Wes Anderson

[swo17]

Everyone please be respectful: If you've already posted a ranked list earlier in this thread, go back and edit that instead of posting a slightly different one now

[black&huge]

I wont do mine as favorites in terms of numbererd order but I will however do three sections:

absolute favorites:

1. the french dispatch
2. the royal tenenbaums
3. the darjeeling limited
4. the life aquatic

very good but not quite favorites:

1. the grand budapest hotel
2. isle of dogs
3. bottle rocket

I don't like these:

1. fantastic mr. fox
2. moonrise kingdom
3. rushmore

[ChunkyLover]

1. The Darjeeling Limited
2. Bottle Rocket
3. Rushmore
4. The Royal Tenenbaums
5. The Life Aquatic
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel
7. Moonrise Kingdom
8. Isle of Dogs
9. Fantastic Mr. Fox
10. The French Dispatch

[tolbs1010]

1) Bottle Rocket
2) Rushmore
3) Moonrise Kingdom
4) Isle Of Dogs
5) Fantastic Mr. Fox
6) The Grand Budapest Hotel
7) The French Dispatch
8) Asteroid City
9) The Royal Tenenbaums
10) The Darjeeling Limited
11) The Life Aquatic

[MV88]

I still haven’t seen The French Dispatch, but I’ve seen the rest so I’ll give my ranking for those. While I like all of them to some extent, my top pick is the only one I fully love, and as has been pointed out earlier in this thread, he hadn’t quite developed his signature style yet when he made it, so I suppose my ranking should come with the disclaimer that I’m very much only a casual fan of his (though again, I do like all of these to varying degrees).

1. Rushmore
2. The Darjeeling Limited
3. The Royal Tenenbaums
4. The Grand Budapest Hotel
5. Bottle Rocket
6. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
7. Moonrise Kingdom
8. Fantastic Mr. Fox
9. Isle of Dogs

[bottlesofsmoke]

It’s interesting to see how diverse some of these rankings are, I guess Anderson is a love him or hate him director in general, so I guess it makes sense that some people’s favorites are are at the bottom of other’s lists. Haven’t seen The French Dispatch yet.

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. Bottle Rocket
3. Rushmore
4. The Darjeeling Limited
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel
6. Fantastic Mr. Fox
7. The Royal Tennebaums
8. Isle of Dogs
9. The Life Aquatic

[therewillbeblus]

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
2. Moonrise Kingdom
3. Rushmore
4. The Royal Tenenbaums
5. Isle of Dogs
6. The Phoenician Scheme
7. The Darjeeling Limited
8. Fantastic Mr. Fox
9. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More
10. Bottle Rocket
11. The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
12. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
13. Asteroid City

[goblinfootballs]

1. Life Aquatic
2. Royal Tenenbaums
3. Rushmore
4. Moonrise Kingtom
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel
6. The French Dispatch
7. Fantastic Mr. Fox
8. Isle of Dogs
9. Bottle Rocket
10. The Darjeeling Limited

[swo17]

I don't know what you guys are talking about, saying that Rushmore lacks his signature style. Rushmore is his style, with everything that came after aping it to varying degrees of success

[The Narrator Returns]

Many of these I haven't seen in ages so everything besides the very top and the very bottom could change radically, but as is I like all of them and love everything from Darjeeling up. I'm young enough that my first Anderson was Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I adored and I think has rubbed off on how I view Anderson to this day, favoring his recent live-action cartoons over the slightly more grounded early ones.

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox
3. The French Dispatch
4. The Grand Budapest Hotel
5. The Royal Tenenbaums
6. Rushmore
7. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (this one I'm especially eager to rewatch, I could see it rising a lot)
8. The Darjeeling Limited
9. Bottle Rocket
10. Isle of Dogs

[bad future]

1. Grand Budapest Hotel
2. Moonrise Kingdom
3. Life Aquatic
4. Royal Tenenbaums
5. French Dispatch
6. Fantastic Mr. Fox
7. Isle of Dogs
8. Rushmore
9. Darjeeling Limited
10. Bottle Rocket

Life Aquatic could be lower, since it feels like the one that most often tries to force big emotional beats that it doesn't reach for me, but it has maybe the most generous amount of his specific surface pleasures, that stamp collector / bottled ship kind of boyish white nerdery (in this case Jacques Cousteau / Jane Goodall fanfic via Karel Zeman?) that I would watch his movies for even if they had nothing else to recommend them.

And Tenenbaums could be higher as it's the one I've returned to the most, every line comfortingly familiar.

But my top two are in my mind the highest expressions to date of everything he does well. And at any rate, the top four are in a tier to themselves in terms of my affection for them.

[dekadetia]

I'm of the mind that Owen Wilson's screenwriting contributions are pretty vital to bringing life and emotion to the work, and while Anderson's had varying degrees of success since, I still have to go with the following:

1. The Royal Tenenbaums
2. Bottle Rocket
3. Rushmore
4. Moonrise Kingdom
5. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
6. The French Dispatch
7. The Grand Budapest Hotel
8. The Life Aquatic
9. The Darjeeling Limited
10. Isle of Dogs

[MitchPerrywinkle]

For me, it's hard to argue for a top two that isn't Budapest or Tenenbaums since they exemplify the peak of his early and late period, respectively. That said, there's a case to be made for The Life Aquatic and The French Dispatch as Anderson's most audacious experiments in minimalism/maximalism, the former in particular still proving to be his most divisive work (for my money, it has some of Anderson's most beguiling filmmaking). In any case, the Top Eight are all works I either hold in high esteem or absolutely love, with the bottom two films containing aspects I still enjoy, even if they make a damning case for Anderson's blind spots when setting his films largely outside of the west:

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
2. The Royal Tenenbaums
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. Moonrise Kingdom
5. Rushmore
6. The Life Aquatic
7. The French Dispatch
8. Bottle Rocket
9. Isle of Dogs
10. The Darjeeling Limited

[beamish14]

Rushmore has always been at the top of my list and Tenenbaums comfortably at the bottom, with the others fluctuating in-between. Mr. Fox is in the very top-tier as well.

[spectre]

For mine:

Top tier:
1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. Rushmore
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. The French Dispatch

Middle:
5. The Life Aquatic
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel

Bottom:
7. The Royal Tenenbaums
8. Isle of Dogs
9. The Darjeeling Limited

(Bottle Rocket is the only one I haven't seen in full, though I caught about thirty minutes of it some years back when a housemate had it on, and can't say it was grabbing me.)

[Walter Kurtz]

Genius/Near-Genius Tier
The LIfe Aquatic (tie)
Moonrise Kingdom (tie) -------- These films illustrate a wonderful knowledge of people both "over-the-hill" and "not old enough to even comtemplate the hill".

Tier of Excellence
Rushmore

Tier of Goodness
Tenenbaums

Barely Watchable
Grand Budapest

Unwatchable
French Dispatch: My viewing didn't last long
Darjeeling: Ibid.
Bottle Rocket: op. cit.

Also Unwatchable
Fox and Dogs. These are unwatchable because I don't watch cartoons. Not since I was about 3 years of age.

Most Erratic Filmmakers in History Whose Efforts Fluctuate Between Genius and Shit
Godard (tie)
Wes Anderson (tie)

[mteller]

Also Unwatchable
Fox and Dogs. These are unwatchable because I don't watch cartoons. Not since I was about 3 years of age.

Well then you're missing out on a lot of great stuff. Are there other ways in which being such a mature adult stifles you?

[domino harvey]

His entire list is a ploy for negative attention

[Walter Kurtz]

Oh, domino harvey, quit being such a smartypants. Of course it's a ploy. It's Sunday night - I was bored for five minutes - and I wanted to give my assistants something to read first thing tomorrow. They actually follow this forum somewhat. There's even a woman in the next production office who's a fan of therewillbewords. She likes words I guess. Good night and sweet dreams!

[domino harvey]

My ranking of the words in that post

God Tier
1 night
2 sweet
3 five
4 first
5 woman
6 who’s
7 course
8 my
9 the
10 ploy
11 minutes
12 was
13 being
14 domino harvey
15 words
16 fan
17 tomorrow
18 to

Godard Tier
19 good
20 likes
21 actually
22 give
23 they
24 next
25 dreams
26 and
27 office
28 a
29 this
30 in
31 such
32 production
33 wanted
34 she
35 quit

Gogurt Tier
36 assistants
37 something
38 there’s
39 forum
40 guess
41 read
42 of
43 follow
44 for
45 even
46 I
47 its
48 thing
49 somewhat
50 oh
51 smartypants
52 Sunday
53 bored
54 therewillbewords

[therewillbeblus]

Walter Kurtz on Sunday nights:

[tolbs1010]

I'm of the mind that Owen Wilson's screenwriting contributions are pretty vital to bringing life and emotion to the work

I tend to agree. I have enjoyed all of Anderson's films in varying degrees, but the first two and Moonrise Kingdom are the only ones that give me the feels.

From the BR entry on my personal top 100 which I have been working on for far too long (pardons and allowances for quoting myself):

"Still my favorite Wes Anderson movie. It has an un-fussiness and freedom of motion that is lacking in the filmmaking-as-diorama style that has become his trademark. It's much more ALIVE than his later films. Owen Wilson's Dignan is an all-time classic character and performance—of a depth and feeling that must have been long-gestating in its creator."

[Mr Sausage]

Some real correlation = causation fans here...

[swo17]

Are you suggesting that Wilson is merely correlated with Anderson's first three films?

[Walter Kurtz]

DH and blu: Well played! I have an office of happy people this brighter shining morning!

Although I must say that the Development Executive next door (formerly know as a D-Girl before America woke up) texted regarding DH’s post that “any silly boy knows that #54 is twice the word that #14 is!”

And she also said about blu “I like a man that shows versatility. First words… now pix!” Crush city going on??