Fargo

Fargo is a 1996 black comedy crime film written, produced and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Frances McDormand stars as Marge Gunderson, a pregnant Minnesota police chief investigating a triple homicide that takes place after a desperate car salesman (William H. Macy) hires two criminals (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife in order to extort a hefty ransom from her wealthy father (Harve Presnell). The film was an American–British co-production. Filmed in the United States during the end of 1995, Fargo premiered at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, where Joel Coen won the festival's Prix de la mise en scène (Best Director Award) and the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or. The film was both a critical and commercial success, earning particular acclaim for the Coens' direction and script and the performances of McDormand, Macy, and Buscemi. Fargo received seven Oscar nominations at the 69th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Macy, winning two: Best Actress for McDormand and Best Original Screenplay for the Coens. The film was selected in 2006 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"—one of only seven films designated in its first year of eligibility. In 1998, the American Film Institute named it one of the 100 greatest American films in history (being the most recent film on the list up to that point) but it was subsequently de-listed in 2007. A Coen-produced FX television series of the same name, inspired by the film and taking place in the same fictional universe, premiered in 2014 and received critical acclaim. Plot In 1987, Jerry Lundegaard, the executive sales manager of a Minneapolis car dealership owned by his father-in-law, Wade Gustafson, is desperate for money. He plots to have his wife, Jean, kidnapped. Mechanic and convicted felon Shep Proudfoot arranges a meeting for Jerry in Fargo, North Dakota with criminals Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud, who agree to do the job. Jerry gives them a new Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera and promises them half of the ransom, which he claims is $80,000. Jerry pitches Wade a lucrative real estate deal and believes Wade has agreed to lend him $750,000 to finance it, so he attempts to call off the kidnapping. Wade and his accountant Stan Grossman inform Jerry that Wade will make the deal himself and pay Jerry only a modest finder's fee.