Joel, right, and Ethan Coen
AGE: 53 (Joel) and 50 (Ethan)
OCCUPATION: Absurdist auteurs
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 0
PRO: Zen masters of jet-black, poker-faced irony, the Coens are at the top of their game. The evidence: No Country for Old Men, this year's Oscar champ and perhaps the most perfect American movie in recent memory.
CON: Those spacey, diffident acceptance speeches probably didn't endear them to the Oscar-viewing audience. Then again, they don't seem to be the approval-craving types. And there wasn't much of a viewing audience, mainly because the Academy chose to honor dark, challenging, tonally promiscuous films like...No Country for Old Men.