The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Is The Phoenician Scheme Wes Anderson’s best movie in years? Possibly. It’s certainly his most rewarding on a first watch since The Grand Budapest Hotel. While Asteroid City may still hold the edge in terms of visual ambition, it occasionally folds under the complexity of its structure. The Phoenician Scheme (2025), by contrast, goes for something simpler: emotional resonance wrapped in a grand caper. It nails it.

‘The Phoenician Scheme’ Movie Review

The Phoenician Scheme finds Wes Anderson at perhaps his most emotionally direct since The Grand Budapest Hotel, yet without sacrificing the signature aesthetic and structural quirks that define his work. Where recent efforts like Asteroid City and The French Dispatch relied heavily on narrative framing devices, nested storytelling, and dense, text-heavy scripts, The Phoenician Scheme plays more like an emotional adventure story—a film that hits hardest on first viewing, even as it leaves behind layers to explore on rewatches.

Anchored by a delightfully grizzled performance from Benicio del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda, a cynical and repeatedly targeted arms dealer facing the growing consequences of his empire, Anderson crafts a tale that’s both globe-trotting and deeply personal. The plot centers on Korda’s attempt to reconcile with his daughter, Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton), now living as a Catholic novice. Their relationship becomes the emotional core of the film, with Michael Cera—a first-time Anderson collaborator—playing Korda’s awkward assistant Bjørn. Together, they navigate a convoluted geopolitical scheme, traveling from one luxurious, surreal locale to the next, as Korda attempts to salvage a plan to rebuild Phoenicia’s infrastructure using slave labor—only to be thwarted by a cabal of foreign nations who’ve begun manipulating material markets to bankrupt him.

That logline sounds like a lot, and to be fair, the film’s first 30 minutes are loaded with exposition, which might leave some viewers struggling to get their bearings. But Anderson smartly pares back his usual overload of side-stories and visual diversions, keeping the focus on its central trio. This focus pays off: del Toro, Threapleton, and Cera are all outstanding. Del Toro, in particular, is giving one of his most complex and charismatic performances in years—his Korda is both hilariously deadpan and quietly haunted, a man whose sins feel heavy in every scene.

What’s surprising about The Phoenician Scheme is just how emotionally rich it is without being maudlin. Anderson doesn’t lean into sentimentality or twee affectation; instead, the film mines its emotion from lived-in regret, subtle reconciliation, and the looming shadow of mortality. Korda isn’t on a redemptive arc so much as a reckoning, and his spiritual detours—complete with hallucinated visions of the afterlife and a surreal conversation with God (played, of course, by Bill Murray)—are handled with a winking existentialism that only Anderson could pull off.

The ensemble cast is as stacked as ever—Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Scarlett Johansson appear in quick, potent turns—but they’re mostly in orbit around the main trio. This restraint works in the film’s favor. Unlike the scattershot feel of The French Dispatch, where each actor got a sliver of screen time, here the casting supports the story rather than overwhelms it. Cera and Threapleton, both newcomers to Anderson’s cinematic world, fit seamlessly into his stylized rhythm. Threapleton, in particular, is a revelation, grounding her character with both vulnerability and a sense of inner resolve.

Visually, The Phoenician Scheme is more muted than Asteroid City, lacking a single dominant palette or hyper-stylized motif. But the design is no less meticulous. The sets are sprawling, intricate, and filled with the usual Anderson flourishes—tableaux, symmetrical compositions, ornate props—but they serve a narrative that’s more fluid and accessible. This isn’t a movie trying to out-clever itself; it knows what it’s doing and does it confidently.

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Is The Phoenician Scheme Wes Anderson’s best movie in years? Possibly. It’s certainly his most rewarding on a first watch since The Grand Budapest Hotel. While Asteroid City may still hold the edge in terms of visual ambition, it occasionally folds under the complexity of its structure. The Phoenician Scheme, by contrast, goes for something simpler: emotional resonance wrapped in a grand caper. It nails it.

For longtime fans of Anderson, this is a reminder of why his work resonates beyond just style. And for newer audiences, The Phoenician Scheme might be the most inviting entry point yet into his wonderfully off-kilter world.

Score: 8/10