It’s easy to presume Joel and Ethan Coen had to grow into their exceptional attunement to the invisible forces of the universe that either jolt us awake or lull us into deceptively comforting slumber. Nope. They've been in command of that from the jump.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2025

It’s shockingly accomplished in terms of tone and technique (for being a first feature) and haunted by one of Carter Burwell’s best piano scores.

| Jan 22, 2025

Bodies are shot, stabbed, dragged, and buried, blood is spilled and wiped up, evidence planted, swiped, and swapped, and nobody really knows what the story is. Except the audience, and we’re generally a beat behind.

| Apr 6, 2024

Blood Simple not only put the Coens on the map but guaranteed that cinema would never again be the same.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 7, 2024

The debut neo-noir feature film by the brothers Ethan and Joel Coen is perhaps their most enchanting work. Blood Simple remains loyal to the classic noir tradition while evolving the genre’s prototypical narrative structure.

| Nov 28, 2023

Blood Simple is a feature relatively grounded within the real world...

| Nov 13, 2023

A staggering inaugural film, and I dare say, one of their best, this campy, philosophical, comical and scary piece continues to move me time after time and year after year.

| Aug 1, 2023

Blood Simple is entirely self-concious, and good for it.

| Dec 6, 2022

...stylish yet distressingly uninvolving...

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 10, 2022

...good Old Testament stuff.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 19, 2021

Moody, tenacious, and sweaty, it is the earliest, and one of the best films from the distinctive duo.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 30, 2020

Distrust and deviance run rampant, toying with expectations and shattering any trust in consistent behavior from the actors, who are all remarkably effective.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 31, 2020

One of the boldest debuts and most watchable indie movies of the 1980s.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 3, 2020

Blood Simple is less than a masterpiece, but it's more than a successful audition for the Coen brothers' talents.

| Feb 27, 2020

What holds up best about Blood Simple, besides its vice-tight plotting and the rotten charisma of M. Emmet Walsh's evil, manipulative private eye Visser, is the sheer exuberance of the Coens's visual style.

| Apr 15, 2019

Joel and Ethan Coen's explosive Blood Simple announced the arrival to the big screen of Hollywood legends the likes of which are rarely seen in this generation.

| Dec 8, 2018

From their very first feature, the Coen Brothers already had their brilliance firmly in place.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 1, 2018

Blood Simple is certainly a strikingly assured first feature.

| Jan 22, 2018

An accomplished debut from the Coen brothers, and a slick, despairingly funny piece of noir.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 19, 2017

The script is as tight as it ever was, keeping attention throughout and little clues and subtleties can easily be missed if you are not paying attention - this film demands focus from the very first frame.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 18, 2017