There's a lot of money being chased in this masterful, multi-faceted thriller from the Coen brothers, but it's not really what's at stake. Set in Texas in 1980, it begins with Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbling across a desert drug deal gone wrong and escaping with a suitcase containing $2 million. A game of cat and mouse ensues, as Moss is pursued by a ruthless assassin armed with a cattle stun gun (Javier Bardem), various Mexican drug dealers and an ageing police sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones), whose despairing take on the state of America provides the movie's moral heart. Adapting Cormac McCarthy's terse noir novel for the screen, the Coens deliver a complex, utterly riveting thriller that's also a philosophical meditation on the inexorable nature of fate. They also succeed in marrying the writer's apocalyptic sense of social breakdown with their own blackly comic sensibility. The result is a terrific crime movie that bears comparison with their other career high points, Blood Simple and Fargo.

Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.