Third in my ongoing Great Directors series is Wes Anderson, best known for Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums. Anderson has a very unique and discernible feel to his movies that gives him something of a significant cult following, but his movies are of a high enough caliber to be easily appreciable by anyone tempted to view one.

Bill Murray returns to another film with Wes Anderson, this time portraying Steve Zissou, an oceanographic researcher who seems to be based a bit on Jacques Cousteau.  Angelica Huston again appears in a Wes Anderson film as Eleanor Zissou.  The rest of the cast includes Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson.The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou tells us the story of the famous oceanographic film-maker Steve Zissou losing a dear friend who is eaten by a shark.

Wes Anderson’s first film stars Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson as Dignan and Anthony Adams, respectively.   When Dignan is released from a mental hospital where he had been being treated for depression, Anthony Adams joins up with Dignan and the two begin practicing and planning to become criminals of some sort.

Likely based upon The Magnificent Ambersons, The Royal Tenenbaums follows the attempts Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), the estranged patriarch of the family, to become closer to his family of three child-prodigies, their children, and his ex-wife Etheline Tenenbaum (Angelica Huston).