Amazon Prime Video Adds a Must-Watch Thriller Classic To Its Lineup

Amazon Prime Video has just added a movie that many people see as one of the best thrillers ever made. The film, which also ranks as one of the top movies from the 2000s, is now available for streaming. The movie is none other than No Country for Old Men, the famous crime thriller directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Back in 2008, No Country for Old Men dominated the Oscars. It won four major awards at the 80th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor.

It was the movie that took home the most wins that night, after getting a total of eight nominations. It also beat out other popular movies like There Will Be Blood, Atonement, and Juno.

No Country for Old Men is not just an awards favorite. The movie was also a box office success. Made on a budget of $25 million, it earned over $171 million worldwide. It stars Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, and tells a dark story set in Texas in 1980.

The film follows three main characters: Llewelyn Moss, a war veteran who finds a suitcase full of money in the desert; Anton Chigurh, a hitman hunting him down; and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who tries to make sense of the violence around him. Woody Harrelson and Kelly Macdonald also appear in supporting roles.

Critics loved the movie. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a score of 93% from almost 300 reviews. Metacritic also gives it a high rating of 92 out of 100. The critics praised the strong performances from Bardem, Brolin, and Jones, and the Coen brothers’ style of filmmaking. According to the review summary on Rotten Tomatoes, “Bolstered by powerful lead performances from Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Tommy Lee Jones, No Country for Old Men finds the Coen brothers spinning cinematic gold out of Cormac McCarthy’s grim, darkly funny novel.”

Several famous critics have praised the film over the years. Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian called it “the best of the [Coens’] career so far.” Rob Mackie from the same newspaper said the movie felt “absorbing and tense” and noted that everything about it was done well. Geoff Andrew from Time Out London said it kept a strong grip on viewers from start to finish. Richard Corliss of Time Magazine even called it the best movie of the year and said, “after two decades of being brilliant on the movie margins, the Coens are ready for their closeup, and maybe their Oscar.”

Paul Arendt from the BBC described the film as “a magnificent return to form.” A.O. Scott from The New York Times praised the film’s visuals and sound, saying that for people who enjoy the technical side of movies, “it’s pure heaven.”

Two well-known Australian critics, Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, both gave the film a perfect score, with Stratton saying that “Hitchcock wouldn’t have done the suspense better.”

Not everyone loved the movie, though. Some critics felt the film didn’t have a clear main character or a strong ending. Others said that Anton Chigurh, played by Bardem, felt more like a mystery than a real character. One review from The Daily Telegraph said that the character had “a sprawling inscrutability, a mystery that is merely pathological.” In The Washington Post, critic Stephen Hunter said the movie had almost no character development, calling it “all chase” and saying it followed typical thriller rules without offering much depth.

Despite a few negative opinions, the movie’s reputation has only grown over time. In 2023, director Denis Villeneuve called it one of his favorite movies ever and said it was the Coen brothers’ best work.

Now that No Country for Old Men is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, viewers who missed it the first time around can finally watch what many people consider a modern classic.

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