Backdrop fallback

The Man Who Wasn't There

The Man Who Wasn't There

Share

The Man Who Wasn't There

2001

1h 56m

7.5(1805 votes)

Crime

Drama

Overview

A tale of murder, crime and punishment set in the summer of 1949. Ed Crane, a barber in a small California town, is dissatisfied with his life, but his wife Doris' infidelity and a mysterious opportunity presents him with a chance to change it.

Where to Watch

Buy

Apple TV Store

Rent

Apple TV Store

Amazon Video

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

Production Companies

USA Films

Working Title Films

Mike Zoss Productions

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Billy Bob Thornton

Billy Bob Thornton

Ed Crane

Frances McDormand

Frances McDormand

Doris Crane

Michael Badalucco

Michael Badalucco

Frank

James Gandolfini

James Gandolfini

Big Dave Brewster

Katherine Borowitz

Katherine Borowitz

Ann Nirdlinger Brewster

Jon Polito

Jon Polito

Creighton Tolliver

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson

Birdy Abundas

Richard Jenkins

Richard Jenkins

Walter Abundas

Tony Shalhoub

Tony Shalhoub

Freddy Riedenschneider

Christopher Kriesa

Christopher Kriesa

Officer Persky

Creative team

Directed by: Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
Written by: Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
Produced by: Ethan Coen
Joel Coen

Similar Movies

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane

Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.

Dancer in the Dark

Dancer in the Dark

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

Metropolis

Metropolis

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Happy Land

Happy Land

An Iowa drugstore owner becomes embittered when his son is killed in World War II. The druggist believes that the boy's life was cut short before he had an opportunity to truly appreciate his existence.

12 Mighty Orphans

12 Mighty Orphans

Haunted by his mysterious past, a devoted high school football coach leads a scrawny team of orphans to the state championship during the Great Depression and inspires a broken nation along the way.

Jarhead

Jarhead

Jarhead is a film about a US Marine Anthony Swofford’s experience in the Gulf War. After putting up with an arduous boot camp, Swofford and his unit are sent to the Persian Gulf where they are eager to fight, but are forced to stay back from the action. Swofford struggles with the possibility of his girlfriend cheating on him, and as his mental state deteriorates, his desire to kill increases.

A History of Violence

A History of Violence

An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

Italian for Beginners

Italian for Beginners

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski

Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker who only wants to bowl and drink White Russians, is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a wheelchair-bound millionaire, and finds himself dragged into a strange series of events involving nihilists, adult film producers, ferrets, errant toes, and large sums of money.

Al Basha

Al Basha

A police officer finds himself worthless as he soon realizes there's no way he could put an end to a businessman associated with running a prostitution ring.

The Dirty Kind

The Dirty Kind

Raymond, a young P.I. specializing in divorce, gets too ambitious and takes on a case that involves more than just snapping pictures of cheating couples. While searching for the estranged daughter of a client, Raymond discovers that she works as a stripper whose exploits bring together a desperate collection of lost souls - sucking everyone down a drain of despair, deceit, and corruption.

Driving Miss Daisy

Driving Miss Daisy

The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.

La Haine

La Haine

After a chaotic night of rioting in a marginal suburb of Paris, three young friends, Vinz, Hubert and Saïd, wander around unoccupied waiting for news about the state of health of a mutual friend who has been seriously injured when confronting the police.

8½

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

Schindler's List

Schindler's List

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

Ed Wood

Ed Wood

The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.

La Strada

La Strada

When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.

Pi

A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.

The Seventh Seal

The Seventh Seal

When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.

Cléo from 5 to 7

Cléo from 5 to 7

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

Recommended Movies

The Grifters

The Grifters

A small-time conman has his loyalties torn between his estranged mother and his new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.

Panic

Panic

Alex is going through a midlife crisis and it has become a very difficult time for him. His marriage is struggling, he's worried about his son, and his job of killing people for his family has become the most stressful part of his life. He seeks the help of a therapist and meets a woman in the waiting room that he connects with.

American Hustle

American Hustle

A conman and his seductive partner are forced to work for a wild FBI agent, who pushes them into a world of Jersey power-brokers and the Mafia.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

A newspaper publisher, wanting to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence, talks his possible son-in-law Tom into a hoax in an attempt to expose ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney. The plan is to have Tom plant clues leading to his arrest for killing a female nightclub dancer. Once Tom is found guilty, he is to reveal the setup and humiliate the DA.

City of Ghosts

City of Ghosts

A con man who is on the run from law enforcement in the U.S. travels to Cambodia to collect his share in an insurance scam but discovers more than he bargained for.

Gangster Squad

Gangster Squad

Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and — if he has his way — every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It’s enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop… except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O’Mara and Jerry Wooters who come together to try to tear Cohen’s world apart.

The Killers

The Killers

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.

Fast Charlie

Fast Charlie

When his aging mob boss is whacked, Charlie Swift, a loyal friend and hired gun, will stop at nothing to destroy the upcoming crew that took him out.

True Believer

True Believer

Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.

Collateral

Collateral

Cab driver Max picks up a man who offers him $600 to drive him around. But the promise of easy money sours when Max realizes his fare is an assassin.

Drive

Drive

Driver is a skilled Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. Though he projects an icy exterior, lately he's been warming up to a pretty neighbor named Irene and her young son, Benicio. When Irene's husband gets out of jail, he enlists Driver's help in a million-dollar heist. The job goes horribly wrong, and Driver must risk his life to protect Irene and Benicio from the vengeful masterminds behind the robbery.

High Sierra

High Sierra

Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.

White Lightning

White Lightning

An ex-con teams up with federal agents to help them with breaking up a moonshine ring.

Hoodlum

Hoodlum

In 1934, the second most lucrative business in New York City was running 'the numbers'. When Madam Queen—the powerful woman who runs the scam in Harlem—is arrested, Ellsworth 'Bumpy' Johnson takes over the business and must resist an invasion from a merciless mobster.

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman

Set in a gritty and decadent 1970s America, American Boogeyman follows the elusive and charming killer and the manhunt that brought him to justice involving the detective and the FBI rookie who coined the phrase ‘serial killer’.

Criss Cross

Criss Cross

An armored-car guard must join a robbery after being caught with his ex-wife by her gangster husband.

Lawless

Lawless

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

The Killer Inside Me

The Killer Inside Me

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small west Texas town, patient and apparently thoughtful. Some people think he is a little slow and maybe boring, but that is the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his "sickness": He is a brilliant, but disturbed sociopathic sadist.

Out of the Past

Out of the Past

The peaceful life of a gas station owner is disrupted when a man from his past arrives in town and forces him to return to the dark world he had tried to escape.

True Confessions

True Confessions

A cop clashes with his priest brother while investigating the brutal murder of a young prostitute.