What Makes a Wes Anderson Film?
The Phoenician Scheme (2025)
Every time a trailer for a new Wes Anderson film hits the Internet, nearly half of the comments are inevitably variations of “This is the most Wes Anderson movie yet!” As of this writing, the top comment on YouTube for the trailer to The Phoenician Scheme says “Every time I think Wes Anderson has out-Wes-Anderson’d himself, he goes ahead and Wes Andersons even more Wes Andersony than before.” He’s one of the few directors working today whose style is so unique that there’s no other way to describe it beyond just his name. The look of his films is so particular that it even inspired a TikTok trend in recent years where people romanticize their lives to look like they’re in a Wes Anderson film.
It seems like everybody has their own idea of what makes a Wes Anderson film so singular, from influencers aping his style in posh settings to sketch shows like Saturday Night Live parodying his style. But what are the actual elements that make each film such a unique experience, and what is the magic that keeps people coming back to them in ways they don’t for his legion of imitators? To celebrate the release of his new film (the aforementioned Phoenician Scheme), we wanted to break down a few key parts of his style and the content of his films that keep people coming back three decades into his storied career.
Precise Framing
People often boil down Wes Anderson’s style of frame composition to a single word: “Symmetrical.” It’s true that Anderson will often place characters or items in the center of a frame and have them facing directly into the camera, but it’s rare that his frames are completely symmetrical in the literal definition of the word. Instead, it would be more accurate to call his images “tableaus,” posing characters and objects within the frame like a diorama, complete with a flat wall or horizon in the background parallel to the camera itself. And instead of creating a three-dimensional space with backlighting, the light set-ups Anderson’s team uses on set is designed to flatten the actors against the background. This style of framing actors in these flat tableaus is such an Anderson trademark that several of his film posters (Royal Tenenbaums, Darjeeling Limited, Moonrise Kingdom, Isle of Dogs, and French Dispatch among others) utilize this effect to sell the film.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Unlike modern cinematography where the camera feels free to roam through any location the filmmaker pleases, Wes Anderson almost always moves his cameras along a straight line, most often through the use of a dolly that keeps the camera locked in its position on a tripod. Every now and then, Anderson will break away from his usual artistic style and utilize a Steadicam, providing much more free (and often shakier) movement, something that he often breaks out at major moments in his stories. Think about the slow-motion scene following the “wedding” in Moonrise Kingdom, Chaz chasing Eli through the house in The Royal Tenenbaums, or the climax fight in his new Phoenician Scheme - all of which break away from the pattern Anderson has established through his entire body of work and all of which provide a jolt of energy when the story needs it.
Mid-Century Art Direction
Many of Wes Anderson’s book covers
While he’s never made an outright fantasy film (at least in live-action), Wes Anderson’s movies, both those in the present day and those taking place years ago, are set in some kind of imagined version of the past. Not the world as it literally was, but a constructed, often romanticized world that tweaks a lot of familiar elements to create something much stranger and out-of-time. One of the biggest ways he’s able to accomplish this is through a specific art direction that’s entirely hand-crafted for each film while taking much inspiration from mid-century aesthetics and design. One of the most consistent throughlines across his filmography is his choice of font styles, utilizing Futura Bold for much of his earlier works and playing around with more outdated fonts that bring to mind popular fonts from the 50s and 60s in his more recent works. These fonts and vintage design styles appear not just in the credits or subtitles of his films, but also in the book designs for many books his characters either read or have written.
His interest in the aesthetics of the recent past stretches beyond simple font choices, though. Many of his characters dress like they come out of this period, whether they actually do, such as Moonrise Kingdom, or if the film is set in the present-day, such as The Royal Tenenbaums. Male characters will often wear suits or blazers, sometimes with less-popular fabrics like corduroy, and nearly everybody will have some kind of accessory for their wardrobe that creates a specific aesthetic look for their character (and one that makes his characters easy picks for costume parties).
Deadpan Sense of Humor
Wes Anderson’s dialogue is often dense and wordy, like Korda’s explanation of the actual scheme in The Phoenician Scheme which will confound any viewer not attuned to Anderson’s rhythmic and fast approach to dialogue But the fact that his characters often speak in fast, dense paragraphs of text often leads to an unemotional, deadpan delivery of such outlandish lines. This is not an accident nor is it the sign of a bad performance. Instead, this delivery is as much a part of Anderson’s style as anything visual, an outgrowth of a sense of humor that mixes the absurd with the bone-dry.
Cadazio (far right) tries in vain to keep the prisoners out in The French Dispatch (2021)
He loves to linger on an awkward silence after something strange happens, or a moment of grotesque violence that appears in a moment of quiet. What could be an emotional moment will be undercut by something funny happening in the environment, such as an emotional talk between Sam and Suzy of Moonrise Kingdom being drowned out by a nearby kid jumping on a trampoline. He doesn’t often call attention to jokes, but because he’s such a master at comic timing, simple moments can be transformed into some of the funniest moments of any year.
For example, in The French Dispatch, one of the biggest laughs comes from Cadazio failing to keep the prisoners from rioting after refusing to bribe them. In this scene, Anderson shows Cadazio peeking his head out the door as a mob of armed prisoners quietly stares him down. Cadazio quickly ducks back into his room and locks the door, and the prisoners burst through the massive windows next to him instead. On paper, the scene doesn’t read as extremely funny, but the way Anderson shoots and edits it together (along with the patheticness of Adrien Brody’s performance) is more akin to some of the best-timed gags from Looney Tunes history than anything else you’ll see at art-house cinemas.
Recurring Themes
Perhaps the most important element of Wes Anderson’s filmography, certainly the reason it’s had immense staying power and longevity, is that his films always leave audiences a lot to chew on, especially in how thoughtful and frequently sad they can be. Grief runs through nearly all of his early films, and several of his protagonists - Max Fischer, Chaz Tenenbaum, Steve Zissou, and Francis Whitman - react to their grief by trying to maintain a fastidious and exacting control over their surroundings, much like how precise and intricate Anderson is with the worlds of his films. As much as people make fun of Anderson for creating such precious environments, his films often directly confront the fact that trying to exert such control over your world is a futile effort and we’ll all have to confront our sadness eventually.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Anderson doesn’t just use his quirky films to tackle grief and depression, he’s also explored such weighty historical themes like fascism and oppression in several films since The Grand Budapest Hotel, arguably his masterpiece on the subject. In Grand Budapest, a fast-paced caper revolving around a stolen painting reveals itself to be more about the loss of innocence and beauty in a post-war world. One of the segments of The French Dispatch serves as an analogue for the 1968 Paris riots where teens sparred with local governments over unjust wars and class struggles, and The Phoenician Scheme centers on wealthy business moguls who gleefully use slave labor to accomplish their business plans. Anyone who looks at the immaculately-designed surface of his work and writes them off as mere trifles will miss the more trenchant, poignant waters flowing underneath.
Of course, this is all just a brief overview of what makes his films so special, but with The Phoenician Scheme in theaters now being the first film in his career to openly tackle money and spirituality, it’s clear he’s still evolving as an artist and willing to explore new avenues despite critics and non-believers claiming he’s constantly making the same movie over and over again. Any new Wes Anderson movie is cause for celebration, and anyone who has the new one playing near you on the big screen should seek it out as soon as possible.