Ever since their "whip-smart, masterful film noir" debut, as Onion A. V. Club contributor Nathan Rabin described the 1984 film Blood Simple, the Coen brothers have increasingly "cemented their po sition as contemporary cinema's most original and consistent voices." The two have collaborated--with Ethan writing and producing and Joel writing and directing--on films such as Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsuck er Proxy, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou", and The Man Who Wasn't There, winning numerous top film awards for their edgy, offbeat, and often hilariously stylized cataloguing of Americana.

Critical reception has never been neutral on the Coen brothers; there seems to be no middle ground. While New Republic film critic Stanley Kauffman would complain that "the Coens . . . were overrated from the moment their first film appeared," Jack Barth, writing in Film Comment, argued that the brothers' debut work "unveiled a new...