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True Grit
Film
FilmR2008
Burn After Reading
Directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
When a disc containing memoirs of a former CIA analyst falls into the hands of gym employees, Linda and Chad, they see a chance to make enough money for Linda to have life-changing cosmetic surgery. Predictably, events whirl out of control for the duo, and those in their orbit. From TMDB
201 reactions from 4 sources (Bluesky, Mastodon, TMDB reviews, Lemmy) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 4, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
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No Data
Sentiment labels for these sources are still being hand-checked; no score yet.
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bluesky * | 76 | 8 | 99 |
| Mastodon * | 2 | 0 | 13 |
| TMDB reviews * | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
What people are saying
A written summary appears once the title has a score.
At a glance
Burn After Reading is a 2008 comedy drama film, directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt.
- 180 people have posted about this film on Bluesky, Mastodon, TMDB reviews, Lemmy
- posts span May 22, 2018 to Nov 4, 2026
Assembled from TMDB, Wikidata and Steam fields and our own counts, nothing written by a model. Method
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
201 public posts have mentioned Burn After Reading so far, but it needs 10 opinionated reactions from checked sources before it gets a score. Seen it? Post your take.
The Experts
70%
avg of 3 sources
The People
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audience score
Reactions
60 of 201 · most liked firstRewatching Burn After Reading and this is legit a perfectly written movie. Every single thing about it works
positive · AI labelView post →Arguable the Coen brothers have done a better film than Burn After Reading, but Pitt and Clooney have never been better, a perfect deployment of their underrated comic chops.
positive · AI labelView post →Been seeing that ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN quote circulating ("these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand"), but we're way past that now. Today, I wrote about BURN AFTER READING as the political film of our times: thereveal.substack.com/p/we-live-in...
neutral · AI labelView post →No Country For Old Men was written at the same time as Burn After Reading, which may seem like such a dissonance considering their wildly different tones, but I’d argue both films share the same concept of “movie where the characters don’t realize what type of movie they’re in”
neutral · AI labelView post →Now rewatching Burn After Reading. Had a great time revisiting Lebowski the other day so it's time for another Coen comedy #Filmsky 📽️
positive · AI labelView post →Found some really good film analysis of Burn After Reading in the YouTube comments.
neutral · AI labelView post →probably more importantly, we know exactly how the Coen Brothers would feel about the Trump Administration because Burn After Reading exists, and the people who are in charge right now are very clearly actually the people from that movie - not the ones running the CIA, the ones scamming it
neutral · AI labelView post →Can’t believe I’d never even heard of this before - a wild 1971 heist movie about the omnipresence of surveillance starring Sean Connery, directed by Sidney Lunet, with a score by Quincy Jones and featuring Christopher Walken’s first movie debut! Plus an ending straight out of Burn After Reading. 👍
neutral · AI labelView post →I recently wrote that no movie more perfectly explains America right now than Burn After Reading: www.theringer.com/2025/03/06/m...
neutral · AI labelView post →Why is Burn After Reading in a category called Twisted Romance. There’s no romance, Clooney’s a demented sexaholic and that’s not what the movie is about
negative · AI labelView post →Has any movie ever been more vindicated than Burn After Reading
positive · AI labelView post →100% true. Synthesis: the movie "Burn After Reading" should set your baseline Anyone telling you anyone controlled the Epstein operation is misinformed or lying. This was a rolling cluster fuck where no one ever had the incentive to come clean
neutral · AI labelView post →FILM CRITTERS THROWS IT BACK: BURN AFTER READING (2008) featuring @fussybabybit.ch 🔫 patreon.com/filmcritters 🔫
neutral · AI labelView post →I have been saying for years that Burn After Reading is the most accurate depiction of D.C. in film.
positive · AI labelView post →Late on this but Burn After Reading is incredible filmmaking and feels eerily prescient, everyone in that film voted for Trump including the small child refusing medicine at Dr Tilda Swinson's office. Captured this era perfectly somehow, in fucking 2008. Linda and Chad are so MAHA coded it's scary
positive · AI labelView post →I'd watch a movie that's 100% a series of office meetings between J. K. Simmons and David Rasche like in Burn After Reading. Delightful cinema
positive · AI labelView post →It would be a very bad idea to make a movie about the Epstein thing for about a hundred different reasons, but it's very, very important to emphasize that a faithful adaptation would look a lot more like Burn After Reading than a normal spy movie
neutral · AI labelView post →Happy Birthday to award-winning actress Frances McDormand, born June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, IL! She's been in a bunch of Coen Bros. movies: Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) & Burn After Reading (2008). A personal fave: "Olive Kitteridge."
neutral · AI labelView post →Rewatched Burn After Reading which I always considered a minor Coen Brothers film but is actually incredible. An absurdist post 9/11 comedy that has lost none of its bite. And a cast of utterly perfect comedians.
positive · AI labelView post →I am joined by @birdrespecter.bsky.social this week for a very fun episode of MoviePod to discuss the Coen brothers film Burn After Reading!
neutral · AI labelView post →Burn After Reading isn’t my favorite Coens joint but it might have the best extremely long setup to a punchline (this scene) of any movie I’ve ever seen
positive · AI labelView post →That's why I think it's a very good movie and I will never watch it again / didn't like it A downer without anything uplifting Burn After Reading has almost the exact same ending. And A Serious Man is adjacent. Coen Bros got really sad for a while
neutral · AI labelView post →I couldn't stand the movie Burn After Reading, but I have to admit that Jeet Heer was right about it being one of the most realistic spy stories ever made.
negative · AI labelView post →Burn After Reading, a very overlooked Coen brothers movie. J.K. Simmons has a small roll but is perfect, as usual. A CIA muckety-muck, with no political passion or agenda. He just wants to clean up agency messes as efficiently as possible and get it off his desk. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDS9...
positive · AI labelView post →"I will do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC” - Pete Hegseth, ad libbing dialogue as he auditions for remake of Burn After Reading
neutral · AI labelView post →#MovieMadness Funniest Movie Ever “Burn After Reading” (2008) The funniest movie is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but how about a sleeper: Burn After Reading. When they hold the shot downstairs while George Clooney stomps up the stairs and back to get his sex pillow, I nearly spit out my drink.
positive · AI labelView post →🎥 Burn After Reading (2008) ★★★★ An unbelievably stupid movie sold by an amazing cast. Tilda Swinton is intuitively hateable, Malkovich is angry and chaotic in a way where he feels sympathetic *just* long enough to set up the rest of the cast before you realize… View full review on @popfeed.social
positive · AI labelView post →The movie they're going to make about this crisis is going to look less like Margin Call and a lot more like Burn After Reading.
neutral · AI labelView post →I was going to say the most realistic spy movie of the 21st century has become Burn After Reading, but the characters are still too competent and logical
positive · AI labelView post →What's great about Burn After Reading is that every character is in a comedy, but each thinks they're in a film noir
neutral · AI labelView post →I don't know if Burn After Reading is a good movie but there are parts of it that will never be topped ever
positive · AI labelView post →“What if No Country for Old Men and Burn After Reading were the same movie, actually” — Ari Aster, probably
neutral · AI labelView post →Burn After Reading is like 4 of these so it must be your favorite movie
neutral · AI labelView post →Burn After Reading is an excellent movie about DC mediocrity, but Pitt's character is a physical trainer, not an influential media figure
positive · AI labelView post →Movie years project Year 2008 (60/122) Now Rewatching 📽️ #10/10 Burn After Reading dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
neutral · AI labelView post →This would make an amazing premise for a Burn After Reading-style film
neutral · AI labelView post →Burn After Reading remains unstoppable. Hilarious movie.
positive · AI labelView post →Ishtar and Burn After Reading are the only accurate movies about the CIA I've seen. Sheer idiocy on a geopolitical scale is the right approach to portraying international espionage on film.
positive · AI labelView post →Good evening from East Tennessee. We are celebrating the return of water in the house with a fire and movie day. Burn After Reading and The Odd Couple.
neutral · AI labelView post →It’s a movie, Burn After Reading.
neutral · AI labelView post →On August 27, 2008, Burn After Reading premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Here's some John Malkovich art!
neutral · AI labelView post →You’ve inherited a movie theater, what’s your first double feature? Greener Grass (2019) and Burn After Reading (2008)
neutral · AI labelView post →It's funny – when I saw it, I thought BURN AFTER READING was a fun but lesser Coens film. It has slowly revealed itself to be damn near prophetic.
positive · AI labelView post →#NW Spy Comedy Film - Burn After Reading JK Simmons!! Let’s go!
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm going to put this out there and see what comes back. Is Burn After Reading the most underrated Coen Brothers movie? I feel like it is.
positive · AI labelView post →Rewatched BURN AFTER READING for the first time in ages, and god, what a marvelously nasty, contemptuous movie
positive · AI labelView post →Fall Coen Brothers Film Festival is go! First up: Burn After Reading
neutral · AI labelView post →#BlueZicos #MusicChallenge Samedi (Saturday), 19 septembre -- Add a track to a Coen Brothers movie: Burn After Reading. ...Cause I ain't got no time for them domestic disputes...
neutral · AI labelView post →The Coen Bros. 2008 film, Burn After Reading. 2 me this is the unofficial sequel 2 The Big Lebowski. A skewering of post-cold war American society from top 2 bottom. Like Lebowski & like Beckett's works that influences it, it unveils humor in the notion that life is one big giant non sequitur. A+
positive · AI labelView post →Without saying your age, what is your favorite movie released the year you turned 18? Toss up between this and Burn After Reading was a tough choice, but there's better Coen movies and this movie is so singular.
neutral · AI labelView post →Okay so I watched True Grit last night (still great) and Burn After Reading ths morning (still amazing) so what Coen bros movie do I watch tonight for the perfect cap to the Triple-Feature?
positive · AI labelView post →Decided to have an evening with a Mr. Bradley Pitt, I just watched Burn After Reading, a very good Brad Pitt film and now I'm going to watch Cool World a very bad Brad Pitt film
positive · AI labelView post →I think 12 monkeys is my favorite Pitt film, but Burn After Reading is my favorite Pitt performance
positive · AI labelView post →"Burn After Reading" was, in many respects, the most realistic espionage film.
positive · AI labelView post →#MusicChallenge #BlueZicos Add your track to the film/Coen Brothers: Burn After Reading
neutral · AI labelView post →Burn After Reading is the Coen Brothers’ best movie. There will be no further questions at this time.
positive · AI labelView post →• Johnny English • Spy Kids • Burn After Reading • Spy (right up til that ending, ouch) • Captain America: The Winter Soldier (a very imperfect movie about dismantling America's intelligence infrastructure? Gimme)
neutral · AI labelView post →rewatching A Serious Man and I think it might be the best thing the Coens ever made. Although that's always true of the most recent Coen film I've watched. It was Burn After Reading last week, and Hudsucker before that. #filmsky
positive · AI labelView post →Brad Pitt's Chad in BURN AFTER READING is the most axiomatic Coen bros. character in the film: he's *deceptively* stupid (a hot guy who shoots his mouth off) but also deceptively smart (he's very intelligent in ways it would take a longer post to explicate) but his smarts don't help him avoid
positive · AI labelView post →I know why I love this so much. It’s like The Coen Brothers made an actual horror movie. Burn After Reading written by Stephen King. #FrightClub
positive · AI labelView post →
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