Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2025
#9. The Phoenician Scheme

Wes Anderson is often criticized for making the “same movie” again and again. It’s a lazy attack that ignores how decidedly different the plots and settings of his movies are from each other. If you synopsize his films, you’ll find he has written about a wide range of topics with milieus that include a private school, a research ship, a 1930s hotel, a New Yorker-like magazine, a Japanese canine encampment, a New England island, and a train through rural India.

What those critics mean is that Anderson’s style doesn’t change, and for the most part that’s true. His early films were a bit looser than the diorama-like productions he has staged since 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. But even those efforts had the same fastidious composition, deadpan delivery, and ingenious production design of his later work.

Indeed, Anderson has the most distinctive style of any working filmmaker. You’ll never mistake his work for anybody else’s, and you’ll never mistake anybody else’s work for his. And I think that’s a great thing. In the age of streaming, with countless filmmakers churning out forgettable slop, Anderson’s work has a hand-made aesthetic that brims over with human creativity.

I get why some people find it all a bit too much, but I’m completely on board.

All this to say that Wes Anderson has a new movie out, so naturally it’s on my top ten list. The Phoenician Scheme is not top-tier Wes — I’d actually rank it near the bottom of his filmography — but I’ve watched it three times already and enjoyed the hell out of every minute.

This one stars Benicio Del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda, a shady industrialist who is the target of repeated assassination attempts. He enlists his nun-in-training daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) to learn the family business in case of his death, rekindling their chilly relationship.

The film takes place in chapters, each one introducing a new set of memorable characters played by Anderson’s usual stable of actors (Tom Hanks, Benicio Del Toro, and Jeffrey Wright are particular standouts). Wes newcomer Michael Cera has a part that spans the whole film and he delivers a priceless comic turn.

The Phoenician Scheme is one of several 2025 movies centered on father-daughter pairs, and that aspect struck a chord with me. I was particularly moved by the way the film depicted their relationship in its final scenes. This movie has one of Anderson’s finest closing moments.

The Korda character was inspired by Anderson’s late father-in-law, and the film concludes with this lovely dedication: “”In memory of Fouad Mikhael Maalouf. Born in Bethlehem. Died in London. Shaded in life by the cedars of Lebanon.” It reminded me of my own departed father-in-law and left me with a lump in my throat.

Wes Anderson has a habit of doing that, again and again.