From Quirky Misfires to Masterpieces: Wes Anderson’s Films Ranked From Worst to Best

Wes Anderson has spent three decades arranging movies like dioramas you could live in. Some of them crack your heart open. Some just look fantastic. All are unmistakably his. Here’s how they stack up for me, from the ones I respect more than love to the ones that make me want to move into a meticulously color-coded world.

13. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

Anderson’s Jacques Cousteau riff is the only one of his movies to wear a Rotten Tomatoes ‘Rotten’ badge, which feels a little harsh but… I get it. He directed and co-wrote it with Noah Baumbach. Bill Murray plays oceanographer Steve Zissou, hunting the mythical Jaguar Shark that killed his partner. The heavy-hitter ensemble (Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Anjelica Huston, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum) sort of drifts, pun unfortunately intended.

The film looks incredible. Anderson literally built a cutaway ship set. The stop-motion sea creatures are delightful. Seu Jorge’s Portuguese Bowie covers? Iconic. But the story wanders, and the maybe-father/maybe-son thread with Wilson never lands emotionally.

Vital stats: Distributed by Touchstone Pictures and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; 118 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 57% critics, 82% audience; IMDb: 7.2/10; box office: $34.8 million.

Streaming: Apple TV+.

12. Asteroid City (2023)

This is Wes Anderson doing capital-W Wes Anderson. Written and directed by Anderson, it’s a play-within-a-TV-show-within-a-movie about a 1950s Junior Stargazer convention invaded by an alien. The movie toggles between sun-blasted Technicolor in the desert town and crisp black-and-white behind-the-scenes segments. It’s meta on meta.

The lineup is absurd: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody… basically the Anderson Rolodex. The production design is screensaver-beautiful. The issue is the emotional temperature: it feels more like an exquisite construction than a story you feel in your bones.

Vital stats: Focus Features/Universal Pictures International; 105 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 76% critics, 62% audience; IMDb: 6.4/10; box office: $53.8 million.

Streaming: Starz via Apple TV Channel.

11. The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Anderson’s latest, written with Roman Coppola, is him back in caper mode. Benicio Del Toro anchors it as Zsa-zsa Korda, a wealthy businessman who names his estranged daughter — a pipe-smoking nun, played by Mia Threapleton — as sole heir. Naturally, chaos ensues. The cast? Michael Cera (finally!), Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, and the rest of the usual suspects.

The good news: it’s Anderson’s most plot-forward movie in a while, and it actually moves. Del Toro gives the character heft, and his scenes with Threapleton have real pulse. The flip side: the second half’s clockwork plotting starts stepping on the humor and the heart. Classic Wes comfort zone — you’ll have a good time, but don’t expect reinvention.

Vital stats: Focus Features; 101 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 77% critics, 70% audience; IMDb: 6.7/10; box office: $40.1 million.

Streaming: Peacock Premium and Premium Plus; available to buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango At Home.

10. Bottle Rocket (1996)

The scrappy beginning. Co-written with Owen Wilson, Anderson’s debut follows three endearingly clueless would-be criminals (Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Robert Musgrave) as their heists unravel. It’s ragged, low-budget, and flopped theatrically — but Martin Scorsese championed it and compared Anderson to Leo McCarey and Jean Renoir, which is not nothing.

The style is embryonic here — less symmetrical, more muted — but the core themes are already in place: outsiders, chosen families, the goofy gap between ambition and reality. Luke Wilson’s romance with Lumi Cavazos is sneakily tender. James Caan pops in as a charming pro thief. It’s Anderson at his most human, before the dollhouse perfection took over.

Vital stats: Sony Pictures Releasing; 91 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 86% critics, 79% audience; IMDb: 6.9/10; box office: $560,069.

Available to rent on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango At Home.

9. The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021)

Anderson’s valentine to journalism, written by him with contributions from Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Hugo Guinness. It’s an anthology of stories from a New Yorker-like American magazine in a French town literally named Ennui-sur-Blase — yes, really.

The three big pieces: a prison artist’s improbable rise; a romance among student revolutionaries; and a kidnapping rescue involving a police chef. It bounces through aspect ratios, animation, and formal tricks like a kid testing every button on the console. The cast is ridiculous: Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Lea Seydoux, Jeffrey Wright, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Mathieu Amalric, Lyna Khoudri, and more. The midsection with Chalamet and Khoudri is unexpectedly swoony.

It’s a densely packed feast, but the anthology structure keeps it emotionally fragmented — you lock into one story and you’re already being shuffled to the next. Catnip for Anderson devotees, maybe too rich for casual viewers.

Vital stats: Searchlight Pictures; 108 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 75% critics, 76% audience; IMDb: 7.1/10; box office: $46.3 million.

Streaming: fuboTV and YouTube TV; buy on Amazon Video.

8. Isle of Dogs (2018)

Anderson’s second stop-motion feature (co-written with Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Kunichi Nomura) is a political fable disguised as a boy-and-his-dog adventure. In a near-future Japan, dogs are exiled to Trash Island. Young Atari Kobayashi heads out to find his dog Spots and stumbles into a government conspiracy.

The voice cast — Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton — brings surprising warmth to felt and fur. The animation is jaw-droppingly meticulous. The controversy is real, though: Japan is treated more like an aesthetic playground, with lots of unsubtitled dialogue and surface-level cultural detail. As a craft object and a meditation on loyalty, corruption, and xenophobia, it’s powerful — and the deliberate chill suits the dystopian mood.

Vital stats: Fox Searchlight Pictures; 101 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 90% critics, 87% audience; IMDb: 7.8/10; box office: $72.9 million.

Streaming: Disney+; also on Prime Video to rent or buy.

7. The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Co-written by Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, and Roman Coppola, this is three brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Schwartzman) on a train across India a year after their father’s death, searching for some kind of spiritual reset. The performances are strong and the sibling dynamic feels lived-in.

The hang-up: India functions mostly as beautifully framed wallpaper. The movie was rightly criticized for using its setting and Indian characters as a backdrop rather than engaging with them. Still, there are sequences that wallop you — that funeral scene, for one — and the rail-car compositions are pure visual pleasure. As a study of three guys stuck in their patterns, it works.

Vital stats: Fox Searchlight Pictures; 91 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 69% critics, 78% audience; IMDb: 7.2/10; box office: $35 million.

Streaming: Hulu; buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango At Home.

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

Anderson’s return to Roald Dahl yielded an Oscar-winning quartet of shorts, all written and directed by him, and all playfully theatrical. The title film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Henry Sugar, a wealthy gambler who learns to see without his eyes — first to cheat, then to change.

The set also includes The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison, each staged like a living pop-up book with actors speaking directly to camera while narrating their own actions. Ralph Fiennes appears as Dahl himself; Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, Richard Ayoade, and Rupert Friend swap roles across the shorts. The style might sound distancing, but the precision is freeing — Anderson’s artifice sharpens Dahl’s dark whimsy. The title short won Anderson his first Oscar, for Best Live Action Short Film.

Vital stats: Netflix; 88 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: N/A; IMDb: 7.1/10; release: digital.

Streaming: Netflix.

5. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

The one that made Anderson mainstream. Co-written with Owen Wilson, it follows a clan of burned-out prodigies reuniting in a fading New York brownstone. Gene Hackman’s Royal is a walking contradiction — awful and irresistible — trying to claw his way back to his family.

The ensemble is perfectly tuned: Ben Stiller’s tightly wound Chas, Gwyneth Paltrow’s secretive Margot, Luke Wilson’s heartbroken Richie, plus Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Danny Glover. The movie earned Anderson his first Oscar nomination (Original Screenplay) and proves the big idea: you can be hyper-stylized and still break hearts. That suicide attempt sequence is clinically staged and still crushes you.

Vital stats: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution; 109 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 81% critics, 89% audience; IMDb: 7.6/10; box office: $71.4 million.

Streaming: Hulu; rent or buy on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube.

4. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Anderson’s animation debut, co-written with Noah Baumbach, is one of the century’s best animated films. Based on Roald Dahl’s book, it follows Mr. Fox (George Clooney) breaking a promise to Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) and stealing from the awful trio Boggis, Bunce, and Bean (Robin Hurlstone, Hugo Guinness, Michael Gambon).

The stop-motion craftsmanship is next-level — you can practically feel the corduroy — and Alexandre Desplat’s score is a gem. It’s funny, sharp, and grown-up without ever condescending to kids. Clooney is perfect; Jason Schwartzman nails Ash’s adolescent jitters; Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, and Michael Gambon round things out. It’s the moment Anderson proved his aesthetic wasn’t just for live action.

Vital stats: 20th Century Studios/Searchlight Pictures/Warner Bros.; 87 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 93% critics, 85% audience; IMDb: 7.9/10; box office: $46.4 million.

Streaming: Disney+.

3. Rushmore (1998)

This is where the Anderson style snaps into focus. Co-written with Owen Wilson, it stars Jason Schwartzman (in his debut) as Max Fischer, a prep-school legend of extracurriculars and failure at everything else. He falls for teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams) and sparks a rivalry with disillusioned industrialist Herman Blume (Bill Murray).

Murray’s performance basically reset his entire career, finding the melancholy that would define his next two decades. Anderson’s toolbox is fully loaded now — calendar curtain transitions, British Invasion bangers, immaculate frames — but the secret is sincerity. Max’s extravagant school plays are funny and a little tragic because they’re the only way he can express himself honestly.

Vital stats: Criterion/Touchstone Pictures/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; 93 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 90% critics, 91% audience; IMDb: 7.6/10; box office: $17.1 million.

Streaming: Disney+ and Hulu; rent on Fandango At Home.

2. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

The warmest Wes. Co-written with Roman Coppola, it’s two 12-year-old misfits, Sam and Suzy, running away together on a New England island in 1965, while the adults (Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand) flail in their wake.

Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman are pitch-perfect, delivering stylized dialogue with true-blue sincerity. The saturated colors, the vintage camping gear, the storybook staging — it’s all there in service of something deeply human. The entire island rallying to save the kids is Anderson at his most hopeful: broken people choosing to be a community.

Vital stats: Focus Features; 94 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 93% critics, 86% audience; IMDb: 7.8/10; box office: $68.2 million.

Streaming: Netflix; available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and Apple TV.

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

The crown jewel. Written by Anderson with Hugo Guinness, it’s a story nested inside a story inside another story, following legendary concierge Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) and lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori) through theft, murder, and a priceless painting — all as a gentler world gives way to rising authoritarianism.

Anderson shifts aspect ratios across time periods, creating a gorgeous, tactile timeline you can feel. Fiennes gives the performance of his career: cultured, shameless, loyal, brave, clinging to civility as the storm rolls in. The ensemble — Saoirse Ronan, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray — doesn’t miss. It’s a caper, a eulogy, and a meditation on memory all at once.

The movie earned Anderson his first Best Director Oscar nomination and won four Oscars in the craft categories. The final twist — that we’ve been living inside Zero’s grief — reframes the whole thing as a beautiful survival mechanism: we turn loss into stories so we can keep going.

Vital stats: Fox Searchlight Pictures; 100 minutes; Rotten Tomatoes: 92% critics, 87% audience; IMDb: 8.1/10; box office: $174.5 million.

Available to buy or rent on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango At Home.

Agree? Disagree? Think The Life Aquatic got a raw deal or that I ranked Rushmore too low? Drop your map to the nearest Wes-shaped rabbit hole in the comments. I’ll read them all, probably while wearing a corduroy suit in spirit.