Joel Coen
Coen in 2016
Born	Joel Daniel Coen (1954-11-29)November 29, 1954 (age 71) St. Louis Park, Minnesota, U.S.
Other names	Roderick Jaynes
Alma mater	Bard College at Simon's Rock (AA) New York University (BFA)
Occupations	Film director producer screenwriter editor
Years active	1984–present
Spouse	Frances McDormand ​ (m. 1984)​
Children	1
Relatives	Ethan Coen (brother)
Awards	Full list

Joel Daniel Coen (born November 29, 1954)^[1] is an American filmmaker.Working alongside his brotherEthan, he has directed, written, edited and produced many feature films, the most acclaimed of which includeBlood Simple (1984),Raising Arizona (1987),Miller's Crossing (1990),Barton Fink (1991),Fargo (1996),The Big Lebowski (1998),O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000),The Ladykillers (2004),No Country for Old Men (2007),Burn After Reading (2008),A Serious Man (2009),True Grit (2010),Inside Llewyn Davis (2013),Hail, Caesar! (2016) andThe Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018).

The duo began directing separately in the 2020s. Joel directed the 2021 thrillerThe Tragedy of Macbeth (adapted fromthe Shakespeare play) starringDenzel Washington and Coen's wifeFrances McDormand.^[2] The film was his first solo directorial effort, and was nominated for threeAcademy Awards. Joel is set to direct another film,Jack of Spades.^[3]

The brothers, together, have won fourAcademy Awards from 13 nominations; one for writingFargo, and three for writing, directing, and producingNo Country For Old Men. They also won aPalme d'Or forBarton Fink.

Joel Daniel Coen was born on November 29, 1954, inSt. Louis Park,Minnesota, a suburb ofMinneapolis. His brother Ethan was born almost three years later, on September 21, 1957.^[4] Their mother, Rena (née Neumann; 1925–2001), was anart historian atSt. Cloud State University,^[5] and their father, Edward Coen (1919–2012), was a professor of economics at theUniversity of Minnesota.^[6] The brothers have an older sister, Deborah, who is a psychiatrist in Israel.^[7][8]

Both sides of the Coen family were Eastern EuropeanAshkenazi Jews. Their paternal grandfather, Victor Coen, was abarrister in theInns of Court in London before retiring toHove with their grandmother.^[9] Edward Coen was an American citizen born in the United States,^[9] but grew up inCroydon, London and studied at theLondon School of Economics.^[10] Afterwards he moved to the United States, where he met the Coens' mother, and served in theUnited States Army duringWorld War II.^[10][9]

The Coens developed an early interest in cinema through television. They grew up watching Italian films (ranging from the works ofFederico Fellini to theSons of Hercules films) aired on a Minneapolis station, theTarzan films, and comedies (Jerry Lewis,Bob Hope andDoris Day).^[11]

In the mid-1960s, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy aVivitarSuper 8 camera.^[12] Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television, with their neighborhood friend Mark Zimering ("Zeimers") as the star.^[13]Cornel Wilde'sThe Naked Prey (1965) became theirZeimers in Zambezi, which featured Ethan as a native with a spear.Lassie Come Home (1943) was reinterpreted as theirEd... A Dog, with Ethan playing the mother role in his sister'stutu. They also made original films likeHenry Kissinger, Man on the Go,Lumberjacks of the North andThe Banana Film.^[14]

Joel graduated fromSt. Louis Park High School^[15] in 1973, and fromBard College at Simon's Rock inGreat Barrington, Massachusetts.^[16] After Simon's Rock, Joel spent four years in the undergraduate film program atNew York University, where he made a 30-minute thesis film,Soundings.^[17] In 1979, he briefly enrolled in the graduate film program at theUniversity 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.^[18]

After graduating fromNew York University, Joel worked as aproduction assistant on a variety ofindustrial films and music videos. He developed a talent for film editing and metSam Raimi while assisting Edna Ruth Paul in editing Raimi's first feature film,The Evil Dead (1981).^[19]

The brothers made their debut withBlood Simple (1984), aneo-noir starringJohn Getz,Frances McDormand,Dan Hedaya andM. Emmet Walsh. Due toDGA regulations, Joel received sole directing credit while Ethan received sole production credit. This would remain the case until 2004'sThe Ladykillers. It marked the first of many collaborations between the Coens and composerCarter Burwell. It was also the screen debut of Joel's wife, McDormand, who went on to feature in many of the Coens' films.^[20]

The brothers wanted to follow their debut with something fast-paced and funny. They directedRaising Arizona (1987), which starredNicolas Cage andHolly Hunter, and marked the first of many collaborations between the Coens andJohn Goodman. The two continued to direct throughout the 1990s, with the black comedy thrillerBarton Fink (1991) winning thePalme d'Or and being nominated for one Oscar. They directedFargo (1996), a black comedy crime film that won many accolades, including theAcademy Award for Best Actress for star Frances McDormand, as well as winning the brothersBest Original Screenplay, their first Oscar win.^[21][22]The Big Lebowski (1998) is acrime comedy following Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges). It became acult classic.^[23]

Other Oscar-nominated films the duo directed in the 2000s includedO Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) andThe Man Who Wasn't There (2001). In 2007, the two madeNo Country for Old Men, adapted fromthe 2005 novel of the same name byCormac McCarthy. The film starsJosh Brolin,Tommy Lee Jones andJavier Bardem.No Country received nearly universal critical praise, garnering a 94% "Fresh" rating atRotten Tomatoes.^[24] It won four Academy Awards, includingBest Picture,Best Director andBest Adapted Screenplay, all of which were received by the Coens, as well asBest Supporting Actor received by Bardem for his portrayal of hitmanAnton Chigurh. The Coens, as "Roderick Jaynes", were also nominated forBest Editing, but didn't win. It was the first time since 1961 (whenJerome Robbins andRobert Wise won forWest Side Story) that two directors received theAcademy Award for Best Director at the same time.^[25]

Other well-received films they directed together throughout the next decade includedA Serious Man (2009),True Grit (2010),Inside Llewyn Davis (2013),Hail Caesar! (2016) andThe Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018). They also co-wrote the script forSteven Spielberg'sBridge of Spies (2015).

By the late 2010s, Ethan was taking a break from films to focus on theater.^[26] It was announced in March 2019 that Joel, in a rare solo effort, was set to write and direct a new take on theWilliam Shakespeare playMacbeth.Scott Rudin was originally set to produce, andA24 would distribute. The film,The Tragedy of Macbeth, had its world premiere at the2021 New York Film Festival on September 24, 2021.^[27][28] It was released in alimited release on December 25, 2021, prior to streaming on Apple TV+ on January 14, 2022.^[29] It also concluded theLondon Film Festival. The film starredDenzel Washington asLord Macbeth and McDormand asLady Macbeth.^[30] The film received critical acclaim for its direction, cinematography, and the performances of Washington, McDormand, and Hunter. For his performance in the title role, Washington was nominated for theAcademy Award,Golden Globe,Critics' Choice Award, andScreen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. The film also receivedAcademy Award nominations forBest Cinematography andBest Production Design. On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 92% of 287 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "Led by a stellar Denzel Washington,The Tragedy of Macbeth strips the classic story down to its visual and narrative essentials."Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 87 out of 100, based on 49 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[31]

In May 2025, it was announced that Coen was set to direct a new film, titledJack of Spades. It will starJosh O'Connor and film in Scotland.^[3]

Coen has been married to actressFrances McDormand since 1984. In 1995, they adopted a son, Pedro McDormand Coen, from Paraguay when he was six months old.^[32][33] 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, andHail, Caesar!. For her performance inFargo, she won theAcademy Award for Best Actress. The two live inMarin County, California.^[34][35]

• List of Academy Award–winning siblings

• King, Lynnea Chapman (2014).The Coen Brothers Encyclopedia. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.ISBN 9780810885769.
• Levine, Josh (2000).The Coen Brothers: The Story of Two American Filmmakers. ECW Press.ISBN 9781550224245.

• Joel Coen atIMDb
• Joel Coen at LC Authorities, with 31 records, andJoel at WorldCat

• Living people
• 1954 births
• 20th-century American Jews
• 21st-century American Jews
• 20th-century American male writers
• 21st-century American male writers
• American film editors
• American comedy film directors
• Best Directing Academy Award winners
• Best Director BAFTA Award winners
• Best Director Golden Globe winners
• Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winners
• Best Screenplay Golden Globe winners
• Directors Guild of America Award winners
• Writers Guild of America Award winners
• Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
• Directors of Best Picture Academy Award winners
• Tisch School of the Arts alumni
• Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director winners
• Directors of Palme d'Or winners
• Filmmakers from Minnesota
• Film directors from Minnesota
• Screenwriters from Minnesota
• Film producers from Minnesota
• Jews from Minnesota
• People from St. Louis Park, Minnesota

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