Before they brought home gold.
THE COEN BROTHERS
The Coen brothers struck Oscar gold in 2008 with
No Country For Old Men
, which won Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Directing and was nominated for Best Editing. And though they'd won for 1996's
Fargo
, they deserved Oscars long before that.
Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
: It's difficult to dispute that the brothers are among the finest, most original American filmmakers working today. Their films are always set within a fascinating fulcrum of the space/time continuum and are full of fast-talking smooth operators and bumbling idiots.
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS
Daniel Day-Lewis not only won the Best Actor Oscar for his thundering portrayal of oilman Daniel Plainview in
There Will Be Blood
, he dominated the category. Day-Lewis took up a similar accent and tone in 2002's
Gangs of New York
, a film that, despite being somewhat overrated, is worth a watch for his performance alone. But it's Day-Lewis' true-story collaborations with director Jim Sheridan that constitute his must-see work:
In The Name Of the Father
and
My Left Foot
.
In The Name of the Father
is an incredible and highly relevant film that centers on the harrowing experiences of Gerry Conlon, a small-time crook whose coerced confession to an IRA bombing lands him in prison for 15 years. In
My Left Foot
, Day-Lewis' portrays Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy and learned to paint with his only functioning appendage, his left foot; it is one of the greatest performances in cinematic history.
JAVIER BARDEM
Javier Bardem won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year for his knock-out job as the psychopath who haunted
No Country For Old Men
. Before his acceptance speech, many Americans had a hard time picking him out of a crowd. Yet the Spanish actor has been in some outstanding films. In 2000 he starred in
Before Night Falls
, a telling of the life and times of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990). In 2004's
The Sea Inside
, he played the quadriplegic Spaniard who struggled for 30 years for the right to end his own life as he wished.
