Super laid-back '60s dropout Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Bridges) enjoys hanging loose and getting high with his two bowling pals, cranky Vietnam vet Walter Sobchak (Goodman) and easygoing ex-surfer Donny (Buscemi). But his groovy-loser L.A. lifestyle is about to undergo a massive makeover when some thugs looking for a millionaire named "Jeff Lebowski" bust into his Venice bungalow and drag him into a tangled kidnapping scheme.

Ace filmmaking team Joel and Ethan Coen ("Fargo") took more than a few pages from Raymond Chandler's seedy L.A. noir novels to create this absurdly comic caper masterpiece. Bridges is riotous as the unflappable aging hippie who finds himself embroiled in double and triple extortion plots — think Phillip Marlowe on a bag of weed — while superb sidekicks Goodman and Buscemi get to sling around a lot of ripe witticisms. Also great is John Turturro, playing a vulgar-mouthed champion bowler named Jesus, and Julianne Moore, fetching as an "erotic artist." In typical Coen fashion, the camerawork is wildly offbeat, the dialogue sharp, and the performances goofy and intriguing. Don't miss this kooky homage to the weird world of noir.