Character: Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem)
Cut: "The haircut for all time"
LeBlanc himself named the outlandish barnet sported by Bardem's Anton Chigurh, a psychopathic fixer trailing the film's lead character. Chigurh is a profoundly disturbing character, eerily unflappable whether he's garrotting lawmen or terrorising store owners with unnerving small talk. Photograph: Public domain
Character: Gale and Evelle Snoats (John Goodman and William Forsythe)
Cut: Classic duck's ass.
Fugitive brothers Gale and Evelle really care about their hair. After tunnelling out of jail, we see them carefully lathering on the pomade to reshape their DAs. The bounty hunter Leonard Smalls later uses its scent to track them. Photograph: Public domain
Character: Barton Fink (John Turturro)
Cut: Jewfro wedge.
Partly based on 1930s New York playwright Clifford Odets, Fink boasts a vertical bush that marks him out as unmistakably Jewish - a potential hitch in a town where even a Jewish studio chief disparages "that little kike head of yours". Photograph: Public domain
Character: Professor Goldthwaite Higginson Dorr (Tom Hanks)
Cut: Colonel Sanders' evil twin.
Few characters escape some form of humiliating facial hair in the Coens' remake of the 1955 Ealing classic, from JK Simmons' handlebar monstrosity to Tzi Ma's Hitler 'tache. But Tom Hanks steals the show with the full southern get up of diabolical goatee and twiddly side parting. Like his character, however, he doesn't entirely get away with it... Photograph: Public domain
Character: Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare)
Cut: Mid-length peroxide blond, verging on mullet.
Can also be swept back rockabilly-style for late-night freeway pursuits. The hairdo lends an icy otherworldliness to this psychotic man of few words, and also fuelled Stormare's musical career: his band is called Blond From Fargo. Photograph: Public domain
Character: Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins)
Cut: Tousled ringlets with slick back-and-sides.
Norville Barnes is something of a latter-day Samson, potent when his hair is wild (think hula hoops, coffee-rings, neon halos), lame when made into a smoothly coiffed Wall Street makeover. Photograph: Public domain
Character: Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney)
Cut: Clark Gable after a night in a barn.
"I suppose it would be the acme of foolishness to ask if you had a hairnet?" No other Coen character shows tonsorial vanity like Everett McGill. This film single-handedly restored the word "pomade" to general usage. Photograph: Public domain
Character: Walter Sobchak (John Goodman)
Cut: Post-'Nam buzzcut.
There's no shortage of remarkable 'dos in The Big Lebowski, from Jeff Bridges' Jesus-effect beard, sandals and shoulder-length combo to the elaborate hairnet sported by Jesus Quintana (John Turturro). But for sheer character definition, nothing beats the flat-top buzzcut maintained by the Dude's half-crazed Vietnam veteran buddy, Walter. Photograph: Public domain
