Screenplay: Joel Coen

Top movies, series, and documentaries with a screenplay by Joel Coen. Explore the titles that showcase an exceptional writing.


Miller's Crossing

1990 · Movie · 115 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast Gabriel Byrne · Marcia Gay Harden · Albert Finney · Jon Polito

Plot The 20s. An Irish gangster (Albert Finney) and his trusted lieutenant (Gabriel Byrne) and counselor find their domination of the town threatened by an ambitious Italian underboss (Jon Polito). Just...

7.8

58K votes

7.8

58K votes

Fargo

1996 · Movie · 97 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast Frances McDormand · William H. Macy · Steve Buscemi · Peter Stormare

Plot Poor Jerry Lundegaard. He's deep in debt. His wealthy father-in-law has no respect for him. He cheats customers at the car dealership where he works. And now he's hired a...

Max

7.8

97K votes

7.8

97K votes

The Big Lebowski

1998 · Movie · 117 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast Jeff Bridges · John Goodman · Julianne Moore · Steve Buscemi

Plot When "The Dude" Lebowski is mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, two thugs urinate on his rug to coerce him into paying a debt he knows nothing about. While attempting to...

7.6

117K votes

7.6

117K votes

Barton Fink

1991 · Movie · 113 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast John Turturro · John Goodman · Judy Davis · Michael Lerner

Plot In 1941, New York intellectual playwright Barton Fink comes to Hollywood to write a Wallace Beery wrestling picture. Staying in the eerie Hotel Earle, Barton develops severe writer's block. His...

7.4

25K votes

7.4

25K votes

The Man Who Wasn't There

2001 · Movie · 116 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast Billy Bob Thornton · Frances McDormand · Tony Shalhoub · James Gandolfini

Plot In the summer of 1949, Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), the local barber in a small northern California town, is dissatisfied with his life. In the hopes of turning his...

7.3

29K votes

7.3

29K votes

Blood Simple

1984 · Movie · 96 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast John Getz · Frances McDormand · Dan Hedaya · Samm-Art Williams

Plot Abby is cheating on her saloonkeeper husband, Marty. The object of her affections is Ray, one of Marty's bartenders. Marty hires Visser, an unscrupulous detective, to kill them. But Visser...

Max

7.3

22K votes

7.3

22K votes

No Country for Old Men

2007 · Movie · 122 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen · Ethan Coen

Cast Josh Brolin · Tommy Lee Jones · Javier Bardem · Kelly MacDonald

Plot Set along a bloody frontier in our own time, this film is based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, instead finds men...

7.2

109K votes

7.2

109K votes

True Grit

2010 · Movie · 110 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen · Ethan Coen

Cast Jeff Bridges · Hailee Steinfeld · Matt Damon · Josh Brolin

Plot Aging marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) is hired by young girl Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) to find her father's killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). A ranger from Texas named LaBoeuf...

7.1

55K votes

7.1

55K votes

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

2000 · Movie · 93 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast George Clooney · John Turturro · Tim Blake Nelson · Charles Durning

Plot Loosely based on Homer's 'Odyssey' the movie deals with the grotesque adventures of Everett Ulysses McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 1930s Mississipi. Sprung from a chain gang...

6.8

35K votes

6.8

35K votes

Bridge of Spies

2015 · Movie · 135 min. · United States

Direction Steven Spielberg

Cast Tom Hanks · Mark Rylance · Amy Ryan · Scott Shepherd

Plot In 1957 New York City, Rudolf Abel is arrested and charged with spying for the Soviet Union. Insurance lawyer James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) is appointed to defend Abel, so...

6.8

38K votes

6.8

38K votes

Inside Llewyn Davis

2013 · Movie · 105 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen · Ethan Coen

Cast Oscar Isaac · Carey Mulligan · John Goodman · Ethan Phillips

Plot Follow a week in the life of Llewyn Davis, a folk singer, as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New...

6.7

25K votes

6.7

25K votes

Raising Arizona

1987 · Movie · 93 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast Nicolas Cage · Holly Hunter · Trey Wilson · John Goodman

Plot H.I. (Nicolas Cage) and Edwina (Holly Hunter) met and fell in love when she took his mug shots, every time he was arrested for a convenience store robbery. That kind...

6.6

19K votes

6.6

19K votes

The Hudsucker Proxy

1994 · Movie · 111 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast Tim Robbins · Jennifer Jason Leigh · Paul Newman · Charles Durning

Plot When Waring Hudsucker, head of hugely successful Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, led by Sidney Mussberger, comes up with a brilliant plan to make a lot of...

6.6

12K votes

6.6

12K votes

Burn After Reading

2008 · Movie · 96 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen · Ethan Coen

Cast George Clooney · Frances McDormand · Brad Pitt · John Malkovich

Plot A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it. CIA agent Osbourne Cox is writing...

6.5

52K votes

6.5

52K votes

The Tragedy of Macbeth

2021 · Movie · 105 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen

Cast Denzel Washington · Frances McDormand · Alex Hassell · Corey Hawkins

Plot A Scottish lord becomes convinced by a trio of witches that he will become the next King of Scotland, and his ambitious wife supports him in his plans of seizing...

6.5

3K votes

6.5

3K votes

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

2018 · Movie · 132 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen · Ethan Coen

Cast Tim Blake Nelson · Zoe Kazan · Tom Waits · James Franco

Plot "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is a six-part Western anthology film, a series of tales about the American frontier told through the unique and incomparable voice of Joel and Ethan...

6.5

16K votes

6.5

16K votes

Unbroken

2014 · Movie · 132 min. · United States

Direction Angelina Jolie

Cast Jack O'Connell · Domhnall Gleeson · Garrett Hedlund · Takamasa Ishihara

Plot A chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II.

6.3

17K votes

6.3

17K votes

To Each His Cinema

2007 · Movie · 111 min. · France

Direction Theodoros Angelopoulos · Olivier Assayas · Bille August · Jane Campion

Cast Cindy Beckett · Audrey Dana · Jacques Frantz · George Babluani

Plot To Each His Cinema is a 2007 film, produced and conceived by Gilles Jacob, celebrating the Cannes Film Festival's 60th anniversary. The film is comprised of a collection of 35...

6.2

1K votes

6.2

1K votes

A Serious Man

2009 · Movie · 105 min. · United States

Direction Joel Coen · Ethan Coen

Cast Michael Stuhlbarg · Richard Kind · Fred Melamed · Sari Lennick

Plot A black comedy set in 1967 and centered on on Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg), a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel when his wife prepares to leave him because his...

Max

6.1

23K votes

6.1

23K votes

Tuileries (S)

2006 · Movie · 6 min. · France

6.1

47 votes

6.1

47 votes