Start with 80% of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, take out the music, and cross the result with 20% of Brazil, and you’d be pretty close to Hudsucker.
- Miller’s Crossing
- Fargo
- O Brother
- The Hudsucker Proxy
+1
FWIW Here is my ranking favorite to least favorite:
The Big Lebowski;
Fargo;
No Country for Old Men;
Raising Arizona;
Barton Fink;
Blood Simple;
-----------(above this line are what I consider top shelf Coen bros.)----------
Miller’s Crossing;
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Man Who Wasn’t There;
Burn After Reading;
Hudsucker Proxy;
Intolerable Cruelty;
The Ladykillers (I couldn’t watch it and I usually love their movies)
The Hudsucker Proxy just comes off as way too quirky, as in, “Look at us! We’re QUIRKY! See our quirks?” This is hard to rationalize considering I loved Raising Arizona, but it’s the way I feel. And Jennifer Leigh apparently watched His Girl Friday, but not enough. I give her points for effort, but it just didn’t work for me. It definitely has its moments and a nice visual style. I guess I’d classify it as “rent, don’t buy.”
Nah, it’s one of the best.
Hudsucker is my least favorite Coen Bros. movie (haven’t seen Ladykillers). Might be because I can’t stand it when Jennifer Jason Leigh does any kind of accent.
It’s one of my all-time favorites. I was hooked the moment Tim Robbins showed his co-worker his drawing of the circle, and then, just in case the guy didn’t get it, he turned the drawing on its side.
“My name’s Buzz. I’ve got the fuzz. I make the elevator do what she does. Hiya, Buddy!”
Read the Cliff notes of the Odyssey first, it is a satire of the Odyssey.
I love Hudsucker, and think it’s one of the Coen boys’ best.
Tip for fans of The Wire: Buzz the elevator boy = Roland ‘Prez’ Pryzbylewski. Amazing but true. (Jim True, to be exact.)
The Coens needed the Clff notes too. They admitted that they’d never even read Homer’s Odyssey. Oh, and the word is parody not satire.
I don’t know how to discuss the Coens with anyone who would put Blood Simple so low on the list. That is a great bit o’ film right there.
I am quite fond of The Hudsucker Proxy and highly recommend it. Although, if you’ve seen all their other movies it sounds like you’re committed to watching this one for completion sake no matter what we say- so your own opinion will be formed soon enough.
I’ll put the films in order of my preferences so you can take my recommendation in context.
From Favorite to Least Favorite
(With gaps to represent what I feel is a notable gap in quality)
- Blood Simple
- Fargo
-
Miller’s Crossing
small gap - Raising Arizona
- No Country for Old Men
-
The Hudsucker Proxy
small gap - The Big Lebowski
- Barton Fink
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- Burn After Reading
Notable Gap
- The Man Who Wasn’t There
BIG STINKY CRAP FILLED GAP
- Intolerable Cruelty
- The Ladykillers
The bottom three, I strongly disliked.
The top ten, I love- even though it seems O Brother and Burn After Reading are pretty low on the list, that’s just because they’re on a list with so many great films. 1 through 3 I rate almost evenly and on any given day I may rank them differently- ditto 4 through 6, ditto 7 through 10.
Wow. I guess in keeping with such a diverse body of work, these rankings of the brothers’ films are all over the place. I’ll get to mine in a sec.
For starters, the Hudsucker Proxy is just a fantastic title- that has to count for something.
It has the usual strong performances from the cast but I especially like to watch the performance of actors who appear in only one of their films- in this case particularly, Paul Newman. It’s certainly different from all of his other films and I always figure he must have enjoyed the experience of working with the Cohens after his long, storied career.
If you watch the film straight through from beginning to end, you might not think much of it. However some of the scenes can stand on their own –a feature of every Cohen brothers movie- taken out of the context of the complete picture and these individual scenes are better than feature length offerings from many lesser colleagues.
As for my rankings:
- Fargo (how could it be anything but this?)
- O’ Brother Where Art Thou
- No Country For Old Men
- The Man Who Wasn’t There
- The Big Lebowski
- The Lady Killers
Then I lump the others all together in the same pot designating Intolerable Cruelty as the one genuine stinker.
Um, yeah. I got that all on my own, thanks. I’m fully capable of understanding something and not caring for it all at the same time. 
They were joking.
So, based on these responses, you have no idea what to expect. 
On this point, there is one scene in Hudsucker Proxy, specifically the bit where Tim Robbins’s children’s toy is released to the marketplace, a several minute scene with music only, no dialogue, that is one of the best things the Coens have ever done, and that’s all by itself worth the price of admission.
That’s the way I saw it, probably made Robbins energetic performance more enjoyable that way.
To tell the truth, I was sort of expecting this result.
Am I the ONLY one on the board who enjoys Intolerable Cruelty? George Clooney provided a wonderful comic performance, although the chemistry with Catherine Zeta Jones might be lacking. The Coens bring their own brand of twisted humor to an otherwise traditional romantic comedy. I see new things in it to enjoy with each viewing (as with any of the other Coen brothers movies.)
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I enjoyed the entire movie, but I enjoyed bits and pieces of it very much. I always adore Geoffrey Rush, and I liked his performance as the clueless and luckless TV producer. I also loved the use of Simon & Garfunkel’s song “The Boxer” playing in the background as he drove to his Hollywood hills home, the lyrics “I am just a poor boy . . .” foreshadowing his fate. The Coen Brothers’ musical choices are brilliant.