WTF Happened to the Coen Brothers?

Last Updated on February 8, 2023

Has there ever been a better filmmaking duo than the Coen Bros? Joel and Ethan Coen have made some of the greatest modern films, hitting it out of the park with their 1983 debut Blood Simple. From there, the list of classics goes on and on. There’s Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis – the list goes on and on. Yet, following the release of 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, this formerly inseparable duo split, with Joel directing The Tragedy of Macbeth and Ethan making the Jerry Lee Lewis documentary, Trouble in Mind. What gives?

In this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, which is written (with Brad Hamerly), narrated and produced by Taylor James Johnson (with the enigmatic Roderick Jaynes editing), we dig into the careers of perhaps two of the greatest filmmakers of our era. We examine the long list of classics, some of which are begging to be discovered by those of you who haven’t seen them, while also examining why the two split. While the boys may have temporarily gone their separate ways, the good news is that both Joel and Ethan are still in the game, churning out movies, so the Coen Bros legacy is alive and well.

What are your favorite Coen Bros movies? Let us know in the comments!