We ranked all the Wes Anderson movies from worst to best

Anthology films often register as uneven stopgaps in a director’s filmography, and so it is with Anderson’s tenth feature, three short stories linked as magazine articles in a faux Paris-based periodical. Some stuff works (Benicio del Toro excels as an imprisoned artist in the opening vignette), others less so (‘Revisions of a Manifesto’, starring Timothée Chalamet as a student revolutionary during the May ‘68 protests, is an intellectual slog), and the effect is ultimately flat and forgettable. Unsurprisingly, The New Yorker ranked it their No. 1 film of the year.

A less successful foray into stop-motion than Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson’s cutesy tale of a boy searching for his lost pet on an island of misfit dogs nonetheless has its charms – after all, it’s a movie featuring a bunch of animated dogs voiced by Anderson regulars like Jeff Goldblum, Bryan Cranston, Ed Norton and Bill Murray. But it’s twee to a degree that might cause even ardent fans to grind their teeth – and its Japanese imagery sparked a debate over cultural appropriation.

Anderson’s quirky sensibility arrived fully formed in his amiable debut feature, with the comedy deriving as much from the editing and compositions as from the dialogue and performances. Ultimately, though, it will be remembered for introducing the world to the thickheaded but charming Dignan—more or less the same character Owen Wilson would play in every subsequent movie.

The director heads to India—and the life-in-miniature territory of filmmaker Satyajit Ray, a longtime Anderson idol—with this tale of three brothers (Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson) on a quest to find themselves. The movie never shakes free of feeling like a feature-length navel gaze, but it still contains some poignant moments (and a trio of killer Kinks tunes).

This oceanic opus stars Bill Murray as a glum scientist in pursuit of a mysterious tiger shark. Of course the movie’s got laughs (of the brittle, finicky variety, Anderson’s wheelhouse), but it works even better in its latter stretch as loneliness takes a starring role. In short, it goes from dry to wet. Still, after the evolution of The Royal Tenenbaums, it feels like the slightest retrenchment.

A magical coming-of-age tale that draws the same breath as François Truffaut’s Small Change, Anderson’s 1965-set scouting adventure is bold for foregrounding an adolescent romance with real heat (and a mutual love of Françoise Hardy yé-yé records). For all of his visionary gifts, Anderson may be underrated as a screenwriter; this script, co-developed with Roman Coppola, is a perfect thing.

Most Andersonphiles would probably regard Asteroid City as a minor work, but it’s a significant Rorschach test for audiences: if the idea of the director applying his arranged-with-tweezers diorama aesthetic to 1950s retro-sci-fi southwest Americana sounds irresistible, then you’re probably going to dig this. If reading that description made your teeth grind, it’s best to avoid. For the open-minded, though, there’s plenty of charm to be found in this teleplay-within-a-film, about close encounters in the desert during a junior astrologists summer camp. The cast is too huge to even list, but Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman and Tom Hanks, filling the Bill Murray role after the latter dropped out due to contracting Covid, are among the standouts.

Anderson’s stop-motion-animated comedy could never be mistaken for the work of anybody else. Vulpine newspaper columnist–cum–chicken stealer Mr. Fox (George Clooney) dresses like his director, drives his family bonkers à la Royal Tenenbaums and even has a Steve Zissou–esque epiphany courtesy of a fist-raising wolf. The overall sensation is of an artist repeating himself, fondly.

The breakout that put 29-year-old Wesley on the map, this semiautobiographical second feature finds the filmmaker refining his quirky, hermetic worldview (albeit one that would sometimes prove to be claustrophobic). Jason Schwartzman was a real find, but it’s Murray, delivering the most soulful performance of his career, who gives the movie its underlying sense of gravitas.

Ever wonder if Wes has read J.D. Salinger’s Glass-family stories? After seeing this heartbreaker about a dysfunctional clan of geniuses, you’ll pretty much have your answer. Anderson’s follow-up to the cutesy Rushmore (not aging well) is superior by leaps and bounds, mostly for its fine performances—especially Anjelica Huston’s cool matriarch, sparring with wayward husband Gene Hackman.

All of Anderson’s movies feel like beautifully lacquered gift boxes—sometimes to the detriment of the treats inside. But with this pink-tinted leap into artistic maturity, the director suddenly had politics, a forlorn sense of dying civility and a top-flight comic performance from Ralph Fiennes. Everything made sense; Anderson had never before been this thoughtful, self-mocking or impressive.