Outside of Martin Scorsese, there are very few clean slates in Hollywood – and even He has Bringing Out The Dead blotting his copybook (discuss…). The Coen brothers though, have created an unbroken conga-line of stunningly original movies, mixing and mastering genres, and even creating new ones.

If there was a bump in the road in 1994 time, it seems, has since been kind to The Hudsucker Proxy. A bigger budget (courtesy of ’80s alpha-producer Joel Silver) and an initially unresponsive family audience had it labelled as the Coen’s first flop, but watched now its pleasures are myriad and unmistakably Coenesque (including a great, late-vintage performance from Paul Newman).

The Coens announced themselves to the world in 1984 with the instant neo-noir classic, Blood Simple. Now, just mull the following subsequent film titles over in your mind like a mouthful of Chateau Petrus. Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy,...