Raising Arizona (1987)
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 50
Fresh: 45 | Rotten: 5
A terrifically original, eccentric screwball comedy, Raising Arizona may not be the Coens' most disciplined movie, but it's one of their most purely entertaining.
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 3
A terrifically original, eccentric screwball comedy, Raising Arizona may not be the Coens' most disciplined movie, but it's one of their most purely entertaining.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 85,987
Movie Info
Combining influences from Tex Avery cartoons to Sam Raimi horror movies to 1940s B-movies, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen followed up the stylish film noir of their debut, Blood Simple (1984), with this frantic screwball comedy. H.I. "Hi" McDonnough (Nicholas Cage) is a philosophical but slightly dim career criminal who has been arrested so often that he gets to know "Ed," short for Edwina (Holly Hunter), the officer who takes his mug shots. Hi takes a shine to Ed and promises to go straight if she
Jan 1, 1987 Wide
Aug 3, 1999
20th Century Fox
Watch It Now
Cast
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Nicolas Cage
H.I. McDonnough -
Holly Hunter
Ed -
Trey Wilson
Nathan Arizona Sr. -
John Goodman
Gale -
William Forsythe
Evelle -
Sam McMurray
Glen -
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Randall "Tex" Cobb
Leonard Smalls -
T.J. Kuhn
Nathan Arizona Jr. -
Lynne Dumin Kitel
Florence Arizona -
Peter Benedek
Prison Counsellor -
Jeremy Arendt
Arizona Quint -
Carver Barnes
Reporter -
Ashley Hammon
Arizona Quint -
Crystal Hiller
Arizona Quint -
Olivia Hughes
Arizona Quint -
Warren Keith
Younger FBI Agent -
Emily Malin
Arizona Quint -
Melanie Malin
Arizona Quint -
Craig McLaughlin
Arizona Quint -
Troy Nabors
Parole Board Member -
Cody Ranger
Arizona Quint -
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Adam Savageau
Arizona Quint -
Benjamin Savageau
Arizona Quint -
Mary Seibel
Parole Board Member -
Charles "Lew" Smith
Nice Old Grocery Man -
Dennis Sullivan
Policeman in Arizona... -
M. Emmet Walsh
Machine Shop Earbend... -
Michael Stewart
Arizona Quint -
Bill Andres
Reporter -
Jeremy Babendure
Scamp with Squirt Gu... -
Sidney Dawson
Ear-Bending Cellmate -
Bill Dobbins
Adoption Agent -
Warren Forsythe
Minister -
Mary Francis Glenn
Payroll Cashier -
Keith Jandacek
Whitey -
Rusty Lee
Feisty Hayseed -
Margaret H. McCormac...
Unpainted Secretary -
Ralph Norton
Gynecologist -
John O'Donnal
Hayseed in Pick-Up -
Frank Outlaw
Supermarket Manager -
Bill Rocz
Newscaster -
Todd Michael Rogers
Varsity Nathan Jr. -
Henry Tank
Mopping Convict -
James Yeater
Fingerprint Technici... -
Ruben Young
Trapped Convict -
Richard Alexander
Policeman in Arizona... -
Robert Gray
Glen and Dot's Kid -
Richard Blake
Parole Board Chairma... -
David Schneider
Arizona Quint -
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All Critics (50) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (5) | DVD (13)
Raising Arizona is no big deal, but it has a rambunctious charm.
Top CriticTo their old fascination with Sunbelt pathology, to their side-winding Steadicam and pristine command of screen space, the Coens have added a robust humor, a plot that keeps outwitting expectations and a...dollop of sympathy for their forlorn kidnapers.
The cartoon vision of southwestern tackiness doesn't cut very deep, but the mise-en-scene is packed with clever clutter.
While film is filled with many splendid touches and plenty of yocks, it often doesn't hold together as a coherent story.
Starting from a point of delirious excess, the film leaps into dark and virtually uncharted territory to soar like a comet.
Like Blood Simple, it's full of technical expertise but has no life of its own.
The immense joy of this is in the realization that, for all their precision, Joel and Ethan Coen are essentially comic barnstormers rather than frigid ironists
Sharp, inventive and hilarious, with a marvellous cast of Coen regulars.
An entertaining, energetic, and stylish comedy about a simple but loving couple who long to be parents.
In a shrewdly calculated move to show their versatility, the Coens made this madcap comedy right after Blood Simple. If their debut was slow and spare, this one has breathneck pacing and hopping banter by terrific Holly Hunter and Nicolas Cage.
This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen!
Raising Arizona... is an explosively clever and riotously funny exploration of fertility, homemaking, and the working class in the prisons and trailer parks of the desert southwest.
The film is loaded with marvelous slapstick sequences and quirky character humor. While some viewers may find it too eccentric or too ready to make fun of blue collar America, most will find its comic surprises and unpredictable narrative to be most fulfi
A highly original and funny film.
Nic Cage may never be better.
It's funny, but is it good? Like all the Coen brothers' work, it somehow lords itself over its audience.
Great early film from the Coen Brothers. Hilarious, and some of Cage's best material.
The slapstick energy of a Road Runner cartoon, raised to the level of near-art.
[T]his kidnapping farce from Joel and Ethan Coen is a deft nod to classic screwball comedy.
[W]hile this is one of their lesser films, it's still an amusing if uneven comedy.
Audience Reviews for Raising Arizona
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
Movies Like Raising Arizona
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- Glen: Mind you don't cut yourself Mordecai.
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- Hayseed in Pick-Up: Son... you've got a panty on your head.
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- Evelle: Do these balloons blow up into funny shapes at all?
- Feisty Hayseed: Well no....unless round is funny.
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- Evelle: Hi...you're young and you got you're health...what you want with a job.
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- Nathan Arizona Sr.: Just tell me why you did it.
- H.I. McDonnough: We can't have one of our own.
- Nathan Arizona Sr.: Well, look. If you can't have kids, you just gotta keep tryin'and hope medical science catches up with you, like Florence and me.
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- Feisty Hayseed: Well, which is it, young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground?
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Foreign Titles
- Arizona Junior (DE)
- Arizona Junior (FR)
H.I. McDonnough is a non-violent stick-up man who falls in love with mugshot photographer Edwina "Ed". When they find out she's unable to bear children, the two decide to kidnap 1/5 of a set of quintuplets belonging to an unpainted furniture mogul named Nathan Arizona.
What follows is a mad cap romp, especially when a set of swingers, two of H.I.'s prison buddies, and an apocalyptic biker get thrown in the mix. The film is absolutely ridiculous and absurd, and the whole is less than the sum of its parts, but it is cohesive in and of itself.
It's also really weird, but quite funny, too. This is easily the wackiest film that the Coens have made, and the highlight is an extended chase involving cops, dogs, a nutty soundtrack, and lots of frenetic camerawork, all because of a case of stolen Huggies.
The casting is deliriously perfect, and Nicolas Cage is a lot of fun as H.I. Holly Hunter is very funny and sweet as Ed, John Goodman and William Forsythe are a delight as the prison buddies, and Frances McDormand is an overacting hoot as one of the swingers. Randall "Tex" Cobb is also great as the biker.
All in all, this is a good film, but not a great one, at least not to me. It's uneven, and really nutty, but any film that had a major influence of My Name is Earl is worth checking out. Oh yeah, and of course the music and cinematography are dynamite as well. But since it's a Coen Bros. film that should go without saying.