Coffee and Cigarettes

Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Cate Blanchett, Steve Buscemi and other actors and musicians from the early 2000s as themselves.

2003, Jim Jarmusch

United States—Japan—Italy
95 minutes, English and French with Russian subtitles

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Tom Waits, Steve Coogan

Stoneware cups of coffee and endless packs of cigarettes provide the setting for eleven black-and-white sketches. By weaving together a tapestry of the director’s vision from short, impromptu sketches, Jarmusch captures conversations that touch on everything under the sun, but reveal the very essence of life between the lines.

Still from Coffee and Cigarettes, 2003

Jarmusch has a great gift for playing actors against one another, for finding complementary eccentrics (Murray and RZA) and uncovering rare gems (Bill Rice and Taylor Mead).

—Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles Times

The film is one of the most remarkable cinematic explorations of human nature, set against a backdrop of ritual: tobacco smoke, coffee vapour, gestures, facial expressions, laughter, and the tension in the air.