Miller’s Crossing

The Coens’ third film found the pair applying their neo-noir filmmaking chops (proven in Blood Simple and Raising Arizona) to a Prohibition-era period piece conjured from Dashiell Hammett’s influential novels The Glass Key and Red Harvest. Tom (Gabriel Byrne) is the right-hand man and advisor to a corrupt town’s reigning mob boss, Leo (Albert Finney). Playing rival gangs against one another, Tom’s intricate stratagems, and his affair with Leo’s lover, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), leave him in a perilous position. Replete with crackling dialogue in fluent gangster-ese, elegant production design, and affecting performances, Miller’s Crossing is classic Coen and quintessential Hammett.