... a devious melodrama of adultery, embezzlement, blackmail, and murder.

| Apr 26, 2025

Like many films in the film noir genre, The Man Who Wasn't There would not work if it were released in color.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 22, 2024

The Coens often exaggerate a genre to comic effect, and for The Man Who Wasn't There, the mechanics of film noir marry with the Coens' unique brand of searching, and together realize their most mysterious, atmospheric motion picture.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 2, 2022

Leave it to Joel and Ethan Coen to not only pay expert homage to the film noir genre, but darn near perfect it.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 22, 2021

Thornton's performance is legitimately mesmerising, if only because it's such an unusual anchor to a film.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 26, 2020

Much less acidic than Fargo, not as graceful as The Big Lebowsky, and barely enigmatic as Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There is, isn't far from being the best film of the [Coen Brothers]. [Full review in Spanish]

| Sep 6, 2017

Ed's problem isn't so much that he isn't there but that, when you finally catch a glimpse of him, there's no way to be sure exactly what has caught your gaze.

| Oct 14, 2011

This stylized black and white noir by the Joel and Ethan Coen is meticulously mounted but too emotionally detached and only sporadically engaging.

| Original Score: B | Apr 1, 2011

Some mature themes--best for older teens.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 28, 2010

Few outside of Coen cliques paid this nihilistic neo-noir much attention. Perhaps that's its wryest, slyest punchline: To watch Ed Crane is to largely forget him and, upon returning to him, revisit the pleasure of meeting him for the first time.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 19, 2010

Affectlessness is not a quality much prized in movie protagonists, but Billy Bob Thornton, that splendid actor, does it perfectly as Ed Crane.

| Oct 13, 2009

As good a film as I've seen this year.

| Nov 7, 2007

The film holds the interest, to be sure, but more due to the sure sense of craft and precise effect that one expects from the Coens than from genuine involvement in the story.

Full Review | Nov 7, 2007

Joel and Ethan Coen stay true to their bent for dense heroes and neonoir, and to their unshakable conviction that life usually turns out to be splendidly horrific.

| Nov 7, 2007

Thornton does wonders within the tabula rasa of words and gestures he's limited to.

| Original Score: A | Sep 27, 2007

Mr. Shaloub injects some much needed energy into the film which otherwise feels long at two hours.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 14, 2007

Slowly paced for a thriller and with a hero many will find off-putting, this is nevertheless a gripping, unusual and challenging work from the most consistently brilliant filmmakers of the last decade.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2006

In this the Coens' sly script is helped no end by Billy Bob Thornton's supremely eloquent performance as the taciturn tonsor, lent terrific support from Frances McDormand as the wife.

| Jun 24, 2006

Despite the movie's humor and sense of irony, it takes on a sense of somberness as it progresses.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 21, 2005

It's perfectly, elegantly reticent about its subject matter, as suits both the theme and the tradition of film noir (a type of filmmaking that thrives on unstated motives).

Full Review | Mar 3, 2005