The Man Who Wasn't There
USA Films | Release Date: October 31, 2001 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
4
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Like all the Coens' movies, "Man" is supremely self-aware and darkly, hellishly funny. It's also brilliantly written and acted to a fare-thee-well by an outrageously good cast. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Most of the way this ranks with the Coens' most immaculately crafted work. Cain would have loved its dreamlike chills, and so will audiences nostalgic for the movies of half a century ago. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
The Coens' plotting, with its suspense and reversals, is a source of amazement and delight. Read full review
100
New Times (L.A.)Bill Gallo
For all its long shadows and ominous atmosphere, this is a very funny movie -- as funny as the Coens' masterful "Fargo." Read full review
100
TimeRichard Schickel
If this were not such great American-vernacular moviemaking -- hilarious yet hypnotic -- one would be tempted to see something Greek in the tragedy that Ed never comprehends. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's an entirely conceived work of art, dark and hopeless and maybe even callous, but glittering and wonderful in its determination and in its craft. Read full review
90
The New York TimesDana Stevens
The Coens have used the noir idiom to fashion a haunting, beautifully made movie that refers to nothing outside itself and that disperses like a vapor as soon as it's over. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
You could say a lot about the very satisfying The Man Who Wasn't There, but what's for sure is that no one but the deadpan, dead-on Coen brothers could have turned it out. Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
When you're in the hands of the Coen brothers, you're in for sheer originality. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklySteven Mikulan
The Coens have resurrected a hardscrabble California of wooden porches and gravel driveways, of rolling, oak-wreathed hills and one-lane roads, and of a restless people whose meager dreams are wrecked the moment money, sex or a bottle get in the way. Never has the past seemed so familiar. Read full review
90
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Steadily engrossing and devilishly funny, and, o brother, does it look sharp. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
To be sure, there are goofy flourishes here, the in-jokey, left-field rummies that are the Brothers Coen's stock-in-trade. But this is altogether a quieter, more philosophical sort of endeavor. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Isn't content to stick to the genre conventions it sets up. Instead, it sprawls and mutates into one of the Coens' elaborate gizmoid yarns. Read full review
80
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It's the latest and one of the best entries in a genre whose highest philosophical expression is the whiplash realization that the universe doesn't play fair. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The Coen brothers tread into James M. Cain territory with The Man Who Wasn't There, but with less tasty results than either Cain or the Coens themselves at their best. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
This fastidiously hyperreal neo-noir suggests a sadder but wiser remake of the Coens' rambunctious debut, "Blood Simple." Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
The film is marvelous fun on its own terms -- I laughed all the way through it. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's the best-looking film of the year, hands down, and Thornton is dazzling, a dull diamond in the gutter rough. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Has all the tense crackle of film noir and the molasses drip of irony that is the trademark of movie-making brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Once you get the joke and grasp the aesthetic they're after, it's fun, and it almost works on the steam of its clever plot mechanics. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
So assured and perceptive in its style, so loving, so intensely right, that if you can receive on that frequency, the film is like a voluptuous feast. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Not for them the straightforward spoof, but, instead, a slightly creepy desire to have it both ways -- to inject new life into noir, but also to laugh behind their hands at its antique solemnity, and to urge us to follow suit. [5 Nov 2001, p. 105]
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
What makes me respect The Man Who Wasn't There despite myself is the sense that the Coens want it to be about something that can't be described or defined. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
As a whole, it's a bit of a mess, the work of bratty geniuses with talent to spare, but unsure of what -- if anything -- they're trying to say. Read full review
63
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Despite its visual brilliance, its all-round cleverness, and the way it demonstrates a profound understanding of genre, the Coen brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There doesn't quite come off. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeJay Carr
Lacks the requisite sense of dread.
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The juice in "Man" comes from supporting characters.
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Thornton seems born to play the sort of slow-witted poet of the mundane that the Coens find worthy of their condescending affection. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's clever, in a "dare you to name this hommage" kind of way, but it's fundamentally heartless and coldly hollow. Read full review
40
Film ThreatSaul Austerlitz
tThe resulting hodgepodge is a medley of the brothers’ favorite verbal and visual tics, making much noise and signifying nothing. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The Coens have a true feeling for the sleek surfaces of the genre, but they don't connect with its sordid, sexy undercurrent; that's why Crane is made to seem so passive. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Isn't serious enough to fulfill its ambitions, or funny enough to compensate for its failures.
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Ordinary moviegoers, on the other hand, may wonder what they're supposed to feel, apart from bored.
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