No Country for Old Men (2007)
Crime, Thriller, Western
The Kernel take
A 92 Kernel Score ("Universal Acclaim") makes No Country for Old Men one of the highest-rated films on this site, and on a $25M budget alone (marketing spend isn't available), it returned roughly 6.9× that at the worldwide box office.
Director track record: Joel Coen
No Country for Old Men's 92 sits well above Joel Coen's 74-point career average across these nineteen films — among the very best-reviewed work of his career, trailing only Inside Llewyn Davis (93).
Lead track record: Javier Bardem
No Country for Old Men's 92 towers over Javier Bardem's 65.6-point average across these roles — the best-reviewed performance in this sample, ahead of his next-best, Before Night Falls (85).
Box office
Budget $25M · Box office $171.6M
No Country for Old Men opened in limited release, so the usual 'second-weekend drop' framing doesn't apply — grosses actually grew 157.7% in week two, then peaked in week three (8.1M) as the film expanded wide. Weekly grosses even climbed back above $4M around week seventeen, well into its run, pointing to a slow-burn, awards-driven pattern rather than a front-loaded wide release.