Joel Coen

Born: November 29 1954
Where: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Although Joel gets the directing credit it is well known that the chore is shared by his brother Ethan.

Dividing the writing, producing and directing responsibilities, the pair have been the brains behind Blood Simple, Fargo and The Man Who Wasn't There.

The Coen magic began with Blood Simple, a tough and witty modern film noir starring John Getz and M Emmet Walsh.

From the early shots of a rain-spattered windshield through a harrowing and skillfully composed finale, Blood Simple created an atmosphere of suspense and mutual suspicion to rival any film of its kind.

It was followed, in a brilliant display of technical and artistic versatility, by Raising Arizona, a zany dysfunctional family comedy about a childless couple who decide to kidnap a quintuplet.

They followed this with the hardboiled crime drama Miller's Crossing, starring Gabriel Byrne, and then Barton Fink, starring John Turturro as a troubled playwright.

Fargo, their belated 1996 commercial and critical breakthrough, may be the ultimate example of this tendency as it veers eccentrically from low-key quirky comedy to hard-edged violence.

The film about a used car salesman (William H Macy) who hires two inept thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stomare) to stage a fake kidnapping of his wife in hopes of extorting ransom money from his wealthy father-in-law, earned seven Oscar Nominations.

It was followed by The Big Lebowski, starring Jeff Bridges, and O Brother Where Art Thou, which made George Clooney's name as a big screen star.

The Man Who Wasn't There, starring Billy Bob Thornton, was an exercise in film noir while Intolerable Cruelty, with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Clooney, attracted charges of dumbing down.

Even less well received was the remake of the the classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers, starrng Tom Hanks.

However, the brothers were back on track with the darkly brooding adaptation of Comack McCarthy's thriller No Country for Old Men.