Blood Simple (1985 Sundance Film Festival Award Winner)

Blood Simple (1985 Sundance Film Festival Award Winner)

From Awesome Movie Year by Awesome Movie Year

April 22, 2026 · 1h 6m · Season 24 · Episode 10

About this episode

This episode discusses the Coen brothers' debut feature film, Blood Simple, and its significance in the context of the 1985 Sundance Film Festival.

The tenth episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 1985 features the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Blood Simple . Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya and M. Emmet Walsh, Blood Simple was the Coen brothers’ debut feature. The contemporary reviews quoted in this episode come from Roger Ebert ( https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blood-simple-1984 ), Janet Maslin in The New York Times ( https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/12/movies/blood-simple-a-black-comic-romp.html ) and Pauline Kael in The New Yorker . Check out more info and the entire archive of past episodes at https://www.awesomemovieyear.com and visit us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/awesomemovieyear You can find Jason on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JHarrisComedy/ , on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/jasonharriscomedy/ and on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/goforjason/ You can find Josh online at http://joshbellhateseverything.com/ , on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/joshbellhateseverything/ , on Bluesky at signalbleed.bsky.social and on Letterboxd at…

People in this episode

Host: Awesome Movie Year

Topics covered

  • film analysis
  • 1985 cinema
  • Coen brothers
  • Sundance Film Festival
  • movie reviews

Keywords

  • Blood Simple
  • Coen brothers
  • Sundance Film Festival
  • 1985 movies
  • film reviews

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Sundance Film Festival

Books & works: Blood Simple

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