Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #4 - The Big Lebowski

In the year prior to Office Space being a box office flop, along came another movie that suffered similarly with the box office receipts. Surprisingly, it was a movie that was directed by two of the most influential directors of our time, the Coen Brothers.

The Big Lebowski follows "The Dude" (Jeff Bridges), a lazy, unemployed slacker living day-to-day life drinking White Russians and bowling with his two best pals, Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) and "Donny" Kerabatsos. The Dude's life gets turned upside down when his home is invaded by two perps looking for the millionaire Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston), who just happens to share the real name of the Dude. In return for wasting their time, the crooks pee on the Dude's rug. The Dude seeks comeuppance for the destruction of his rug by demanding a new one from the real Jeffrey Lebowski. That's not it though. The Dude is then summoned back by the real Lebowski to help find his wife "Bunny" Lebowski (Tara Reid), who has gone missing... You see? A group of nihilist German musicians are believed to have kidnapped her and the Dude is tasked with making a monetary hand off with them in order for Bunny's safety.

What happens as this main plot unravels is perhaps the most bizarre and yet entirely memorable series of events in motion picture history. Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore) seeks out The Dude after the rug he took from "The Big" Lebowski was found to not belong to him, but her. She frequently speaks to the Dude regarding his investigations into the kidnapping of Bunny Lebowski, even revealing to the Dude that the lead nihilist Uli Kunkel (Peter Stormare) was in a porno directed by Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara), who may also be a potential kidnapper candidate for Bunny.

The movie is full of so many memorable scenes and lines. It's perhaps the reason that The Big Lebowski is one of my favorite movies of all-time and one that I'm always inclined to watch. There's the scene where the Dude first describes his rug getting stolen, the scene where he's hallucinating meeting Saddam Hussein and dancing with Maude Lebowski, there's a scene where he and Walter attempt to make a hand-off for the girl by handing off a bogus bag of money; then there's any sort of interaction between Walter and Donny, and the ever infamous "Shut the fuck up, Donny!" exclamation. If you're in the mood for something fun and interesting and have about two hours to spare, just sit back and pop in The Big Lebowski. One watch is all it takes.