The Films of Wes Anderson, Ranked

There are few filmmakers quite as visually distinctive as Wes Anderson. With his pastel colours, dollhouse sets, and symmetrical shots, Anderson’s quirky sensibilities are synonymous with his name. Of course, there’s a lot more that makes Anderson tick as a storyteller than just his visual fair, as a rather annoying recent TikTok trend perfectly illustrates. He packs his films full of dry humour, a lot of heart, memorable characters, and delicately joyful set-ups. His films are so easy to get lost in and invite the viewer into an enchanting, semi-magical world.

It’s been twenty-seven years and eleven movies since Anderson released his debut feature film, Bottle Rocket (1996). Anderson’s work ranges from the animated darling Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), the messy family comedy-drama The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and Best Picture-nominee The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). His latest, Asteroid City, is currently playing in theatres. The trouble with putting together a list like this is that my opinion on “What’s the best Wes Anderson movie?” so often changes. So this list is liable to be out of date within a week. I’d also like to say that I love just about every movie on this list. Just because a movie isn’t near the top, doesn’t mean I dislike it. I’m one of the people of the opinion that Anderson hasn’t made a bad movie yet. With that out of the way, let’s get to the main event.

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11. Bottle Rocket (1996)

“You’ve never worked a day in your life. How can you be exhausted?”

Bottle Rocket, Anderson’s debut feature, is definitely his weakest film. It’s not that it’s a bad movie, but Bottle Rocket is a deeply insecure movie. The film stars Luke and Owen Wilson as a pair of friends trying to pull off a string of heists . . . until one of them falls in love with a maid. Anderson is very unsure of his voice as a filmmaker here, balancing a more conventional indie movie aesthetic with what will be his signature off-beat humour. While it certainly has its charms and the Wilson brothers make for a great pair of loveable losers, the film comes across as without much emotional depth and lacking in the usual Anderson visual flairs that would make it pop. Still, it’s a treat to see the director’s style begin to develop here.

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10. Isle of Dogs (2018)

“I wish somebody spoke his language.”

Isle of Dogs is very bleak for a children’s animated film. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is rather jarring to see. Anderson’s second animated film doesn’t quite have the endearing charm of some of his other movies, but it has its strengths nonetheless. The production design feels like a nightmarish interpretation of an Anderson movie through its use of dark colours and moody visuals. Thematically, it’s quite ambitious. It’s a movie about “other-ing,” immigration, and the dangers of propaganda, heavy stuff for a kid’s movie. Yet, Isle of Dogs leaves me feeling hollow inside. It lacks the personality and charming characters (if not deeply flawed) that make his other movies so fantastic. I don’t think that Isle of Dogs is a bad movie, but it’s not Anderson’s finest hour.

There’s also some potential cultural insensitivity here, but I’ll let people more intelligent and more experienced than myself debate that one.

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9. The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

“I love the way this country smells. I’ll never forget it. It’s kind of spicy.”

It’s pretty common to see The Darjeeling Limited towards the bottom of rankings of Wes Anderson’s movies. This is unfortunate because the highs of this movie are astronomical (“What did he say?” “He said the train is lost.” “How can a train be lost? It's on rails.”) but it also doesn’t have the clarity that makes its immediate predecessors The Life Aquatic and The Royal Tenenbaums (more on those later) so good. The film strives for real emotional intimacy at times, but doesn’t flesh out its themes of broken families and sibling love as well as Tenenbaums does. However, it’s still pretty hard to have a bad time watching a Wes Anderson movie. The lead performances from Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman are phenomenal with the three playing off of each other with ease. The three are also stuck in a fantastic fish-out-of-water scenario as they traipse through India, a country they do not (or will not) understand. This film also contains some of my favourite uses of slow-motion photography.

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8. Rushmore (1998)

“I saved Latin. What did you ever do?”

Rushmore, Anderson’s second film, is a pretty massive jump-up from Bottle Rocket. Jason Schwartzman leads as Max Fischer, a Renaissance man of a high school student, who befriends the wealthy Herman Blume (played by Bill Murray). It’s got everything you want in a movie — a sociopathic lead, a weird love triangle, and Latin class. The film strikes an interesting blend between Anderson’s signature idiosyncrasies and some semblance of realism, something that is abandoned as his work goes along. It’s a fun, endearing coming-of-age movie. This also includes one of the greatest, but totally unrealistic, high school plays of all time. 

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7. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

“Our daughter's been abducted by one of these beige lunatics!”

Wes Anderson does a romance and it’s just as delightful as you might think. Moonrise Kingdom is fairly small-scale in setting and scope compared to other films in Anderson’s filmography, especially his more recent entries. Set on a small New England island, the film charts the childhood romance of Sam, a boy scout, and Suzy, a resident of the island, after the two disappear into the wilderness together. But the story about love is undercut with darker currents of childhood naivety and broken families (again!). It’s an absolute gut punch of a movie hidden under a veneer of quirky eccentricity and the colour yellow.

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6. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

“Don’t point that gun at him, he’s an unpaid intern.”

Released hot off the heels of The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is one of Anderson’s less appreciated, but still stellar, films. Although initially a box office flop and was received rather coldly by critics, it’s been able to find more love amongst newer audiences venturing into Anderson’s filmography, myself included. The film stars Bill Murray as Steve Zissou, an oceanographer and filmmaker and an homage to real-life oceanographer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, who travels around the world’s oceans with his rag-tag team of colleagues and family members. The plot revolves around Zissou trying to find and kill a rare shark that devoured a crewmember of his, but it’s also about much more than that. It’s about artistic burnout, broken family relations (a prominent theme in Anderson’s work), obsession, and pride. It features a multitude of great supporting performances and a wonderful production design. It’s Wes Anderson’s attempt at Moby Dick.

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5. The French Dispatch (2021)

“Just try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose.”

The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (or simply, The French Dispatch) is Anderson at his most ambitious and self-indulgent, which has made it his most polarizing work. For many, that simply does not work. It’s too narrative disjointed and its massive cast means that the characters lack depth. If you’re like me and adore Wes Anderson, then this might be one of his best films. After the editor of the eponymous newspaper dies, the editorial staff decides to publish one final issue which includes the best work of The French Dispatch. This anthology film contains three of those stories. With its sprawling cast, ever-shifting narrative focus, careful alternations between colour and black-and-white photography, and delightful set pieces, I’m utterly compelled by The French Dispatch. 

You can read my full review here.

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4. Asteroid City (2023)

“What’s out there? The meaning of life, maybe there is one.”

I’ve always wanted to see Wes Anderson take on the science fiction genre. And with Asteroid City, he delivers, although in a roundabout way filtered through the theatre. Anderson’s latest film is shaping up to be his most controversial. Asteroid City is an existential, often angsty portrait of grief, loss, and searching for meaning in life. Its characters are lost in an emotional vacuum represented perfectly by its desert setting. The performances from its sprawling ensemble are excellent with Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johannson, and Tom Hanks being the stand-outs. The film embraces the extremities of his style that Anderson pushed into in The French Dispatch but keeps the narrative more emotionally grounded than in its predecessor. Despite its big emotional ideas and thematic wandering, the movie is also a total delight. It’s visually excellent, full of weird humour, and its quarantine-based storytelling creates a feeling of confinement that leads to some excellent character conflict. It’s Sam Sheperd-meets-Spielberg in the American desert. What more could you want? 

You can read my full review here.

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3. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

“Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hittin’ the cemetery?”

Wes Anderson truly found his stride with The Royal Tenenbaums, his third film, which still features prominently among the director’s best work. The film is about the Tenenbaum family who are suddenly and forcefully reunited when their father, Royal (played by Gene Hackman in one of his final performances before his death in 2004), contracts a terminal illness. The real joy of this movie is not just witnessing the strange and eccentric characters in the Tenenbaum family interact with one another, but exploring their deeply broken relationships. The film is one of Anderson’s most character-driven pieces which gives it a layer of emotional depth and nuance not often found in his work. It’s both hilarious and profoundly melancholic, like all of the best Wes Anderson movies.

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2. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

“What the cuss?”

Based on the children’s novel by Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox is the most endearing of all of Anderson’s films. Removing much of the melancholy that dominates his other work and focusing on whimsy and delight, this film is a true wonder. The medium of stop-motion suits Anderson’s work so naturally, allowing him to push his style to an even greater extreme. The animation, characters, and performances are all so charming. The film completely reinvents the colours yellow and orange. The usage of the word “cuss” is some of my favourite swearing in any movie ever. The soundtrack is wonderful. Somehow, this movie about animals might just be his most human and personal film yet.

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1. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

“Keep your hands off my lobby boy!”

The one place I want to go to most in the entire world is the Grand Budapest Hotel. The only problem is that the hotel and the country where it lies don’t actually exist, a truly depressing reality to come to terms with. Set in Easter Europe circa the mid-1930s, The Grand Budapest Hotel follows Gustave H. (played by Ralph Fiennes) after he is accused of the murder of one of his patrons. With his faithful lobby boy, Zero (played by Tony Revolori), by his side, Gustave must outsmart the police and the family of the deceased to prove his innocence. With a large ensemble of delightful side characters played by many of Anderson’s most faithful collaborators, The Grand Budapest Hotel remains Anderson’s shining achievement. He effortlessly combines all the eccentricities of his style with a story that remains deeply touching while also being ridiculously funny and memorable. It doesn’t get much better than this.