2008 Oscar Winner: Best Director in No Country for Old Men
1997 BAFTA Winner: Best Direction in Fargo
1997 Independent Spirit Award Winner: Best Director in Fargo
1986 Independent Spirit Award Winner: Best Director in Blood Simple
2011 Oscar Nominee: Best Director in True Grit
1997 Oscar Nominee: Best Director in Fargo
A writer and director with a love of classic Hollywood genres, Joel Coen and his partner, brother Ethan, are responsible for some of the big cult and critics' favorites of the last 20 years. Born Nov. 29, 1954, in Minneapolis, Minn., Joel attended Simon's Rock College in Great Barrington, Mass.
After their start as film editors, the Coens' debut feature, the low-budget Blood Simple (1984), brought the brothers instant recognition as pioneers in the independent film movement. Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink followed, but it was the darkly comic crime caper Fargo (1996) that struck gold, winning Oscars for Original Screenplay and Best Actress (Frances McDormand, Joel's wife).
O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn't There and Intolerable Cruelty followed, but it was the critically acclaimed No Country for Old Men (2008) that won he and his brother three Oscar wins (Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay).
True Grit
  2010 3.9 ★ 110 mins Action & Adventure Rated: PG-13 RT:96%  until 01-Jan-2025  
After drifter Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) murders her father, 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) hires alcoholic U.S. Marshal Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to help her exact revenge. The disreputable lawman still has grit, though, and mounts an epic search. Joining the duo on their quest is a Texas Ranger (Matt Damon) who's also hunting for Chaney in this updated Western that received multiple Oscar nods, including Best Picture.
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A Serious Man
2009 3.1 ★ 106 mins Comedies Rated: R RT:89% starting 16-Jan-2018
Larry Gopnik has hit a "rough patch," according to a colleague, and it would seem so: People are dropping dead all around him, his wife wants a "get," and his whining kids only add to the heavy load. Can a few rabbis guide him to life's answers?
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Burn After Reading
2008 3.1 ★ 96 mins Comedies Rated: R RT:78%
In this darkly comic farce from Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, an ousted CIA official (John Malkovich) loses his penned memoir to a pair of moronic gym employees (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand, in a Golden Globe-nominated role) who use it to try and turn a profit. George Clooney and Tilda Swinton round out the cast of this irreverent tale of poorly executed espionage, which also earned a Golden Globe nod for Best Picture (Comedy).
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No Country for Old Men
2007 3.7 ★ 122 mins Thrillers Rated: R RT:95%
Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as violent pursuits of money and justice collide in this Oscar-winning morality tale from directors-writers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen.
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Paris, Je T'aime
2006 3.7 ★ 110 mins Dramas Rated: R
Paris comes to life in this whimsical patchwork of 18 five-minute shorts united by a common theme -- love in the City of Lights -- and helmed by an international cast of filmmakers, including Gus Van Sant, Olivier Assayas and Alexander Payne. Natalie Portman plays an American actress who captures the heart of a blind student; Juliette Binoche is visited by a ghostly Willem Dafoe; Bob Hoskins solicits a prostitute's advice on pleasing his wife.
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The Ladykillers
2004 2.9 ★ 104 mins Comedies Rated: R RT:55%
A Southern professor-turned-criminal-mastermind puts together a group of thieves to help him rob a New Orleans riverboat casino. But when the old lady who's renting them a room gets a whiff of their plan, they have no choice but to kill her.
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Intolerable Cruelty
2003 3.0 ★ 100 mins Comedies Rated: PG-13 RT:75% starting 16-Jul-2013
Attorney Miles goes toe-to-toe with his wealthy client's ex-wife, expert gold-digger Marylin, in this battle-of-the-sexes comedy. Just when Marylin thinks she's cinched another fortune, she's defeated by the "Massey pre-nup" and schemes to get even.
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The Man Who Wasn't There
2001 3.4 ★ 116 mins Dramas Rated: R RT:81% until 01-Jan-2025
In this black-and-white film noir by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Billy Bob Thornton stars as Ed Crane, an aimless barber who's dissatisfied with his life in a small northern California town in the summer of 1949. His wife's (Frances McDormand) infidelity presents Crane with an opportunity for blackmail that he thinks will turn his life around ... but his scheme lays bare even darker secrets that eventually lead to murder. James Gandolfini co-stars.
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O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2000 3.9 ★ 106 mins Action & Adventure Rated: PG-13 RT:77%
With their collective eye focused on retrieving a cache of hidden money, three convicts break out of jail in Depression-era Mississippi and embark on an epic journey that bears more than a few similarities to Homer's &NFi;Odyssey&NFi_;.
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The Big Lebowski
1998 3.8 ★ 118 mins Comedies Rated: R RT:80% until 01-Jan-2025
Slacker Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) gets involved in a gargantuan mess of events when he's mistaken for another man named Lebowski, whose wife has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. All the while, Dude's friend, Walter (John Goodman), stirs the pot. Brothers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen write and direct this cult comedy classic that also stars Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore and John Turturro.
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The Big Lebowski: Bonus Material
1998 3.4 ★ 46 mins Comedies Rated: NR
The bonus features for the Cohen brother's seminal cult hit include a making-of documentary on "The Big Lebowski", a behind-the-scenes look at "Lebowski Fest", the dream sequences of The Dude, an interactive map of The Dude's Los Angeles, photos that Jeff Bridges took on-set, and a seperate photo gallery from the movie.
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Fargo
1996 3.8 ★ 98 mins Dramas Rated: R RT:94%
Police chief Marge Gunderson -- a serious sleuth who's sharper than her folksy accent suggests -- is hot on the trail of a Minneapolis car dealer conspiring with two kidnappers to snatch his wife so he can pocket part of the hefty ransom.
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The Hudsucker Proxy
1994 3.6 ★ 111 mins Comedies Rated: PG RT:56%
The Coen brothers deliver a screwball comedy gem about mail clerk Norville Barnes, (Tim Robbins) who falls into good -- or bad? -- luck when he becomes the CEO of a successful business. The evil Sidney J. Mussberger (Paul Newman) chooses Barnes so he and the other board directors can make a fortune on the falling stock price. Meanwhile, reporter Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) befriends Norville in hopes of landing a big scoop.
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Barton Fink
1991 3.5 ★ 117 mins Comedies Rated: R RT:91% starting 01-Nov-2012
Idealistic playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) believes writing should reveal the hopes, dreams and tragedies of the common man. When Hollywood taps him to write a movie, Fink develops severe writer's block and soon falls victim to a strange sequence of events. Unable to combine his deep-seated ethics with Tinseltown's frivolity, the disillusioned and desperate Fink winds up involved in a murder investigation in this Oscar-nominated dramedy.
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Miller's Crossing
1990 3.7 ★ 115 mins Dramas Rated: R RT:91% starting 01-Jan-2013
Trusted adviser to 1920s Irish crime boss Lee O'Bannon, Tom Reagan's loyalty is tested when he takes up with O'Bannon's gal pal, Verna Bernbaum. Meanwhile, rivals Johnny Caspar and Eddie Dane threaten O'Bannon's racket. Gabriel Byrne, John Turturro, Albert Finney, Steve Buscemi, Jon Polito, J.E. Freeman and Marcia Gay Harden star in this marvelously crafted, unnerving crime-era epic helmed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen.
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Raising Arizona
1987 3.7 ★ 94 mins Comedies Rated: PG-13 RT:90% starting 01-Jul-2012
Ex-cop Edwina "Ed" McDonnough (Holly Hunter) and her ex-con husband, H.I. (Nicolas Cage), are devastated when they learn they can't have children. Not to worry: They reckon they'll just "borrow" one of furniture magnate Nathan Arizona's (Trey Wilson) new quintuplets. Featuring oodles of idiosyncratic humor, this kidnapping farce from Joel Coen and Ethan Coen is a deft nod to classic screwball comedy. John Goodman and William Forsythe co-star.
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Blood Simple
1984 3.7 ★ 96 mins Dramas Rated: R RT:95%
In a jealous rage, Texas tavern owner Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) hires unscrupulous private detective Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to not only tail Marty's two-timing spouse, Abby (Frances McDormand, in her big-screen debut), but also murder her and her bar-keeping paramour (John Getz). Events take a surprising turn, however, when the gumshoe double-crosses his client. Joel Coen directs this stylish shocker co-written with brother Ethan Coen.
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