Critic Reviews
69
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
23(77%)
mixed
4(13%)
negative
3(10%)
Showing 30 Critic Reviews
100
It's a wild, whacked-out wonder. Coenheads rejoice.
100
A wildly original movie with astonishingly varied moods and influences.
90
From moment to moment, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a pleasure. But when the Coens are really cooking, when the acting and the conception and the music all come together, it's something more -- Dogpatch rapture.
90
It's a new new thing, classic myth from both literature and the movies, commingled, set to great folk music, and untrammeled by any sense of predictability, urgency, realism or believability but hypnotic, graceful and seductive.
90
It is, all in all, a rambunctious and inspired ride in which the Coen brothers' voracious fascination with the arcana of American popular culture and their whiz-kid inventiveness reach new heights of whimsy.
90
Clooney has become a movie star, and the Coens have given him his very own "It Happened One Night." The man, and the movie, are downright bona fide.
88
Devilishly delightful.
80
Enlivening things to an unprecedented extent, the songs turn O Brother into perhaps the warmest production in the Coens' repertoire.
80
All I can say is this particular excursion into screwball madness is often heavenly, and frankly leaves critical explication somewhat unnecessary. Go see it and laugh.
80
As a Coen brothers fan I hate to say this, but the movie's a collection of great bits and pieces rather than a complete work.
