In doing so, he gets himself and his two bowling friends, the almost anonymous Donnie and the psychotic but loyal Vietnam vet Walter, into a tale that involves porn kingpins, a possible kidnapping, a feminist Jackson Pollock type painter, a nymphomaniac bunny girl wife, and all sorts of other weird and wonderful types. The crooks then realise they’ve gone to the wrong Lebowski, but the Dude, mortified at the damage done to his rug, goes off in search of the real Lebowski for compensation for a new rug. Unemployed, his world of chillin’, smoking pot and bowling is interrupted one evening when two men break into his home in search of a fortune he doesn’t have, and one proceeds to pee on his rug. Jeff Lebowski, known to his friends as The Dude, is the laziest man in Los Angeles County and, perhaps, worldwide. One can only assume the former didn’t get the joke, for though it may not be the Coens’ best film – see Fargo or No Country for Old Men for that – it’s their most enjoyable, their most beloved.

It totally split critics ten years ago on release, some finding it a shambling mess, others adoring its quirks and rambling narrative.

One can think of numerous cult films not included in this list – Withnail & I, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, etc – but The Big Lebowski is one of the few exceptions to the rule. The very term cult has been so overused there have been times when one wishes the word would be eradicated from the language. Jeff Bridges (Jeff Lebowski – The Dude), John Goodman (Walter Sobchak), Julianne Moore (Maude Lebowski), Steve Buscemi (Donny), Peter Stormare (Uli the nihilist), David Huddleston (The Big Lebowski), John Turturro (Jesus Quintana), Sam Elliott (The Stranger), David Thewlis (Knox Harrington), Ben Gazzara (Jackie Treehorn), Tara Reid (Bunny Lebowski), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Brandt), Flea, Aimee Mann, P Ethan Coen d Joel Coen w Ethan Coen, Joel Coen ph Roger Deakins ed Roderick Jaynes, Tricia Cooke m Carter Burwell art Rick Heinrichs

Tumbleweed gif big lebowski