From his early days as a hopeful young filmmaker who grabbed the attention of the Sundance Film Festival to an established auteur with numerous Oscar nominations, Wes Anderson has maintained an undeniable impact on cinema. Anderson prefers working with a tight-knit group of friends, such as Bill Murray and Owen Wilson, and has a love of flat space and strong color palettes. Because of this, Anderson's movies have a distinct and immediately recognizable style.

That being said, much has also changed throughout Anderson’s extensive career. Despite some of his detractors accusing him of repeatedly making the same film over and over, it's more accurate to say that The Phoenician Scheme.

13 The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Three Estranged Brothers Set Off On A Spiritual Journey

Given that family and brotherhood have always been prominent tropes in Wes Anderson’s work, The Darjeeling Limited offered one of the strongest takes of the filmmaker’s career on these concepts. Starring Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman as estranged brothers who undertake a journey through India a year after their father’s death, The Darjeeling Limited benefits substantially from repeat viewings.

The film’s plot isn’t particularly bold, but the Indian setting and art design are truly gorgeous works of art, awash with color and detail. At times, the film feels like an experiment of sorts, and in this respect, it’s a great success - with plenty of emotion that keeps resonating. Critics were mostly lukewarm, with only a 69% Rotten Tomatoes score, but it won the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards for Best Comedy and was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

12 Asteroid City (2023)

A Movie Following A Play About A Junior Stargazer Convention

After The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson returned with the brightly-colored and hilarious Asteroid City. Set in the titular 1950s tourist town, the film sees a student science fair interrupted by the arrival of extraterrestrials, which causes the entire city to be quarantined by the government. Newcomers like Tom Hanks fit perfectly within Anderson's quirky style, and the film didn't skimp on its heart and emotion in favor of a sleek look. It also fits his style since the movie is about a play about the science fair, which makes the entire thing metatextual.

Though the ending of Asteroid City posed a few too many existential questions, it showed that Anderson was still growing as a director. This film had one of Anderson's most star-studded casts, but he refused to pull back and change his style at all, allowing familiar faces to do something completely different from their norm. Asteroid City landed on many critics' awards lists and also earned Anderson a Palme d'Or nomination for the release.

11 The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)

An Eccentric Oceanographer Wants Revenge Against A Jaguar Shark

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou sees Bill Murray play a washed-up oceanographer who vows revenge after his colleague, Esteban de Plantier, is eaten by a mysterious shark species (the jaguar shark). Surrounding Murray is an incredible cast, including Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Anjelica Huston, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and many more. The film was not a box office success, but its rich cast of characters and slow, deliberate plotting make it well worth revisiting.

While early reviews were mostly negative, it has since become a cult classic, with the quirky film gaining more fans as the years roll on.

A follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Royal Tenenbaums, few thought The Life Aquatic stood on the same level as Tenenbaums. However, with the ing of time, Anderson’s Jacques Cousteau-inspired Life Aquatic has revealed itself to be one of the filmmaker’s greatest achievements. While early reviews were mostly negative, it has since become a cult classic, with the quirky film gaining more fans as the years roll on.

10 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2024)

Four Short Films Based On Roald Dahl Stories

Wes Anderson delivered something unlike anything he had ever attempted in 2024. While he had made short films before, with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More, Anderson made short films and assembled them into a fantasy anthology. All four short films are based on the work of Roald Dahl, and other than the titular story, the others include The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison. Released on Netflix, each of the short films is also available to watch as a standalone release.

The cast was incredible, with Benedict Cumberbatch taking on the title role as Henry Sugar and names like Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Rupert Friend ing in ing roles. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar received great reviews, with a 95% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 81% audience rating. Critics praised this as one of Anderson's "sweetest stories."

9 Isle Of Dogs (2018)

A Stop-Motion Tale Of A Dystopian Future

Anderson’s second foray into the world of stop-motion tells the story of a young Japanese boy named Atari (Koyu Rankin) who sets off to search for his beloved dog after his uncle, the authoritarian mayor of the Japanese city of Megasdaki, bans all dogs and banishes them to Trash Island. When the boy arrives on the island, the dogs he meets agree to help him find his pet, and he sets off on a grand adventure.

Isle of Dogs was Anderson’s follow-up to The Grand Budapest Hotel, and as such, it couldn’t quite hold on to or expand the momentum of its predecessor. Though Isle of Dogs was a spectacular visual and technical achievement, the medium of stop-motion had already been explored nine years earlier in The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Isle of Dogs impressed critics, and it ended up nominated for two Oscars (Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score), although it didn't win either.

8 Bottle Rocket (1996)

Wes Anderson's Debut Feature Film

Largely panned upon its release, Bottle Rocket was such a flop that Owen Wilson (who plays the hare-brained Dignan and co-wrote the film with Anderson) seriously contemplated forgoing an acting career to the Marines (via Irish Examiner). The film follows three friends (Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, and Robert Musgrave), who Dignan convinces to rob a bookstore and go on the lam. However, as expected, nothing goes as planned for the hapless friends.

Not much happens in Bottle Rocket, but watching the film today offers a fascinating insight into Anderson and Wilson’s burgeoning talents. Many of the signature touches that would go on to characterize Anderson’s filmmaking are alive and well in Bottle Rocket, though still in need of some polishing. In reviews primarily written years after its release, the film now has a very high 86% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score, with critics comparing it to Reservoir Dogs with "a West Texas sensibility."

7 The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

The Exact Middle Between The Royal Tenenbaums And Grand Budapest Hotel

The Phoenician Scheme is a darkly fun entry to the Wes Anderson filmography, blending elements from many of his previous films to strong comedic effect. Focusing on an economic conspiracy that could make or break one of the world's richest men, the core of The Phoenician Scheme is the interactions between Anatole "Zsa-Zsa" Korda and his estranged daughter, Lisel. Anderson's wit has never been quite this hilariously dry, undercutting the openly cartoonish (and occasionally fatal) turns that happen throughout the movie.

There's a broad sense of fun throughout The Phoenician Scheme as the cast screams at one another, survives multiple assassination attempts, and plays H-O-R-S-E to settle a massive financial debt. It's the emotional core of The Phoenician Scheme that elevates it, with Wes Anderson rookies Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera delivering truly great performances alongside a singularly hilarious Benicio del Toro as Zsa-zsa. A strong showcase of how much Anderson has refined his style, The Phoenician Scheme is one of the filmmaker's most purely fun movies.

6 The French Dispatch (2021)

The Stories Told By A Small Magazine

Wes Anderson left a conventional narrative behind in favor of an anthology of sorts with the release of the hyper-stylized film The French Dispatch. Framed around the closing of the titular magazine based in the fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé, the movie tells disparate stories that represent articles in the final issue. The French Dispatch's cast was bigger than ever before for Anderson, and each of its small stories showed the backbone of not only the magazine but of the small town in which it was based.

The French Dispatch also had Anderson's copious style on display, which added to its brilliance. Each of the stories told a different point of view of the small French town, and it all played heavily into the journalists writing the stories, all framed with a touching tale of loss concerning the publication's owner. Critics mostly praised the film, with a 75% Rotten Tomatoes score, and it won several critics' association awards, including Best Production Design by the Online Film Critics Society Awards.

5 Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

A Coming-Of-Age Drama At A Youth Camp

Yet another of Anderson’s most critically lauded films, Moonrise Kingdom follows pre-teens Sam (Jared Gilman), an orphan, and Suzy (Kara Hayward), a local, as they fall in love on the fictional island of New Penzance, New England. This happens at a small scouting camp with some eccentric scoutmasters (Bill Murray and Edward Norton), Bruce Willis in a great later career role as Captain Sharp, and a mashup of some of Anderson's regulars (Jason Schwartzman and Tilda Swinton).

Many of the stylistic flourishes that have become synonymous with Anderson are present in the film, and it represents his shift from indie auteur to mainstream hitmaker. A playful love story is right up Wes Anderson's alley, and the juxtaposition of Sam and Suzy's fantasy world with the harsh realities of their adult counterparts is one of the most compelling themes in any of the director's movies. Critics praised the movie's acting and design, and it earned an Oscar nomination.

4 Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Wes Anderson Adapts Roald Dahl

Over a decade into his career as a feature film director, Wes Anderson broke with tradition and adapted Roald Dahl's legendary story Fantastic Mr. Fox into a stop-motion animated film. Mr. Fox (George Clooney) puts his family (Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman) and friends in danger when he plans a massive heist against the vindictive local farmers. The voice cast also includes Anderson regulars (Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray).

Blending Anderson's visual style with the twee and fluffy stop-motion creatures was a stroke of brilliance, and the only thing holding the film back is a somewhat sluggish third act that resulted in the attempt to expand Dahl's original tale. Unfortunately, many Roald Dahl movies have bombed financially, and Mr. Fox was no exception. Despite that, it earned two nominations at both the Academy Awards and BAFTAs (Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score).