Coen brothers Ethan is also a writer of short stories, theater and poetry. Known for many distinctive stylistic trademarks including genre hybridity, the brothers' films "No Country for Old Men", "A Serious Man" and "Inside Llewyn Davis" have been ranked in the BBC's 2016 poll of the greatest motion pictures since 2000. Joel and Ethan Coen were born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their mother, Rena (née Neumann), was an art historian at St. Cloud State University, and their father, Edward Coen, was an economist at the University of Minnesota. Their family is Jewish. When they
Coen brothers we see things." Joel and Ethan graduated from St. Louis Park High School in 1973 and 1976, respectively, and from Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Joel then spent four years in the undergraduate film program at New York University, where he made a 30-minute thesis film called "Soundings". Ethan went on to Princeton University and earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy in 1979. His senior thesis was a 41-page essay, "Two Views of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy". Joel has been married to actress Frances McDormand since 1984. They adopted a son from Paraguay named Pedro McDormand Coen.