Wes Anderson Movies

Wes Anderson has a very unique directing style....his latest movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel earned him 3 Oscars® nominations.

Wes Anderson has a very unique directing style….his latest movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel earned him 3
Oscars® nominations.

Want to know the best Wes Anderson movies?  How about the worst Wes Anderson movies?  Curious about Wes Anderson’s box office grosses or which Wes Anderson movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Wes Anderson movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which one got the worst? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Wes Anderson (1969-) is an American director, writer and producer.  He has been nominated for six Oscars®.  Three of those nomination were for his screenplays for Moonrise Kingdom, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel. He has two producing nominations…one for Fantastic Mr. Fox and one for The Grand Budapest Hotel.  His 6th Oscars® nomination was Best Director for The Grand Budapest Hotel. 

His IMDb page shows 15 directing credits from 1994-2014. This page will rank 8 Wes Anderson movies from Best to Worst in seven different sortable columns of information. Anderson’s 7 shorts were not included in the rankings.

Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, and Bruce Willis in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012).

Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, and Bruce Willis in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012).

Wes Anderson Movies Can Be Ranked 7 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Wes Anderson movies by the stars of his movies.
  • Sort Wes Anderson movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Wes Anderson movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Wes Anderson movies by worldwide yearly box office rank
  • Sort Wes Anderson movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Wes Anderson movie received.
  • Sort Wes Anderson movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
 

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Wes Anderson Table

  1. An average Wes Anderson movie grosses $34.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
  2. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  All 8 of Wes Anderson’s movies are rated as good movies.  Moonrise Kingdom (2012) is his highest rated movie while The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) was his lowest rated movie.
  3. Four Wes Anderson movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 50.00% of his movies.
  4. One Wes Anderson movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 12.50% of his movies.
  5. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 39.86.  4 Wes Anderson movies scored higher that average….or 50.00% of his movies.  The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) got the the highest UMR Score while Bottle Rocket (1996) got the lowest UMR Score.
Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Possibly Interesting Facts About Wes Anderson

1.  Wes Anderson was born in 1969 in Houston, Texas.  He graduated from the University of Texas in 1990.  At the University of Texas he met Owen Wilson.  In 1992 Anderson, Wilson and Wilson’s brother Luke made a short film called Bottle Rocket.  In 1996 Bottle Rocket became Anderson’s first full lenth motion picture.

2. Owen Wilson has appeared in 7 of the 8 Wes Anderson movies.  He did not appear in Moonrise Kingdom.  The tricky appearance is Rushmore.  Wilson was Olivia Williams’s dead husband in Rushmore…he can only be seen in picture frames at her house.  Wilson and Anderson were both nominated for Oscars® for their Royal Tenenbaums screenplay.

3.  Bill Murray has also appeared in 7 of the 8 Wes Anderson movies.  He did not appear in Bottle Rocket…but he has been in every Anderson movie since then.  According to Anderson, during the making of Rushmore, Disney wouldn’t pay for a helicopter for a montage in the movie, Bill Murray wrote a check for $25,000 to provide it, which Anderson still has, uncashed.

4.  Martin Scorsese listed Bottle Rocket as one of his Top Ten movies of 1996 and then picked Anderson as the next Martin Scorsese in an Esquire magazine article.

5.  Ben Stiller was such a huge fan of Bottle Rocket, that he actually broke up with a girlfriend who did not really like Bottle Rocket.  Stiller later cast Owen Wilson in The Cable Guy.

6.  Wes Anderson has joked that he would like to make a James Bond movie….now that one be an interesting movie.

7.  The Italian song called “Wes Anderson” by I Cani is a tribute to the director and his movies.

8.  When making Fantastic Mr. Fox…..Anderson decided to tape the voices on location versus doing the voices in a studio.

9.  There is a Charlie Brown reference in most of his movies….the dog’s name in Moonrise Kingdom is Snoopy, Max’s dad in Rushmore is a barber…just like Charles Schultz’s dad, Charlie Brown Christmas version of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” plays in The Royal Tenenbaums, Vince Guaraldi’s “Skating” from A Charlie Brown Christmas is seen in Bottle Rocketthe scene with all the main characters dancing together in A Charlie Brown Christmas is mirrored in Fantastic Mr. Fox.

10.  Wes Anderson’s favorite movie is Rosemary’s Baby.  His top three influences as a filmmaker, are Francois Truffaut, Orson Welles, and Bill Melendez.

Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket (1996).

Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket (1996).

My Personal Quick Take on Wes Anderson Movies

 

1.  I actually saw Bottle Rocket in the theater….one of the very few people that can make that claim.  It played at the Naro Expanded theater in Norfolk, Virginia.  I loved the movie and it made me a Wes Anderson fan.  I knew that two brothers were in the movie….I thought they were the ones playing Anthony and Bob Mapplethorpe…not sure how long it took for me to realize that Dignan(Owen Wilson) and Anthony(Luke Wilson) were the brothers.

2.  I thought Rushmore was a very quirky movie…but I loved the performances by Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman.

3.  The Royal Tenenbaums is my favorite Wes Anderson movie.  Great performances everywhere in the film….but the greatest is Gene Hackman’s performance.  How Hackman did not get an Oscar nomination is still a mystery to me.

4.  I saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in theaters….it was not a fun experience at all….my second viewing did not change my opinion.

5. My least favorite Anderson movie is The Darjeeling Limited.  I saw it one time and I will probably never revisit it.

6.  The Fantastic Mr. Fox is the one Anderson movie that I can enjoy with my younger kids…and they grab it off the DVD shelf on a pretty regular basis.

7. Moonrise Kingdom is my 2nd favorite Anderson movie.  I love the performance Anderson got out of Bruce Willis…I was hoping it would get Bruce a Supporting Actor nomination.  Edward Norton, Bill Murray, and Frances McDormand all shine in their roles as well.

8.  The Grand Budapest Hotel… I thought this was a good movie…but would not crack my Top 3 Wes Anderson movies.

Check out Wes Anderson‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

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12 thoughts on “Wes Anderson Movies

    1. Hey Murphy….Isle Of Dogs is on the table…it is #5…right in the middle. Speaking of Wes Anderson….his latest trailer The French Dispatch is on our trailer page. Thanks for stopping by. It is appreciated.

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