It’s small wonder that ‘Fargo’, the 1996 film, has attained a cult status. The quirky small-town characters created by the Coen brothers have left an indelible mark on the consciousness of movie buffs across the world. For me, it’s always a struggle to decide my favorite character and performance from the film; the plot-hatching husband made endearing on screen by W H Macy, or the crime-solving pregnant police chief brought to life by Frances McDormand. I personally rate Macy’s performance a little higher. Sure, McDormand won the Oscar that year for best actress, but the desperation etched on Macy’s face every time he gets caught while trying to laugh it off at the same time is sheer genius.
This combination of crime meets comedy in mid-west America has been a winner for the Coens who are pioneers of this genre. ‘The Ladykillers’, ‘No Country for Old Men’, ‘Burn After Reading’, ‘The Big Lebowski’ and ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ are all movies that are thematically similar to each other. This begs the question: is there a pattern in the story-lines that the Coen Brothers follow? Well, even there is, we’re not complaining!
Nearly 20 years since the movie, FX produced a series of the same name inspired by the film. Surely, this is a testament to how captivating the movie has been. So, which other movies or TV shows have given us such quirky characters and twisted plot-lines? Let’s put down a list of movies and TV series like Fargo that are our recommendations. You can watch several of these shows like Fargo on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime.
12. To Die For (1995)
This crime comedy drama takes us into the world of wannabe celebrity TV reporter, Suzanne Stone. Suzanne will stop at nothing to achieve her goals, including getting three school slackers to kill her husband for her. The extreme antics of Suzanne could have been easily seen as vain and selfish but for Kidman. She brings in a great deal of vulnerability to Suzanne’s character, making her less caricatured and more human.
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