--- title: "No Country for Old Men: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/no-country-for-old-men/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/no-country-for-old-men" critics_score: 88 critics_reviews: 7 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # No Country for Old Men (2007): what the critics said Critics' score 88 from 7 reviews: 6 positive, 1 mixed, 0 negative. Most critics are strongly positive about the Coen brothers’ adaptation, with praise centred on its controlled suspense, precise filmmaking and performances. Javier Bardem’s Chigurh draws particular attention for the fear he generates, while Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones also receive praise. The reviews repeatedly single out the framing, sound and use of the Texas landscape as reasons the violence feels so disturbing. Many also find black humour running through the bleakness, alongside serious questions about fate and evil. The disagreement concerns what this accomplished thriller has to say, and whether its closing stretch works. The Independent admires the shooting and tension but finds that the adaptation loses McCarthy’s wider meaning. The Hollywood Reporter likewise praises much of the filmmaking, then argues that fidelity to the novel weakens the storytelling. Reservations are less common than praise, but substantial: technical control attracts broad agreement; the film’s philosophical weight does not. ## Radio Times — Jamie Russell Rating 5/5. The Coens craft a masterful, multi-faceted thriller and philosophical meditation on fate from McCarthy's novel, blending apocalyptic social breakdown with blackly comic sensibility. It stands with their career peaks like Blood Simple and Fargo. [Read the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-3q7c9a/no-country-for-old-men/) ## Slant Magazine — Nick Schager Rating 4/4. 9 October 2007. The Coens locate black comedy and wry levity within McCarthy’s bleak tale while delivering economical direction, severe cinematography, and standout performances, particularly Bardem’s chilling Chigurh, resulting in a masterful adaptation. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/no-country-for-old-men/) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw Rating 5/5. 18 January 2008. The Coen brothers deliver a triumphant, dark and violent adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel that stands as their best film to date. It features exceptional lead performances, especially from Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones, and captures a sense of apocalyptic brutality in the Texas landscape. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/jan/18/drama.thriller) ## Sight and Sound — Ben Walters and J.M. Tyree Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 1 February 2008. The Coens deliver a pitch-perfect thriller that subverts genre conventions while interrogating American manhood and the unfathomability of evil. They faithfully adapt McCarthy's novel with masterful design, sound, and a memorable villain in Bardem's Chigurh. [Read the review](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/4192) ## The Independent Fi1m's normalised score 60/100 (inferred from the text). 20 January 2008. This is a classy, masterly executed film with impeccable shooting and maximum tension, a signal return to the grim thriller mode of Fargo. Yet the film feels ultimately hollow, a straight genre exercise that turns McCarthy's mythic scope into another Coen collection of grisly goofballs. [Read the review](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/no-country-for-old-men-15-771459.html) ## Empire — Ian Nathan 29 December 2007. The Coens have rediscovered their mojo with a mature, back-to-basics adaptation of McCarthy's violent neo-Western that blends terse parable with oil-black humour. It is violent, poetic, gripping, thrilling and blackly funny, now with added humanity. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/country-old-men-review/) ## Los Angeles Times 20 December 2007. The film presents a harrowing view of an America where money, drugs and guns rule. The critic singles out the ability to evoke psychological terror in the character of Chigurh for praise, while noting the lack of the directors' usual dry humor. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/socal/la-canada-valley-sun/news/tn-vsl-xpm-2007-12-20-lent-nocountry1220-story.html) ## The Hollywood Reporter — Ray Bennett 19 May 2007. Festival review. The Coens sustain electrifying tension through superior filmmaking for most of the picture, but their faithfulness to the Cormac McCarthy novel leads to plot holes, philosophizing, and an offscreen climactic scene that undoes the fine work. [Read the review](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/no-country-old-men-2-158236/) ## The New Yorker — Anthony Lane 5 November 2007. The thriller is tight, pointed and immune to the temptations of speed, a return to the dark, simmering days of the Coens' best work. The critic praises the control of the movie and its presentation of Texas as a state of being where good and evil circle each other. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/11/12/hunting-grounds) ## The New York Times — A.O. Scott 9 November 2007. The film is bleak, scary and relentlessly violent, centered on an implacable figure of evil. The critic singles out the Coens' nearly perfect execution of technique, tight editing, nimble camera work and faultless sound design for praise. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/movies/09coun.html) ## Total Film 18 January 2008. No Country perfectly fits the Coens with its keen sense of time and place, lowlife characters, plotting and black humour, balancing genre tics and tense set-pieces with deep affection for people and moral purpose. It is an instant classic and virtuoso film of pin-sharp principles and suffocating tension. [Read the review](https://www.gamesradar.com/no-country-for-old-men-review/) ## Variety — Todd McCarthy 19 May 2007. Festival review. A superior match of source material and filmmaking talent that is one of the Coens' very best films and a bloody classic. The critic singles out the original and memorable villain played by Javier Bardem and the stunning location work and precision framing for praise. [Read the review](https://variety.com/2007/film/awards/no-country-for-old-men-5-1200559242/) ## Collider — Meredith Loftus Rating A-. 9 November 2022. The review highlights the film's tension built through silence and deliberate pacing, along with strong performances especially Javier Bardem's menacing Anton Chigurh. It notes some drag in the first hour but finds the film timeless and a standout in the Coen brothers' work. [Read the review](https://collider.com/no-country-for-old-men-review/) ## Digital Spy — Ben Rawson-Jones Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 14 January 2008. The critic calls it an engrossing thriller with stunning performances and taut direction that builds relentless suspense through its cat-and-mouse pursuit, but finds the ending philosophically unsatisfying and the denouement flawed. [Read the review](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a85046/no-country-for-old-men/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/no-country-for-old-men.md