"The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can't ever really know what's going on. So it shouldn't bother you. Not being able to figure anything out. Although you will be responsible for this on the mid-term."  --Larry Gopnik

A Serious Man could be a great dark comedy, but somehow the Coens have infused this fable of Jews, family, faith and values with creepy ominousness that undercuts all the funny and is ultimately an even better film. The script is smart and sharp. The images are so well constructed that each gag vectors effortlessly into the greater narrative, one in which Man, small and meek and feeble, armed only with fallible weapons like Tradition, has to contend with the unknowable chaos that is Life or the wrath of God or whatever. In any case, the enemy is something big and uncomfortable despite any best effort, and the rewards for being "a good boy" are perhaps only tangential. This one belongs on the top ten of 2009 proper.