'The Big Lebowski' is a 1998 American comedy film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Jeff Bridges stars as Jeffrey Lebowski, an unemployed Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler, who refers to himself as "The Dude". The Dude is introduced to a multimillionaire also named Jeffrey Lebowski after a case of mistaken identity. When the millionaire Lebowski's trophy wife is later kidnapped, he commissions the Dude to deliver the ransom to secure her release. The plan goes awry when the Dude's friend Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) schemes to keep the full ransom sum. Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, David Huddleston, Julianne Moore, Tara Reid and John Turturro star in the film, which is narrated by a cowboy known only as "Stranger", played by Sam Elliott. The film's structure has been compared to Raymond Chandler's novel The Big Sleep. The original score was composed by Carter Burwell, a longtime collaborator of the Coen Brothers. The movie was not a commercial success (its... more