Underplayed Gems

Fargo (1996)

Fargo poster
Directed by
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Genre
drama film, comedy film, action film, film noir, comedy drama, crime film
Country
United Kingdom, United States
Runtime
1h 38m
Rated
R
Rating
7.8 of 10 from 9,170 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like thisWatch the trailer

or watch the trailer on YouTube

How it feels

A pregnant police chief investigates a kidnapping in snowy Minnesota. The crime involves a desperate car salesman who hires two bumbling criminals to snatch his wife for ransom.

darkly comicslow-burntensebleakdeadpangrimsuspenseful

What happens

Fargo is a 1996 black comedy crime film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Harve Presnell, and Peter Stormare. McDormand plays pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson, who investigates after a car salesman, Jerry Lundegaard (Macy), hires two dimwitted criminals (Buscemi and Stormare) to kidnap his wife to extort a ransom from her wealthy father. Filmed in the United States in early 1995, Fargo premiered at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or. Joel Coen won the festival's Prix De La Mise En Scène (Best Director Award). The film was a critical and commercial success, earning particular acclaim for the Coens' direction and script and the performances of McDormand, Macy and Buscemi. Fargo received seven Oscar nominations at the 69th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Macy, winning two: Best Actress for McDormand and Best Original Screenplay for the Coens. In 1998, the American Film Institute named Fargo one of the 100 greatest American films, the most recent film on that list; but it was omitted from its 2007 list. In 2006, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". An FX television series based on the film, Fargo, premiered in 2014. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.