Fargo (DVD 2003)

William H. Macy plays Jerry Lundegaard, a Minneapolis car salesman who is, by all accounts, a loser. He is desperately in debt, so decides to hires two thugs (who are bigger losers than he is) to kidnap his wife in the hope that his wealthy father-in-law (who bullies him regularly) will pay the ransom. When one of the kidnappers goes off the rails and events career out of control, it falls to Marge Gunderson, Chief of the Brainerd Police Department, to set things right.
Arguably the best of the Coen brothers films (they won an Oscar for the script), featuring two of their best usual suspects, Steve Buscemi and Frances McDormand – who won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in this role.

The film raked in a range of other prestigious and International Awards, 36 in total - including best direction at Cannes and David Lean Award for Direction at the 1997 BAFTA awards.

By the Cohen brothers, Fargo is a a mixture of a great plot and dark comedy. Violent and with liberal use of bad language it pulls no punches but it comes together to produce an immensely watchable film with excellent performances by many of the actors. The cinematography is also outstanding.