Early years and education Joel Daniel Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen (born September 21, 1957) were born and raised in
St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of
Minneapolis. Their mother, Rena (
née Neumann; 1925–2001), was an
art historian at
St. Cloud State University, and their father, Edward Coen (1919–2012), was a professor of
economics at the
University of Minnesota. The brothers have an older sister, Deborah, who is a psychiatrist in Israel. Both sides of the Coen family were Eastern European
Ashkenazi Jews. Edward Coen was an American citizen born in the United States, In the mid-1960s, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a
Vivitar Super 8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television, with their neighborhood friend Mark Zimering ("Zeimers") as the star.
Cornel Wilde's
The Naked Prey (1965) became their
Zeimers in Zambezi, which featured Ethan as a native with a spear.
Lassie Come Home (1943) was reinterpreted as their
Ed... A Dog, with Ethan playing the mother role in his sister's
tutu. They also made original films like
Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go,
Lumberjacks of the North and
The Banana Film. Joel and Ethan graduated from
St. Louis Park High School in 1973 and 1976, respectively, and from
Bard College at Simon's Rock in
Great Barrington, Massachusetts. After Simon's Rock, Joel spent four years in the undergraduate film program at
New York University, where he made a 30-minute thesis film,
Soundings. In 1979, he briefly enrolled in the graduate film program at the
University of Texas at Austin, following a woman he had married who was in the graduate
linguistics program. The marriage soon ended in divorce and Joel left UT Austin after nine months. Ethan went on to
Princeton University and earned an
undergraduate degree in philosophy in 1979.
1980s After graduating from
New York University, Joel worked as a
production assistant on a variety of
industrial films and music videos. He developed a talent for film editing and met
Sam Raimi while assisting Edna Ruth Paul in editing Raimi's first feature film,
The Evil Dead (1981). The duo made their debut with
Blood Simple (1984). Set in
Texas, it tells the tale of a bar owner (
Dan Hedaya) who hires a detective (
M. Emmet Walsh) to kill his wife and her lover (
Frances McDormand and
John Getz, respectively). It contains elements that point to their future direction: distinctive homages to genre movies (in this case
noir and
horror),
plot twists layered over a simple story, snappy dialogue and
dark humor.
Janet Maslin wrote: "The camera work by
Barry Sonnenfeld is especially dazzling. So is the fact that Mr. Coen, unlike many people who have directed great-looking film noir efforts, knows better than to let handsomeness become the film's entire raison d'être. In addition to its stylishness,
Blood Simple has the kind of purposefulness and coherence that show Mr. Coen to be headed for bigger, even better, things." Joel's direction was recognized at the
Sundance and
Independent Spirit awards. It was the first film shot by Sonnenfeld, who collaborated with the Coens on their two subsequent films and went on to be a director. It marked the first of many collaborations between the Coens and composer
Carter Burwell. It was also the screen debut of McDormand, who went on to feature in many of the Coens' films (and to marry Joel). Their next project was
Crimewave (Raimi, 1985), written by the Coens and Raimi. Joel and Raimi also made
cameos in
Spies Like Us (1985). The brothers wanted to follow their debut with something fast-paced and funny.
Raising Arizona (1987) follows an unlikely married couple: ex-convict H.I. (
Nicolas Cage) and police officer Ed (
Holly Hunter), who long for a baby but are unable to conceive. When furniture tycoon Nathan Arizona (
Trey Wilson) appears on television with his newly born quintuplets and jokes that they "are more than we can handle", H.I. steals one of the quintuplets to bring up as their own. The film featured McDormand,
William Forsythe,
Sam McMurray,
Randall "Tex" Cobb and marked the first of many collaborations between the Coens and
John Goodman.
Pauline Kael noted its "cornpone-surreal quality" and wrote that the Coens "are going with their strengths. They're making a contraption, and they're good at it because they know how to make the camera behave mechanically, which is just right here—it mirrors the mechanics of farce ... The Sunsets look marvellously ultra-vivid; the paint doesn't seem to be dry—it's like opening day at a miniature-golf course."
1990s ''
Miller's Crossing'' (1990) is a
gangster film inspired by
Dashiell Hammett's
Red Harvest (1929) and
The Glass Key (1931). It stars
Gabriel Byrne as Irish mobster Tom Reagan and features
Albert Finney,
Marcia Gay Harden,
Steve Buscemi,
Jon Polito and
John Turturro. The film was released almost simultaneously with
Goodfellas and was not a commercial success, but received positive reviews.
Christopher Orr calls it "a distillation of all the tropes and themes and moods of the classic gangster film." It was the Coens' first collaboration with production designer
Dennis Gassner. While puzzling over the plot of ''Miller's Crossing
, the brothers wrote Barton Fink (1991) in a matter of weeks. Set in 1941, it follows a New York playwright, the eponymous Fink (Turturro), who moves to Los Angeles to write a B-picture for a venal movie mogul (Michael Lerner). Fink is modeled on playwright Clifford Odets, and the character W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) is based on William Faulkner. Barton Fink'' was a critical success, earning Oscar nominations and winning Best Director, Best Actor and at the
1991 Cannes Film Festival. It was their first film with cinematographer
Roger Deakins, a key collaborator for the next 25 years.
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) is an homage to the
screwball comedies of
Frank Capra and
Howard Hawks. Co-written with Raimi, the film follows a mailroom clerk (
Tim Robbins) who is promoted to president of the Hudsucker Corporation by a cynical director (
Paul Newman) in a scheme to devalue the company's stock; a fast-talking newspaperwoman (
Jennifer Jason Leigh) tries to scoop the story. Critics praised the production design but criticized the tone. It was a
box office bomb ($30 million budget, $3 million gross in the US). The brothers bounced back with the "homespun murder story"
Fargo (1996), set in their home state of
Minnesota. In it, car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (
William H. Macy), who has serious financial problems, has his wife kidnapped so that his wealthy father-in-law (
Harve Presnell) will pay the ransom, which he plans to split with the kidnappers (Buscemi and
Peter Stormare). Complications ensue, and local cop
Marge Gunderson (McDormand) starts to investigate. Produced on a small budget of $7 million,
Fargo was a critical and commercial success, winning
Oscars for
Best Original Screenplay for the Coens and
Best Actress for McDormand and the
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Picture. Maslin wrote that "Perversely, the frozen north even brings out some uncharacteristic warmth in these coolly cerebral film makers, although anyone seeking the milk of human kindness would be well advised to look elsewhere. ...
Fargo has been hauntingly photographed by Roger Deakins with great, expressive use of white-outs that sometimes make the characters appear to be moving through a dream. Roads disappear, swallowed up in a snowy void, making
Fargo look eerily remote. As the title suggests, there is a steady sense of distance and uncharted territory."
Roger Ebert wrote that "To watch it is to experience steadily mounting delight, as you realize the filmmakers have taken enormous risks, gotten away with them, and have made a movie that is completely original, and as familiar as an old shoe – or a rubber-soled hunting boot from Land's End, more likely."
The Big Lebowski (1998) is a
crime comedy about Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (
Jeff Bridges), a Los Angeles slacker who is involved in a kidnapping case after being mistaken for a millionaire of the same name (
David Huddleston.) It features
Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lebowski's flunky, Goodman and Buscemi as The Dude's
bowling buddies and
Julianne Moore as his "special lady friend". It was influenced by
Raymond Chandler's
The Big Sleep (1939) and
Robert Altman's
The Long Goodbye. It has become a
cult classic. An annual festival,
Lebowski Fest, began in 2002, and many adhere to the philosophy of "
Dudeism".
Andrew Sarris wrote that the Coens had made a "cubist collage of an old genre with a new frankness. The result is a lot of laughs and a feeling of awe toward the craftsmanship involved. I doubt that there’ll be anything else like it the rest of this year." It was the first collaboration between the Coens and
T Bone Burnett, credited as "Music Archivist". The same year, Ethan published
Gates of Eden, a collection of
short stories.
2000s The Coen brothers' next film,
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), was another critical and commercial success. The title was borrowed from the
Preston Sturges film ''
Sullivan's Travels'' (1941), whose lead character, movie director John Sullivan, had planned to make a film with that title. Based loosely on
Homer's
Odyssey (complete with a
Cyclops,
sirens,
et al.), the story is set in
Mississippi in the 1930s and follows a trio of escaped convicts who, after absconding from a
chain gang, journey home to recover bank-heist loot the leader has buried—but they have no clear perception of where they are going. The film highlighted the comic abilities of
George Clooney as the oddball lead character Ulysses Everett McGill, and of
Tim Blake Nelson and
John Turturro, his sidekicks. The film's
bluegrass and old-time soundtrack, offbeat humor and
digitally desaturated cinematography made it a critical and commercial hit. It was the first feature film to use all-digital color grading. The
film's soundtrack CD was also successful, spawning a concert and concert/documentary DVD,
Down from the Mountain. The Coens next produced another
noirish thriller, ''
The Man Who Wasn't There'' (2001). The Coens directed the 2003 film
Intolerable Cruelty, starring George Clooney and
Catherine Zeta-Jones, a throwback to the romantic comedies of the 1940s. It focuses on hotshot divorce lawyer Miles Massey and a beautiful divorcée whom Massey managed to prevent from receiving any money in her divorce. She vows to get even with him while, at the same time, he becomes smitten with her.
Intolerable Cruelty received generally positive reviews, although it is considered one of the duo's weaker films. Also that year, they executive produced and did an uncredited rewrite of the Christmas black comedy
Bad Santa, which garnered positive reviews. In 2004, the Coens made
The Ladykillers, a remake of the
British classic by
Ealing Studios. A professor, played by
Tom Hanks, assembles a team to rob a casino. They rent a room in an elderly woman's home to plan the heist. When the woman discovers the plot, the gang decides to murder her to ensure her silence. The Coens received some of the most lukewarm reviews of their careers in response to this film. They directed two short films for two separate
anthology films—''
Paris, je t'aime (Tuileries
, 2006) starring Steve Buscemi, and To Each His Own Cinema (World Cinema'', 2007) starring
Josh Brolin. Both films received highly positive reviews. at the
2007 Cannes Film Festival|left
No Country for Old Men, released in November 2007, closely follows
the 2005 novel of the same name by
Cormac McCarthy. Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (
Josh Brolin), living near the Texas/Mexico border, stumbles upon, and decides to take, two million dollars in drug money. He must then go on the run to avoid those trying to recover the money, including
sociopathic killer
Anton Chigurh (
Javier Bardem), who confounds both Llewelyn and local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (
Tommy Lee Jones). The plotline is a return to noir themes, but in some respects it was a departure for the Coens; with the exception of
Stephen Root, none of the stable of regular actors appears in the film.
No Country received nearly universal critical praise, garnering a 94% "Fresh" rating at
Rotten Tomatoes. It won four Academy Awards, including
Best Picture,
Best Director and
Best Adapted Screenplay, all of which were received by the Coens, as well as
Best Supporting Actor received by Bardem. The Coens, as "Roderick Jaynes", were also nominated for
Best Editing, but lost. It was the first time since 1961 (when
Jerome Robbins and
Robert Wise won for
West Side Story) that two directors received the
Academy Award for Best Director at the same time. In January 2008, Ethan Coen's play
Almost an Evening premiered
off-Broadway at the
Atlantic Theater Company Stage 2, opening to mostly enthusiastic reviews. The initial run closed on February 10, 2008, but the same production was moved to a new theatre for a commercial off-Broadway run at the
Bleecker Street Theater in New York City. Produced by The Atlantic Theater Company, it ran there from March 2008 through June 1, 2008. Released to positive reviews, it debuted at No. 1 in North America. In 2009, the Coens directed a television commercial titled "Air Freshener" for the Reality Coalition. They next directed
A Serious Man, released October 2, 2009, a "gentle but dark" period comedy (set in 1967) with a low budget. The film is based loosely on the Coens' childhoods in an academic family in the largely Jewish suburb of
Saint Louis Park, Minnesota; Filming took place late in the summer of 2008, in the neighborhoods of Roseville and
Bloomington, Minnesota, at
Normandale Community College, and at
St. Olaf College. The film was nominated for the Oscars for Best Picture and
Best Original Screenplay.
2010s True Grit (2010) is based on the 1968
novel of the same name by
Charles Portis. Filming was done in Texas and New Mexico.
Hailee Steinfeld stars as Mattie Ross along with Jeff Bridges as Marshal
Rooster Cogburn.
Matt Damon and
Josh Brolin also appear in the movie. In 2011, the Coen brothers won the $1 million
Dan David Prize for their contribution to cinema and society.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) is a treatise on the 1960s
folk music scene in New York City's
Greenwich Village, and very loosely based on the life of
Dave Van Ronk. The film stars
Oscar Isaac,
Justin Timberlake, and
Carey Mulligan. It won the
Grand Prix at the
2013 Cannes Film Festival, where it was highly praised by critics. They received a
Golden Globe nomination for
Best Original Song for "Please Mr. Kennedy", which is heard in the film.
Fargo, a television series inspired by their film of the same name, premiered in April 2014 on the
FX network. It is created by
Noah Hawley and executive produced by the brothers. The Coens also contributed to the screenplay for
Unbroken, along with
Richard LaGravenese and
William Nicholson. The film is directed by
Angelina Jolie and based on
Laura Hillenbrand's non-fiction book,
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010) which itself was based on the life of
Louis Zamperini. It was released on December 25, 2014, to average reviews. The Coens co-wrote, with playwright
Matt Charman, the screenplay for the dramatic historical thriller
Bridge of Spies, about the
1960 U-2 Incident. The film was directed by
Steven Spielberg, and released on October 4, 2015, to critical acclaim. They were nominated for the
Best Original Screenplay at the
88th Academy Awards. The Coens directed the film
Hail, Caesar!, about a "
fixer" in 1950s Hollywood trying to discover what happened to a cast member who vanishes during filming. It stars Coen regulars
George Clooney,
Josh Brolin,
Frances McDormand,
Scarlett Johansson and
Tilda Swinton, as well as
Channing Tatum,
Ralph Fiennes,
Jonah Hill, and
Alden Ehrenreich. The film was released on February 5, 2016. In 2016, the Coens gave to their longtime friend and collaborator
John Turturro the right to use his character of Jesus Quintana from
The Big Lebowski in his own spin-off,
The Jesus Rolls, which he would also write and direct. The Coens have no involvement in the production. In August 2016, the film began principal photography. The Coens first wrote the script for
Suburbicon in 1986. The film was eventually directed by
George Clooney and began filming in October 2016. It was released by
Paramount Pictures in the fall of 2017. The Coens directed
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a Western anthology starring
Tim Blake Nelson,
Liam Neeson, and
James Franco. It began streaming on
Netflix on November 16, 2018, after a brief theatrical run.
2020s It was announced in March 2019 that Joel Coen would be directing an adaptation of
Macbeth starring
Denzel Washington and
Frances McDormand. The film, titled
The Tragedy of Macbeth, was Joel's first directorial effort without his brother, who was taking a break from films to focus on theater. The film premiered at the
2021 New York Film Festival. The
2022 Cannes Film Festival had a special screening of
Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, an archival documentary film directed solely by Ethan Coen and edited by his wife
Tricia Cooke. In 2022, it was announced that Ethan Coen would be directing
Drive-Away Dolls for Focus Features and Working Title from a script he co-wrote with Cooke. It was Ethan's first narrative film without his brother. The film was released in February 2024. He and Cooke subsequently collaborated on the 2025 film ''
Honey Don't! Joel Coen will next direct the upcoming mystery film Jack of Spades.'' In 2025, in an interview with
Collider, Ethan Coen acknowledged the hiatus since the brothers' last collaboration, saying that it was due to them being "out of sync" with each other due in large part to the
COVID-19 pandemic, while stressing that they never formally decided to stop making movies together.
Planned and uncompleted projects Production company The Coen brothers' own film production company, Mike Zoss Productions located in New York City, has been credited on their films from
O Brother, Where Art Thou? onwards. It was named after Mike Zoss Drug, an independent pharmacy in St. Louis Park since 1950 that was the brothers' beloved hangout when they were growing up in the
Twin Cities. The name was also used for the
pharmacy in
No Country for Old Men. The Mike Zoss logo consists of a crayon drawing of a horse, standing in a field of grass with its head turned around as it looks back over its hindquarters.
Personal lives Joel has been married to actress
Frances McDormand since 1984. In 1995, they adopted a son from Paraguay when he was six months old. McDormand has acted in a number of Coen brothers films:
Blood Simple,
Raising Arizona, ''
Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn't There, Burn After Reading, Hail, Caesar!, and The Tragedy of Macbeth. For her performance in Fargo'', she won the
Academy Award for Best Actress. Ethan married film editor
Tricia Cooke in 1993. They have a daughter and a son. They describe their relationship as "nontraditional"—Cooke is a
lesbian while Ethan is straight, and they each have another partner. The two co-wrote the film
Drive-Away Dolls, which Ethan directed and Tricia edited. Ethan and his family live in New York, while Joel and McDormand live in
Marin County, California. == Directing distinctions ==