Start with Moonrise Kingdom or The Grand Budapest Hotel: both are short, funny and complete introductions to the style. Then The Royal Tenenbaums, which is the most emotionally exposed, and Rushmore, which is the rawest. Save the later anthology films until the framing devices stop being a barrier.
The symmetry is the first thing anyone notices and the least interesting thing about the films. What the formal control is actually doing is holding something back: almost every Anderson film is about a person who cannot express grief, and the precision of the frame is the shape of that suppression. Remove it and the films would be unbearable.
His late work has become more nested, with stories inside stories inside magazine articles, which some viewers read as the style eating itself. The counter-argument is that the framing devices are doing the same job the symmetry always did, just more openly.
Where to start
Moonrise Kingdom. Ninety-four minutes, two twelve-year-olds running away, and the style at its most concentrated without a nesting structure to negotiate. The Grand Budapest Hotel is the other obvious entry and slightly more demanding, since it is told third-hand about a world that has already ended.
Top picks
Filmography
- Bottle Rocket (1996)
- Rushmore (1998)
- The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
- The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
- Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
- Isle of Dogs (2018)
- The French Dispatch (2021)
- Asteroid City (2023)
Sources and further reading
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FAQs about Wes Anderson
Are the later films worse or just different?
More nested, and reactions divide on tolerance for that. The French Dispatch and Asteroid City wrap their stories in magazine articles and television broadcasts, which some viewers find the style turning inward and others find the same suppression working more openly. Neither is a good entry point.
Which one is the funniest?
Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the stop-motion is the reason. When everything on screen is already artificial the deadpan stops being a choice and becomes the world's baseline, which frees the jokes. Rushmore is the live-action answer, and it is meaner than anything he has made since.
Do I need to like the visual style to like the films?
Broadly yes, since it is not detachable. What sometimes helps people who bounce off it is knowing what it is for: almost every film is about someone unable to express grief, and the symmetry is the shape of that suppression. Watching Tenenbaums with that in mind changes it considerably.