The Phoenician Scheme, 2025 - ★★★★½
The Phoenician Scheme hit me hard. Anderson smuggles his deepest anxieties - about meaning, mortality, and God's silence - into a madcap caper that somehow holds it all together.
For those of us navigating middle age and its particular terrors, this feels like Anderson made a film directly for us. The film channels everything from Italian crime films to Bergman's dreamscapes to Vlacil's surreal Catholic guilt, yet it remains unmistakably "Wes Anderson".
The performances excel (as always), but it's that final scene that devastates - I can't think about it without tearing up.
His most triumphant film since Grand Budapest Hotel. Not for everyone, but absolutely for me.