No Country for Old Men

Storyline

Directed, written, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen based on Cormac McCarthy's bleak 2005 novel, No Country for Old Men swept four Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, widely acknowledged as the greatest modern neo-Western crime thriller of the twenty-first century. Set against the desolate, sun-bleached scrubland of 1980 West Texas, the cataclysmic narrative is ignited when welder and Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon the bloody aftermath of a desert drug shootout gone wrong, discovering a pickup truck loaded with heroin and a leather satchel containing $2.4 million in cash. Moss's fateful decision to abscond with the fortune unleashes Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem in a chilling, Oscar-winning portrayal of psychotic sociopathy), an unstoppable hitman who executes victims with a captive bolt pistol, speaks in eerie philosophical paradoxes, and decides human lives on the flip of a coin. As Moss desperately evades Chigurh across dusty roadside motels, weary aging Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) investigates the escalating carnage, lamenting his inability to comprehend or combat the senseless, remorseless wave of modern violent evil. Devoid of a traditional musical score and shot with stark, breathtaking precision by Roger Deakins, No Country for Old Men is an unyielding, haunting meditation on fate, mortality, and the terrifying randomness of human existence.