A Serious Man

Get Showtimes + Tickets

  • Opened October 2, 2009 
  • 1 hr 45 min
  • R | language, some sexuality/nudity and brief violence

  • Parents: Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+. More on child suitability

  • Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a physics professor at a 1960s university, but his life is coming apart at the seams. His wife (Sari Lennick) is leaving him, his jobless brother (Richard Kind) has moved in, and someone is trying to sabotage his chances for tenure. Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis, but whether anyone can help him overcome his many afflictions remains to be seen. Full synopsis

  • Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, Sari Lennick, Adam Arkin
  • Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
  • Genres: Black Comedy, Period Film, Comedy

What's the Buzz?

So-so
Fans say So-So
4 fans
Read fan reviews
Go
Critics say Go
79 out of 100
Read critic reviews
Write your own review

Critic Reviews

100
San Francisco Chronicle
| Mick LaSalle

The movie is funny, definitely funny. But underlying the humor is a vision so bleak, so despairing and so utterly hopeless as to make "No Country for Old Men" almost look cheerful. Read full review

100
Boston Globe
| Ty Burr

It’s a work of cruel comic genius, in some ways even crueler than “No Country for Old Men.’’ Read full review

100
Chicago Sun-Times
| Roger Ebert

Have I mentioned A Serious Man is so rich and funny? This isn't a laugh-laugh movie, but a wince-wince movie. Those can be funny too. Read full review

91
Entertainment Weekly
| Owen Gleiberman

Working with affectionate mockery, the Coens take the cinder-block-synagogue banality of American Jewish life in 1967 and make it look as archly exotic as the loopy Scandinavian-American winterscape of "Fargo." Read full review

Read more critic reviews

Offers

Photos

A scene from "A Serious Man."