Barton Fink 1991

Critics score:
91 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune: It's at its best when young Barton Fink simply stares at a picture of a bathing beauty contemplating the ocean -- a Hollywood dream. Read more

Vincent Canby, New York Times: It's an exhilarating original. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: This creepy satire is full of laughs and flaky twists, but by the end you may still be scratching your head. Read more

Entertainment Weekly: Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: Again the Coens take familiar movie tropes and twist them into something new. This may be their most haunting movie. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It's an assured piece of comic filmmaking. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: Gnomic, claustrophobic, hallucinatory, just plain weird, it is the kind of movie critics can soak up thousands of words analyzing and cinephiles can soak up at least three espressos arguing their way through. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Somehow everything coheres, thanks to the Coens' superb writing and assured direction, and a roster of marvellous performances. The result works on numerous levels, thrilling the mind, ears and eyes, and racking the nerves. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: Scene after scene is filled with a ferocious strength and humor. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: If Fink lacks cumulative punch, its fighting power is a technical knockout. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: A triumph for the offbeat, grimly funny brothers, it reveals in its mythic fashion the vagaries of the creative process that plague every artist. Read more