Having both been nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards, it's safe to assume that the popularity of Michael Clayton and No Country for Old Men will only sky-rocket.
With that in mind, we pieced together the following array of photos from those two wonderful films. Click on the thumbnails below to view larger versions now...
With No Country for Old Men as the favorite to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards next month, the film's trio of stars recently talked about the movie with The Associated Press.
AP: Though Joel Coen has said this is a film about three men, you're never seen together on screen. In fact, any two of you hardly appear together.
Tommy Lee Jones: Not once.
Josh Brolin: Or once, but without any dialogue.
Tommy Lee Jones: But we're a terrific ensemble, as you can see. (all laugh)
Tommy Lee Jones - a Best Actor nominee for his outstanding work in In the Valley of Elah - then went on to talk about the overall message of the film. It's great stuff:
What I think is the book and the movie, in general, is a contemplation of morality. And the character of Ed Tom feels somewhat overwhelmed by a new character of evil and says so to his wiser and older uncle, and his uncle tells him that that's vanity, that evil doesn't change and that you, Ed Tom, do not live in the center of the universe.
You can't be overwhelmed. It's the same old deal. Then he tells the story about these Indians who ride up to another uncle's house maybe a hundred years ago, kill him on his front porch. And when he recounts the story, if you look at it on the face of it, it seems like a recounting of a scene from a grade-B Western, but somehow you get the feeling that if you were there on that day, you would have seen real evil.
How did you feel about the ending to No Country for Old Men?
Some fans were disappointed at the somewhat anticlimactic way the film came to a close - but star Josh Brolin isn't one of them.
"I love that people are talking about this movie. I love that people leave the movie saying, âI hate the ending. I was so pissed.' Good, it was supposed to piss you off," the 39-year-old star told MTV News. "You completely lend yourself to [my] character and then you're completely raped of this character.
I don't find it manipulative at all. I find it to be a great homage to that kind of violence."
Brolin went on to challenge those that disagreed with his viewpoint.
"You wanted to see his death, why? Because you're used to it. Aren't you so pleased to see a different take on the same cat and mouse game?" he asked. "I would think that you are happy and it seems that you are happy because you're pissed off and you have something to talk about all day."
Kelly Macdonald portrays the wife of Josh Brolin's character in No Country for Old Men.
The actress who has also starred in Finding Neverland and Nanny McPhee recently spoke with IGN about working with The Coen Brothers.
Q: What did you make of it when you saw the film for the first time?
Macdonald: I watched it here in the screening rooms with Javier [Bardem] and Joel and Ethan [Coen] because they had come over to do our ADR session and Javier had flown over from Spain. It's hard to talk afterwards, there's just so much to take in. So basically the screening finished and Javier was first in, so I got to go and have a coffee with my husband and we had time to decompress a little bit.
It took me until about three-quarters of the way through the film to realise there was no soundtrack, no music. Normally if you see a film in its early stages before there's any music, you really miss it.
Q: You aren't perhaps the obvious choice for a Coen Brothers movie set in Texas. How did you get involved?
Macdonald: I was in New York and it was all very last minute for me to go in and see the casting director first of all. They were seeing me more as a courtesy thing, because my American agent was so persistent.
Read the full interview with Macdonald now.
Should everyone behind No Country for Old Men be preparing an Oscar acceptance speech?
The answer is in the affirmative for sure, if this week's Critics' Choice Awards were any kind of precursor to the main event of movies.
No Country for Old Men won Best Movie, the Cohen brothers were named Best Director and Javier Bardem was named Best Supporting Actor.
The latter was overly grateful in his acceptable speech, too:
"I feel like I won the lottery," Bardem said. "All the performers here are truly heartbreaking. I'm just a lucky guy, that is all. [And my costar Josh Brolin] is a great actor and a best friend."
The nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced today.
Into the Wild earned nominations for supporting actor Hal Holbrook and supporting actress Catherine Keener. It was also included among the films nominated for best ensemble cast.
The other four films nominated for best ensemble cast were 3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster, Hairspray and No Country for Old Men.
No Country for Old Men also scored two nominations in the supporting-actor category: for Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones.
In addition to Emile Hirsch, leading-actor nominations in film went to George Clooney for Michael Clayton, Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood, Ryan Gosling for Lars and the Real Girl, and Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises.
Here are the movie nominees for the 65th Annual Golden Globes, set to air on January 13:
Drama
"American Gangster"
"Atonement"
"Eastern Promises"
"The Great Debaters"
"Michael Clayton"
"No Country For Old Men"
"There Will Be Blood"
Comedy
"Across the Universe"
"Charlie Wilson's War"
"Hairspray"
"Juno"
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
Actor (Drama)
George Clooney - "Michael Clayton"
Daniel Day-Lewis - "There Will Be Blood"
James McAvoy - "Atonement"
Viggo Mortensen - "Eastern Promises"
Denzel Washington - "American Gangster"
Actress (Drama)
Cate Blanchett - "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
Julie Christie - "Away From Her"
Jodie Foster - "The Brave One"
Angelina Jolie - "A Mighty Heart"
Keira Knightley - "Atonement"
With Golden Globe nominations being handed out this week, a pair of dramas are in line to score top billing.
There Will Be Blood was named 2007's Best Picture by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association last weekend, with Paul Thomas Anderson winning Best Director and Daniel Day-Lewis nabbing a Best Actor award for the movie.
French actress Marion Cotillard was named Best Actress for La Vie en Rose.
Daniel Day-Lewis stars in There Will Be Blood.
Meanwhile, The Boston Society of Film Critics named Ethan and Joel Coen's No Country for Old Men as the year's best film, with it star, Javier Bardem, winning Best Supporting Actor.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly won the Boston award for Best Foreign Film, while Butterfly director Julian Schnabel beat out the Coens for Best Director. The Washington, D.C, Area Film Critics Association also named No Country for Old Men as its top film choice.
Josh Brolin is on fire right about now. The actor appears in two Oscar-caliber movies: American Gangster and No Country for Old Men.
Below, he talks about the latter with Movie Web...
We've always been a huge fan of the Coen Brothers, but this No Country for Old Men really seems to be their return to the spotlight. What was the experience like working with them?
Josh Brolin: It was amazing. They're just people that I've always wanted to work with for the longest time. I never thought that I'd get to work with them as a lead character. They're very easy, very trusting in the process. Not a lot a strife and misunderstanding going on.
Javier Bardem is quite a presence as your pursuer, Anton Chigurh. What was the dynamic like with him on the set?
Josh Brolin: Javier is one of the sweetest, most unbelievably gracious guys I've ever met in my life. Listen man, we made fun of each other on the set, we tried to break each other up constantly (laughs) and it just made it that much more fun, but it made the focus more intense when we had to do what we were doing.
It was wonderful working with him, and I would work with him again and again. I think we both feel that same way. I think we could probably do a comedy now. We can't seem to hang out with each other without trying to break the other one up.
The tension, and all of that kind of stuff, I think that was more in the beginning of the movie, when we were still searching for our character and really wanting to find that hook for either one of us, in order to do justice to the part.
After awhile, you find that hook and you start to be more comfortable with it. I mean, really, our only worry, after a certain point, was just to keep our imaginations active, and the best way to do that is to f-ck with your compadre as much as possible.
Click here to read the full interview.
Here's a look at the highly anticipated movie, No Country for Old Men: