Wes Anderson’s movies strike a unique balance between comedy and tragedy. His movies have plenty of fun, quirky, lighthearted humor, but there could be a heartbreaking character death right around the corner. Ned Plimpton meets a watery grave in The Life Aquatic and M. Gustave is gunned down by a fascist death squad in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
From Royal Tenenbaum to Snoopy the dog to the little boy who dies in Peter’s arms in The Darjeeling Limited, Anderson keeps breaking his fans’ hearts with character deaths.
Esteban (The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou)
At the beginning of The Life Aquatic, in the first part of Steve Zissou’s latest documentary, the death of his best friend Esteban is played for laughs. But throughout the movie, Esteban’s death has a serious emotional effect on Steve.
He dedicates himself to exacting revenge on the “jaguar shark” responsible. The story of Steve mourning Esteban’s passing carries the message that the sadness won’t go away, so it’s important to embrace it.
Professor Watanabe (Isle Of Dogs)
After making his stop-motion animation debut with a widely acclaimed adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson returned to the medium with an original story in Isle of Dogs.
In one of the film’s most emotional scenes, Professor Watanabe discovers a cure for the disease that keeps dogs banished from society – but Kobayashi poisons him so the dogs will have to stay on the island.
Zeffirelli (The French Dispatch)
Anderson’s latest film, The French Dispatch, has an anthology structure made up of three stories from the titular magazine. The middle story revolves around Zeffirelli, a student revolutionary played by Timothée Chalamet.
Although the revolution is a success, Zeffirelli’s story ends in tragedy when he’s electrocuted while trying to repair the tower of his revolutionary pirate radio station.
Rat (Fantastic Mr. Fox)
Rat is introduced as a villain in Fantastic Mr. Fox. He’s a henchman who’s been hired by the vengeful farmers to bring in the cunning fox who stole their livestock and produce. But he earns redemption in his final moments.
Mr. Fox fights Rat near an electric fence, which kills Rat by electrocution when he accidentally touches it. With his dying breath, he reveals Kristofferson’s location. Ash considers him redeemed for his life of villainy, but Mr. Fox laments that he’ll just be “another dead rat in the garbage pail behind a Chinese restaurant.”
Royal Tenenbaum (The Royal Tenenbaums)
The titular patriarch in The Royal Tenenbaums is introduced as an unlikable jerk who’s driven away his entire family – but he wants to win them back (although his fake terminal illness doesn’t help his case). Royal does achieve some redemption by the end of the movie after making amends with all his friends and family.
He saves Ari and Uzi from a car crash, finally winning over Chas, and he finally signs Ethel’s divorce papers so she can marry Henry. Sadly, he dies a few months later – and includes a hilariously inaccurate epitaph on his gravestone.
Agatha (The Grand Budapest Hotel)
The older Zero narrating The Grand Budapest Hotel foreshadows a grim fate for his wife Agatha when he first mentions her to his dinner guest. He explains that he finds it difficult to talk about his relationship with her, because the mere mention of her name causes untold heartache.
The movie teases a few possible causes of death for Agatha – including one bait-and-switch with a severed head – but, ultimately, her death has nothing to do with the main plot. Zero lost both Agatha and his baby a few years later to “an absurd little disease” that swept the nation.
Snoopy (Moonrise Kingdom)
Anderson’s first full-blown romance, Moonrise Kingdom, is a coming-of-age gem about Sam and Suzy, two kids who fall in love and plot to run away to start a life together.
Sam’s Khaki Scout leader sends a troop on a “non-violent rescue operation” and the Khaki Scouts bring all their weapons, intending to bring Sam back by force. When they track down Sam and Suzy, their troop mascot – an adorable wire-hair fox terrier named Snoopy – is tragically killed by a stray arrow.
The Little Boy That Peter Fails To Save (The Darjeeling Limited)
One of Anderson’s most underappreciated movies, The Darjeeling Limited, is a screwball comedy for the first half before taking a very dark turn at the midpoint. Just as Peter is coming to terms with his impending fatherhood, he and his brothers see three young boys trying to cross a river.
They fall into the water and the brothers spring into action to try to save them. They each go after one kid. Jack and Francis save theirs, but Peter fails to save his kid, who drowns in his arms. Suffice to say, he isn’t starting fatherhood off on the right foot.
Ned Plimpton (The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou)
After losing Esteban, Steve gets a second chance at recruiting a right-hand man for the Belafonte when his estranged son Ned joins Team Zissou. But he ends up making the same mistake again. Steve and Ned fly out to look for the jaguar shark, something pops in the rotors of Steve’s crummy old helicopter, and they crash into the ocean. Steve is okay, but Ned didn’t make it.
For the most part, The Life Aquatic is an absurdist comedy. But it’s impossible not to tear up when Ned’s coffin is ceremonially buried at sea, set to the Zombies’ “The Way I Feel Inside.”
M. Gustave (The Grand Budapest Hotel)
Agatha isn’t the only heartbreaking character death in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Zero’s mentor M. Gustave is killed by a fascist death squad while defending his young lobby boy from baseless charges.
Zero sums up M. Gustave’s tragically short life in voiceover: “There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. He was one of them.”