In the year 1990, two seminal gangster films were released within months of each other. On one end, Goodfellas served as the culmination of Martin Scorsese's career and the gangster genre entirely, showing that the criminal underworld was both a raucous party and a nightmarish undertaking on the heart and mind. On the other end, The Godfather: Part III signaled a desperate return to glory and mainstream adoration by Francis Ford Coppola, who failed to live up to the soaring heights of the first two. Operating beneath the fanfare of these two films was Miller's Crossing, the most cerebral and poetic gangster film in recent memory by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Misunderstood when released, the film is the quintessential Coen brothers movie, combining their love of noir literature with characters who are trapped within their own headspace. It is a gritty gun-toting crime thriller--until it isn't, as the Coens search deep into the soul of the gangster archetype and the genre itself.