blood Simple: The Director's Cut Burn After Reading 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
Rotates its story through satire, comedy, suspense and violence, until it emerges as one of the best films I've ever seen.
Read Full Review >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]
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.
Read Full Review >TNT RoughCut Gabriel J.P. Goldberg
As gruesome as Fargo is, the Coens keep us laughing with a Hollywood-centric view of middle America.
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.
San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack
A crime gem that is darkly funny even when it's chilling -- and certain to become a classic.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
For all its exaggerated ordinariness, this film seems to start where others leave off.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Film.com Shannon Gee
Performances are near-perfect.
The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
The Coen brothers wrote McDormands 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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 57 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!
