It’s just one of the most original films ever made, perhaps the best world the Coens imagined and the one filled with its best characters.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2024

The Big Lebowski is at once utterly inconsequential and a blow for a cinematic slacker aesthetic.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2023

Bridge's thespian mastery, via the slacker zeitgeist of our time, converts The Dude's funniest lines into a readily-understood language of everyday desperation. This ultimately begat the religion of Dudeism. Which makes 'Lebowski' an important movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 21, 2023

25 years later, the movie where every detail matters and doesn’t matter at all, is as hilarious as ever – and more poignant, man.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 23, 2023

The Coen Brothers introduced the world to The Dude, Jesus, Walter, Maude, and a fantasia of burnt-out ex-hippie in a Raymond Chandler plot. (25th anniversary)

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 19, 2023

The Dude becomes an aspirational figure, chill in the face of increasing absurdity, and ever able to express himself in perfectly quotable ways.

Full Review | Mar 10, 2023

With their inspired, absurdist taste for weird, peculiar Americana, the Coens have defined and mastered their own bizarre subgenre. No one does it like them and, it almost goes without saying, no one does it better.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2023

Leave it to Joel and Ethan Coen to wake up a drowsy movie genre with a bucket of ice water, a giant alarm clock and a fistful of No-Doz. The Big Lebowski... injects a mammoth syringe of adrenaline lunacy directly into the overdosed heart of film noir.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2023

In American movies, the Coens are the reigning eccentric poets of the loser class. Who else could get away with quoting Theodore Herzl in a bowling alley?

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 24, 2023

A hilarious pop-culture hash. The Big Lebowski is the best movie ever set mostly in a bowling alley.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2023

A likably off-balance, screwball comedy mystery that cruises along so smoothly, and so quickly, you've got to pay attention. That's because Bridges' towering performance may divert your eye from the keen details.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 24, 2023

The Big Lebowski doesn't have [Fargo's] wholeness, but it does have absolutely perfect moments -- quirky details, darkly funny dialogue, indelible small parts.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 24, 2023

If The Big Lebowski’s L.A. lights seem a little dim in the long shadow of Fargo, the movie invites you just to step out of the darkness and laugh.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2023

The Stranger sums it up best in the self-serving epilogue: "It was a purty good story, dontcha think? Made me laugh to beat the band... Parts, anyway."

Full Review | Jan 24, 2023

Even when they don't achieve the glorious farce of a Fargo, there is always something fascinating about following the Coens' rapt gaze as they peer into the American nut bowl.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2023

The Big Lebowski is probably the worst movie the Coen brothers have ever made. Which, given their track record and the other movies out there, doesn't necessarily mean it's all that bad. Still, "Lebowski" is something of a letdown.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 24, 2023

Make no mistake: If Fargo came this close to machining out your weird-o-meter, The Big Lebowski will probably nudge you over the edge, then stand back and laugh as you splatter on the rocks below.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 24, 2023

The most original and blithely astonishing comedy to blaze across the screen since Raising Arizona.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jan 24, 2023

The burden of being Hollywood's hippest filmmakers looks to be weighing heavily on the Coen brothers. After Fargo, "Lebowski" is a return to the overly manner film-nerd humor of The Hudsucker Proxy.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jan 24, 2023

It is a funny picture, in both the ha-ha and peculiar senses. And if it is not as fully fledged as Raising Arizona and Fargo, this is because the Coen Brothers set such high standards for their edgy comedies.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 24, 2023