police

Uses each of its 160 minutes. Digressions into folklore, a severed leg inside a shark, Jaws, Carnival, yet it’s compelling throughout. Moura anchors the sprawl with a fantastic performance. The real achievement is textural: the 1970s Recife of the dictatorship years is rendered so completely, with all the grain, the cars, the sweat-damp collars, the paranoid zoom-ins that you’d hope for. You’d believe it was unearthed from a vault rather than shot last year.

My gateway to the Coens. A VHS buy sparked by an Empire review. From there it was Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, and The Hudsucker Proxy in quick succession—possibly the same week.

Since then they’ve made slicker and more audacious films, but this remains my favourite.

There is absolutely no need for either Damon or Affleck to be in this, although they do improve it.