Joel Coen Filmography

Born:: November 29, 1954 in St. Louis Park, MN
Occupation:: Director, Executive Producer, Producer, Screenwriter
Biography:: Working with his brother Ethan, screenwriter/director Joel Coen has built a reputation as one of the most visionary and idiosyncratic filmmakers of the late 20th century. Combining thoughtful eccentricity, wry humor, arch irony, and often brutal violence, the films of the Coen brothers have become...Read More

Sort By:
Title
Release Date

A Serious Man

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, Jessica McManus

Synopsis: Filmmaking duo Joel and Ethan Coen write, produce, and direct this period black comedy set in 1967 concerning a Midwestern physics professor whose staid and stable life slowly begins to unravel after his wife announces that she's leaving him. As if the failure of his longtime marriage wasn't Read More

1/1/09
The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon's novel of a murder mystery shadowed against the forced misplacement of Jewish settlers is brought to the screen in this Columbia Pictures' production adapted by the writing/directing team of Joel and Ethan Coen. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide Read More

1/1/09
Burn After Reading

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins

Synopsis: A CIA agent who is currently in the process of writing a book loses the disc containing his only manuscript in this comedic tale of espionage that reunites filmmaking duo Joel and Ethan Coen with Intolerable Cruelty and O Brother, Where Art Thou? star George Clooney. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Read More

9/12/08
No Country for Old Men

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald

Synopsis: When a Vietnam veteran discovers two million dollars while wandering through the aftermath of a Texas drug deal gone horribly awry, his decision to abscond with the cash sets off a violent chain reaction in a stripped-down crime drama from Joel and Ethan Coen. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) has just Read More

11/9/07
Romance & Cigarettes

Crew: Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale

Synopsis: Actor and filmmaker John Turturro wrote and directed this emotionally resonant blend of music and drama. Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) is an ironworker who has been married for years to Kitty (Susan Sarandon), who works as a seamstress and is the mother of Nick's three daughters. While Nick loves Read More

9/7/07
Paris, je t'aime

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Twenty acclaimed filmmakers from around the world look at love in the City of Lights in this omnibus feature. Paris Je T'aime features eighteen short stories, each set in a different part of Paris and each featuring a different cast and director (two segments were produced by two filmmakers in Read More

5/4/07
To Each His Own Cinema

Crew: Director

Synopsis: At the time of its production, To Each His Own Cinema represented the latest arrival in a tidal wave of internationally oriented omnibus films, with no official relation between them but all produced within a few years of one another. Few could claim a roster of talent comparable to this one Read More

2007
Tuileries

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Steve Buscemi, Julie Bataille, Axel Kiener

Synopsis: Renowned filmmaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen re-team with frequent collaborator Steve Buscemi for this comedic entry in the anthology film Paris, Je T'Aime. The episode, which unfolds in the Paris Metro, observes the calamities that befall a hapless American loser (Buscemi). This tourist makes Read More

2006
The Ladykillers

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Tom Hanks, Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Irma P. Hall, Tzi Ma

Synopsis: One of the best-loved films from the idiosyncratic British film studio Ealing Pictures gets an update from the equally idiosyncratic filmmaking team of Joel and Ethan Coen in this offbeat comedy. Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall) is a spry, elderly woman who attends church regularly, doesn't care for Read More

3/26/04
Bad Santa

Crew: Executive Producer, Screen Story

Actors: Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Lauren Graham, Lauren Tom

Synopsis: The Christmas season just got a lot less joyous in this very dark comedy. Willie T. Stokes (Billy Bob Thornton) is a con man and a thief who teams up with his friend Marcus (Tony Cox), a midget, for a very special scam each year during the holiday season. Willie gets a job as Santa Claus at a Read More

11/26/03
Intolerable Cruelty

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer, Edward Herrmann

Synopsis: Joel and Ethan Coen take on the classic battle-of-the-sexes screwball comedy with Intolerable Cruelty. George Clooney plays Miles Massey, a high-powered Los Angeles divorce lawyer nearing a midlife crisis . While representing wealthy client Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann), Miles meets his match in Read More

10/10/03
The Man Who Wasn't There

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, James Gandolfini, Tony Shalhoub

Synopsis: Set in a sleepy Northern California town in the 1940s, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen's The Man Who Wasn't There stars Billy Bob Thornton as Ed Crane, a humble barber who suspects his hard-hearted and hard-drinking wife Doris (Frances McDormand) of having an affair with her boss (James Gandolfini). When Read More

10/31/01
Down from the Mountain

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: John Hartford, Ralph Stantley, Terry Bulger, T-Bone Burnett, Ethan Coen

Synopsis: For their film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, set in the American South during the 1930s, filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen collaborated with musician, songwriter, and producer T-Bone Burnett to compile a score that reflected the rich variety of musical influences of the rural South during the Read More

6/15/01
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, Charles Durning, John Goodman

Synopsis: The writing, directing, and producing team of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen created this picaresque comedy (inspired in part by Homer's The Odyssey) set in the Deep South during the Depression. Suave and fancy-talking Everett Ulysses McGill (George Clooney), dim-witted Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) Read More

12/20/00
The Big Lebowski

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Peter Stormare

Synopsis: The plot of this Raymond Chandler-esque comedy crime caper from the Coen Brothers (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen) pivots around a case of mistaken identity complicated by extortion, double-crosses, deception, embezzlement, sex, pot, and gallons of White Russians (made with fresh cream, please). In Read More

1998
Fargo

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, Harve Presnell

Synopsis: Filmmaking siblings Joel Coen and Ethan Coen both embraced and poked satirical fun at their rural Minnesota roots with this comedy-drama-thriller that earned seven Oscar nominations, winning for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. Frances McDormand stars as Marge Gunderson, a pregnant Read More

1996
The Hudsucker Proxy

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman, Charles Durning, John Mahoney

Synopsis: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen concocted this stylish screwball comedic amalgam of Frank Capra and Howard Hawks. Tim Robbins stars as Norville Barnes, a dull-wit from Muncie, Indiana who wrangles a job with the big Hudsucker Industries. He has a singular idea for a new children's toy that he wants to Read More

1994
Barton Fink

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, John Mahoney, Tony Shalhoub

Synopsis: The title character, played by John Turturro, is a Broadway playwright, based on Clifford Odets, lured to Hollywood with the promise of untold riches by a boorish studio chieftain (played by Michael Lerner as a combination of Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn). Despising the film capital and Read More

8/21/91
Miller's Crossing

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, Marcia Gay Harden, Jon Polito, John Turturro

Synopsis: Joel and Ethan Coen's third collaboration, the gangster film Miller's Crossing, stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom Reagan, the right-hand man of big-city Irish mob boss Leo (Albert Finney). The film opens with Italian mobster Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) and his second in command Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman) Read More

9/22/90
Darkman

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Colin Friels, Larry Drake, Nelson Mashita

Synopsis: Neglecting Julie (Frances McDormand), his lawyer lady friend, Dr. Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) works feverishly to perfect his latest invention -- artificial skin that could be used to treat burn victims. Peyton himself falls victim to an explosion when one of Julie's crooked clients sends his Read More

8/24/90
Raising Arizona

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson, John Goodman, William Forsythe

Synopsis: Combining influences from Tex Avery cartoons to Sam Raimi horror movies to 1940s B-movies, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen followed up the stylish film noir of their debut, Blood Simple (1984), with this frantic screwball comedy. H.I. "Hi" McDonnough (Nicholas Cage) is a philosophical but slightly dim Read More

3/11/87
Crimewave

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Reed Birney, Sheree J. Wilson, Louise Lasser, Paul L. Smith, Brion James

Synopsis: In a slapstick spoof of hitmen and crime stories, the head of a security systems company (Hamid Dana) is bumped off by two gonzo exterminators (Brion James and Paul L. Smith) who have gone from stomping out pesky varmints to stomping out human targets, and one of them does so with gusto. Now the Read More

4/25/86
Spies Like Us

Actors: Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Forrest, Donna Dixon, Bruce Davison

Synopsis: Director John Landis helmed this Cold War farce starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase as Austin Millbarge and Emmett Fitz-Hume -- two loser misfits who dwell in the lower ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency. Convinced despite much evidence to the contrary that they're prime secret agent Read More

1985
Blood Simple

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh, Samm-Art Williams

Synopsis: In the first film of brothers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, M. Emmett Walsh plays Visser, an unscrupulous private eye hired by Texas bar owner Marty (Dan Hedaya) to murder Marty's faithless wife Abby (Frances McDormand) and her paramour, Ray (John Getz), one of Marty's employees. But Visser is no more Read More

1984
The Evil Dead

Crew: First Assistant Editor

Actors: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Hal Delrich, Sarah York

Synopsis: This auspicious feature debut from Sam Raimi -- shot on 16mm in the woods of Tennesse for around $350,000 -- secured the young director's cult status as a creative force to be reckoned with. The nominal plot involves five vacationing college kids -- Ash (Bruce Campbell), his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker Read More

1983