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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

2018

Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Tim Blake Nelson, Zoe Kazan, Tom Waits, James Franco ...

6.5

17,952

Western. Drama. Comedy. Musical "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is a six-part Western anthology film, a series of tales about the American frontier told through the unique and incomparable voice of Joel and Ethan Coen. Each chapter tells a distinct story about the American West.

	Author	Review
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"The gallows humor of their fatalistic 'Ballad' allows the filmmakers to do what they do best: laugh in the face of death (…) Rating: ★★★★½ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Owen Gleiberman Variety	"Since the episodes are uneven in quality (though the best of them seize and hold you), you may feel that it’s too much of a just-okay thing.	NEU
United States	Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter	"This little Western anthology is minor Coen Brothers, worth checking out on Netflix, but of very limited potential theatrically."	NEU
United States	David Edelstein Vulture	"This is the sort of film that traditionally marks the start of an artist's "late phase" - one in which old motifs are brought back in different keys and tested (...) For the Coens, it's a thrilling new frontier."	POS
United States	Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times	"Using their great ability with comic dialogue, the Coens exaggerate and subvert familiar western tropes to gleeful comic effect."	POS
United States	A. O. Scott The New York Times	"[The Coens] take evident delight in the mechanics of screenwriting and filmmaking (...) and also ensure that art, both lofty and popular, is integral to the experience of their characters."	POS
United States	Alonso Duralde The Wrap	"'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' will be, at best, a charming footnote in the Coens’ career (...) It’s a pretty good one, but be ready to love some episodes more than others."	NEU
United States	Eric Kohn IndieWire	"Intermittently funny, gorgeous, and patience-trying 130 minutes, but fans will find plenty of gems in this messy assemblage of Coen brothers motifs."	NEU
United States	Mick LaSalle San Francisco Chronicle	"It's a good movie - better than good - and if you like the Coen Brothers, you should enjoy it, and if you don't like the Coen Brothers, why don't you? You really should like the Coen Brothers."	POS
United States	Stephanie Zacharek Time	"A book of cowboy tales written in movie language (...) This anthology starts out at a jaunty canter and becomes progressively more grim"	POS
United States	Glenn Kenny rogerebert.com	"Its meshing of formal discipline and screwed-down content sometimes give it the sense of a work that has been carefully and elaborately embroidered rather than photographed (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Jessica Kiang The Playlist	"As a whole, the film has to be chalked down to a perplexingly minor addition to one of the most beloved cinematic canons of our time."	NEU
United Kingdom	Robbie Collin Telegraph	"The Coens are in inspired form with this macabre, gonzo Western (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"Franco, Neeson and Waits traipse across the prairie in a lovingly crafted collection of vignettes spattered with bloody violence and inky humour (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Tim Grierson Screendaily	"[It] doesn’t reinvent the Coens’ sardonic, measured aesthetic, but the anthology’s looser structure allows them a friskiness that is welcome"	POS
Canada	Thomas Humphrey Screen Anarchy	"'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' would indeed have worked better as a series (...) It seems like a tragically missed opportunity."	NEU

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