Blood Simple

The idiosyncratic filmmaking team of Joel and Ethan Coen made their debut with "Blood Simple" (1984), a modern film noir about an adulterous affair and a complicated web of murder and betrayal in a small Texas town. Sleek, simple and austere, with an inventive style that has fun with the material while effectively ratcheting up the tension and suspicion, this trendsetting neo-noir still stands out from the increasingly ornate and overly complicated thrillers of late. Their follow-up, "Raising Arizona" (1987) is a modern screwball farce brimming with cinematic showmanship and stylistic busyness and crammed with everything from cartoonish slapstick to deadpan double takes. Inspired by Dashiell Hammett's novel "Red Harvest," "Miller's Crossing" (1990) is the Coens' masterpiece, a gangster drama set in the East Coast Irish mob during prohibition. Gabriel Byrne is the loyal lieutenant to mob boss Albert Finney (a lively, lusty performance) who suddenly goes rogue, but with ulterior motives that come clear only as the meticulously plotted story unwinds to its hard-hearted conclusion. "Barton Fink" (1991) is a demented Hollywood satire that stars John Turturro as a socially driven New York playwright who goes to la-la land to write a Wallace Beery wrestling picture and faces the writer's block from hell. It won the Palme d'Or and Turturro won Best Actor at Cannes in 1991. "Fargo" (1996), their most popular film to date (and their only Oscar winner, for Best Original Screenplay), is a truly offbeat and unpredictable crime drama anchored in quirky humor, odd characters -- a pregnant cop (Frances McDormand, who earned an Oscar for her performance); a desperate, sad-sack used car salesman (William H. Macy, who should have); and the two shaggy, simple thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) he hires to kidnap his wife -- and lilting speech patterns you'll find yourself mimicking for days. Not at all based on a true story, the Coen brothers set their tale in their home state of Minnesota in the depths of winter, making for both a gorgeous and desolate setting for its menu of depraved violence and a sweet sensitivity to character.

The five-disc set is collected in five thinpak cases in a paperboard sleeve. Supplements include a featurette on cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld; interviews with "Miller's Crossing" stars Marcia Gay Harden, Byrne and Turturro; and eight deleted scenes from "Barton Fink." The "Fargo" special edition includes commentary by (the marvelously articulate) cinematographer Roger A. Deakins, interviews with the Coen brothers and star McDormand, and the original documentary "Minnesota Nice" among its supplements.