wes anderson filmography & wes à nyc

January 05, 2026

wes anderson filmography & wes à nyc

this is my second blog on cinematography. if you want to check out the first, see trần anh hùng cinematography.

an encounter with wes anderson movies

the first time I've seen a wes anderson movie was on a flight back home to vietnam during winter break of my freshman year. it was asteroid city. long before that, I still remember seeing videos on youtube like harry potter directed by wes anderson, but my brain still hasn't registered the wes anderson style yet. what I do remember is after seeing asteroid city, I wanted to change my style completely to vibrant colors. I've never seen anything like that before.

my love for wes anderson would mean that my friend lina gifted me the wes anderson collection for my 19th birthday, which I finished a few weeks ago alongside with the museum of wes anderson. I also went to new york to do a project where I took movie scenes in his film and translate it into the world we live in now. it was an exciting project with my friend triết yelling at me whenever I dropped my stack of photo on the dirty grounds of nyc metro. so now, without further ado, I'll guide you to the world of his movies.

filmography chronology (42)

commercials & music videos (9)

my life, my card (2004)

softbank (2008)

apartomatic (2010)

made of imagination (2012)

candy (2013)

come together: a fashion picture in motion (2016)

aline (2021) music video

100 years of meisterstück (2024)

let's write (2025)

feature films, short films, and documentaries (33)

normal if it's a feature film
underlined if it's a short film
films you should watch together are linked by a =
always watch short films before the feature film
italicized in films where he's not a director
D if it's a documentary

indented if it's not the main feature film grid

bottle rocket (1996) = bottle rocket (1993)

rushmore (1998)

the royal tenenbaums (2001)

the life aquatic with steve zissou (2004) = the squid and the whale (2005)

the darjeeling limited (2007) = hotel chevalier (2007)

fantastic mr fox (2009)

moonrise kingdom (2012) = do you like to read? (2012) = cousin ben troop screening (2012)

castello cavalcanti (2013)

the grand budapest hotel (2014) = always at the carlyle (2018) D

she's funny that way (2014) = one day since yesterday: peter bogdanovich & the lost american film (2014) D

hitchcock/truffaut (2015) D

sing (2016) = sing 2 (2021)

escapes (2017)

isle of dogs (2018)

friedkin uncut (2018) D

the french dispatch (2021)

asteroid city (2023) = asteroid city: location featurette (2023)

uncropped (2023) D

the wonderful story of henry sugar and three more (2024) = the wonderful story of henry sugar (2023) = the swan (2023) = the rat catcher (2023) = poison (2023)

the phoenician scheme (2025)

wes anderson influences and phases

you can see this most closely by looking at films that he was not a director but some sort of producer in it. for example, in she's funny that way (2014) and one day since yesterday (2014), the main influence here is peter bogdanovich. in hitchcock/truffaut (2015), the influence is hitchcock and truffaut. in escapes (2017), it is hampton fancher. in friedkin uncut (2018), it is billy friedkin, or william friedkin. in uncropped (2023), it is james hamilton.

the reason why I listed the filmography in such an interlocked way is because that way you can see the transition, or his phases.

the outdoors world (bottle rocket), inspired by hitchcock's rear window (1954), star wars, david holzman's diary (1967), bogdanovich's pieces of time, spike lee's she's gotta have it (1986), dune (1965), etc.

a school (rushmore), inspired by mick jagger, tom cruise, noah taylor in flirting (1991), a charlie brown's christmas, jean-luc goddard's la chinois (1967), hitchcock's vertigo (1958) and north by northwest (1959), truffaut's the 400 blows (1959), on the waterfront (1954), harold and maude (1971), the graduate (1967), etc.

a house (the royal tenenbaums), inspired by jd salinger's catcher in the rye and franny and zooey, raiders of the lost ark (1981), orson welles's citizen kane (1941), the magnificient ambersons (1942), björn borg, etc.

a ship (the life aquatic with steve zissou), inspired by jacques costeau's life, moby-dick, 8 1/2 (1963), l'avventura (1960), etc.

a train (the darjeeling limited), inspired by satyajit ray's apu trilogy and charulata, the lonely wife (1964),

a story (fantastic mr fox), inspired by roald dahl

a campsite (moonrise kingdom), inspired by hitchcock's rear window (1954), satyajit ray's charulata, the lonely wife (1964), truffaut's the wild child and the 400 blows (1959), peter pan, etc.

a hotel (the grand budapest hotel), inspired by stefan zweig, the balalaika, the carlyle in new york, etc.

animation (isle of dogs = i love dogs, someone on hinge taught me that pun), inspired by ahsahi shimbun

a newspaper (the french dispatch), inspired by the new yorker, roebuck wright, the yé-yé movement, etc.

a town (asteroid city), inspired by chuck jones

another story (the wonderful story of henry sugar and three more), inspired by roald dahl

an eras tour (the phoenician scheme), a film where he self-referenced all his movies that he made

motives in wes anderson's movies

of all of his movies, my favorite is the darjeeling limited (2007) due to its similarity to trần anh hùng's the vertical ray of the sun (2000), a world where 3 siblings struggle to find purpose after one's parent's passing and reconciled in the end. there's something about the brotherhood and sisterhood that got me. maybe I've longed for a feeling of togetherness for the longest that I've known in my life.

my second favorite, also is my uncle's favorite, is moonrise kingdom, which deals with young love. if I ever get married to someone, I want the us to be exactly as sam and suzy in this movie. a perfect portrait of young love.

as michael chabon said, wes anderson's films recall us of cornell's boxes and nabokov's novels, where they try so hard to restore a reality that doesn't exist anymore, whether it's childhood or russia known to nabokov. it deals with heavy themes such as divorce, as wes often cited his parents' divorce as a main influence in his film.

I think the main reason why I'm drawn to wes anderson movies is a question that I often ask myself "is it okay to feel this way?" and I've found the answers in the royal tenenbaums and rushmore. another reason is ultimate liminality in hotels and public transit. wes loves hotel, as you can see it from the royal tenenbaums to the grand budapest hotels. he also loves trains, and you can see it in the darjeeling limited and his commercial let's write.

wes à nyc

2025 summer, I went to new york and stayed at my friend's place to take photos of moments in wes anderson's films in real life.