Joel and Ethan Coen · 1996 · road

The Coen brothers' 1996 crime film. Desperate car salesman Jerry Lundegaard, deep in debt in Minneapolis, hires two thugs he meets in Fargo, North Dakota, to kidnap his own wife for the ransom. When the botched job leaves bodies on a snowy highway near Brainerd, the very pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson calmly unravels the whole grim, blood-spattered mess.

1. 1
   Minneapolis

   The Twin Cities where the floundering car salesman Jerry Lundegaard hatches his desperate scheme to have his own wife kidnapped and split the ransom from his wealthy father-in-law.

2. 2
   Fargo

   The North Dakota city where Jerry meets the two criminals in a dive bar and sets the botched plot in motion, handing over a car and a promise of money.

3. 3
   Brainerd

   The snowbound Minnesota town where the kidnapping goes murderously wrong on a lonely highway, and the unflappable, pregnant chief Marge Gunderson takes up the case.