Director: Joel Coen

Joel Coen has co-directed nearly every film in the Coen brothers filmography with his brother Ethan, though for legal and guild reasons the early credits list him as director and Ethan as producer, when in fact they worked as a unit throughout. The partnership produced Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men and True Grit.

The register moves between farce and bleakness, sometimes inside a single scene, and the films are usually about someone who thinks they have a plan. Fargo and No Country for Old Men both hinge on money moving through the hands of people less competent than the situation requires.

He directed The Tragedy of Macbeth alone in 2021, in black and white and heavily stylised, which suggests the partnership’s split was about interest and not acrimony.