Writer-director duo Joel and Ethan Coen will jointly lead the jury at this year's Cannes Film Festival, the organisers announced today.

The American brothers, celebrated auteur filmmakers known for their hit movies No Country for Old Men, Fargo and The Big Lebowski, will be co-presidents of the panel responsible for naming the winner at one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals.

The jury will pick its winner from the 20-odd films in the main competition at Cannes, which will run from May 13-24 this year.

"We are very happy to be coming back to Cannes," the brothers said in a statement. “Cannes has always played an important role for us."

"Being presidents of the jury this year is even more of an honour in that we've never been presidents of anything before," they added.

It is the first time the Cannes jury will be jointly headed by two people.

The filmmaking brothers are no strangers to the festival, having presented seven of their feature films at the world-famous showcase in southern France.

In 1991, they picked up the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’or, for Barton Fink, were runners-up in the Grand Jury Prize for Inside Llewyn Davis in 2013, and were twice named Best Director – for 1996’s Fargo and 2001’s The Man who wasn’t There.

"The Coens incarnate a certain 'auteur' filmmaking that is universal and with wide appeal, full of humour and totally original in their way of looking at the world," the director of the Cannes Film Festival, Thierry Frémaux, told AFP.

Joel, 60, and Ethan, 57, take over running the Cannes jury from last year's president Jane Campion, the New Zealand director of The Piano.

The other jury members have yet to be announced, but the festival organisers typically choose from a selection of world cinema stars.