Claim: The Coen brothers won an Academy Award.

No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American neo-western neo-noir thriller film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen , based on Cormac McCarthy 's novel of the same name . A cat-and-mouse drama starring Tommy Lee Jones , Javier Bardem , and Josh Brolin , it follows a Texas welder and Vietnam veteran in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas . Themes of fate , conscience , and circumstance are explored , ones that the Coen brothers have previously explored in the films Blood Simple -LRB- 1984 -RRB- and Fargo -LRB- 1996 -RRB- .   No Country for Old Men premiered in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival on May 19 . It won four awards at the 80th Academy Awards -- Best Picture , Best Director , Best Supporting Actor -LRB- Bardem -RRB- and Best Adapted Screenplay . In addition , the film won three British Academy Film Awards -LRB- BAFTA -RRB- including Best Director , and two Golden Globes . The American Film Institute listed it as an AFI Movie of the Year , and the National Board of Review selected the film as the best of 2007 .   More critics included No Country for Old Men on their 2007 top ten lists than any other film , and many regard it as the Coen brothers ' masterpiece , as well as one of the best films of the 2000s . The Guardians John Patterson wrote : `` the Coens ' technical abilities , and their feel for a landscape-based Western classicism reminiscent of Anthony Mann and Sam Peckinpah , are matched by few living directors '' , and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said that it is `` a new career peak for the Coen brothers '' and `` as entertaining as hell '' . In 2016 , it was voted the 10th best film of the 21st century as picked by 177 film critics from around the world .