The French Dispatch
Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 22, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 56 Critic Reviews
Positive:
44
Mixed:
11
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
UproxxVince ManciniNov 3, 2021
he French Dispatch feels like a confident and even vulnerable exploration of Anderson’s own psyche; it’s his best film in at least a decade. Read full review
100
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyOct 22, 2021
Like the very best of Anderson’s films, The French Dispatch is both utterly exquisite and deceptively complex – a film that, like the finest of dishes, is even richer in its aftertaste. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyOct 22, 2021
The movie may be hard to explain, but it's very fun to watch. It's a fast-paced delirious movie about a very slow unchanging world. Read full review
100
SlashfilmJason GorberJul 12, 2021
The French Dispatch is a rocket ship ride to your cinematic soul, meshing word, action and vision in one glorious bon-bon that’s both sweet and savory. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeJul 12, 2021
In the past, the director has been accused of making overly contrived dollhouse movies, and while he repeats many of his favorite tricks — toying with aspect ratios, centering characters in symmetric compositions, revealing a large building in intricate cross-section — this time it feels as if there’s a full world teeming beyond the carefully controlled edges of the frame. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJul 12, 2021
Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch feels like four films in one, and contains enough ideas for at least another six. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Oct 21, 2021
The storytelling is as paramount–and often as dizzyingly entertaining—as the stories themselves. Read full review
91
ConsequenceJesse HassengerOct 1, 2021
Though he’s been accused of re-carving the same dollhouse-scale miniatures over and over again, The French Dispatch finds Anderson continuing to fill out his increasingly elaborate skill set. Read full review
91
The PlaylistJessica KiangJul 12, 2021
A work of such unparalleled Andersonian wit, that at times the sheer level of detail – mobile, static, graphic and typographic – that bedecked the screen was enough to make your correspondent’s jaw slacken. Which meant curtains for the carpet as I was smoking a cigarillo. Read full review
90
The New YorkerRichard BrodyOct 27, 2021
The French Dispatch is perhaps Anderson’s best film to date. It is certainly his most accomplished. And, for all its whimsical humor, it is an action film, a great one, although Anderson’s way of displaying action is unlike that of any other filmmaker. Read full review
90
SlashfilmHoai-Tran BuiOct 19, 2021
As visually overwhelming and artfully engineered a film as The French Dispatch is, it's also one of secret warmth lurking beneath the surface. Read full review
90
Little White LiesHannah StrongOct 19, 2021
The French Dispatch is Anderson’s most impressionistic and unusual film, not to mention his most ambitious. Read full review
90
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaOct 6, 2021
The French Dispatch is both an ode to print journalism and one of Wes Anderson’s most richly detailed films. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJul 16, 2021
Bursting at the seams with hand-crafted visual delights and eccentric performances from a stacked ensemble entirely attuned to the writer-director’s signature wavelength, this is the film equivalent of a short story collection. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 26, 2021
This magazine of a movie is something to be savored, a rarefied delight that’s intellectually aspirational, as the great magazines used to be. It rewards the well-read, the art observer, the film lover, the Francophile and the Wes Anderson fanatic. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzOct 21, 2021
Whimsically beautiful, as if Anderson discovered a long-lost Antoine de Saint-Exupéry picture book. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenOct 21, 2021
This is another sad-sack Anderson movie, with perhaps the saddest collection of actors we’ve seen. And yet, this being Anderson, The French Dispatch is also absolutely delightful. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittOct 19, 2021
Like most anthologies, some segments are better than others but they all highlight different inspirations Anderson’s woven together for a delightful cinematic sampler. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldOct 18, 2021
The French Dispatch is an elegant ode to good writing, and to those who quietly stand behind the words. Read full review
85
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerOct 4, 2021
The film becomes a wry showcase for the director’s evolution as a creative who has been refining an unparalleled style for over two decades, with a sharper humor but without the more deeply felt pulse of films like The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox or most recently, and most effectively, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Read full review
83
The Film StageDavid KatzJul 12, 2021
It’s a real giddy rush of a film, perhaps not as fundamentally moving or sensitive at his top-drawer work, but taking his micromanagement-heavy film craft to noir-ish new peaks. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnJul 12, 2021
The result is an endearing and liberated explosion of Andersonian aesthetics that doesn’t always cohere into a satisfying package, but never slows down long enough to lose its engrossing appeal, and always retains its purpose. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreOct 22, 2021
It’s a romp, full of touches that go by almost too quickly to pick up on — I was partial to the strongman who plays a small but key role — but the lingering mood is unmistakably sad. Read full review
80
ABC NewsPeter TraversOct 22, 2021
The endlessly inventive Wes Anderson and a cast of all-stars use all the tools of cinema to give a big, fat, loving smooch to, of all things, print journalism and the gifted eccentrics who practice it. Too fussy? Maybe. But what an exuberant gift of a memory piece. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 19, 2021
For some, it will be tempting to say The French Dispatch is easier to admire than enjoy. But if you go into it knowing what Anderson offers, you can do both. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerOct 19, 2021
The French Dispatch is a designed-to-within-an-inch-of its-life delight. If it lacks a compelling story, only one filmmaker could have made this film. And, in these cookie-cutter-director days, it’s a vision to be cherished. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleJul 13, 2021
The movie is a gas. It moves with, well, dispatch, clattering along in its own eccentric way. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJul 13, 2021
Another work that could really only come from Anderson’s relentless imagination: exquisite detail, eclectic storylines, superb cast. Read full review
80
BBCNicholas BarberJul 13, 2021
His craftsmanship is so overwhelming that unless you're already allergic to his tics and trademarks, you should get a buzz from the film's many, many incidental pleasures. One thing's for sure: there is nothing quite like The French Dispatch – except Anderson's other films, of course. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 12, 2021
It might not be at the very zenith of what he can achieve but for sheer moment-by-moment pleasure, and for laughs, this is a treat. Read full review
79
TheWrapSteve PondJul 12, 2021
The result is hugely impressive and awfully scattershot, a wry piece of art that is always entertaining but also so excruciatingly detailed that you wonder if it will connect the way the more emotional, more fully drawn stories of “Grand Budapest,” “Moonrise Kingdom” or “The Royal Tenenbaums” did. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 20, 2021
The French Dispatch is filled with a sense of wistful longing, delivered from the perspectives of creative and observant strangers in a wonderfully strange land. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyOct 20, 2021
It’s easily the most mannered movie Anderson has made, which is really saying something. It’s so mannered at times as to be almost unmoored — speaking of ships — but the many marvels it contains make that an acceptable price to pay. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrOct 20, 2021
Perhaps there is something to the fact that fairly or not, some of the luster has dulled due to familiarity, but The French Dispatch remains a highly enjoyable, sophisticated and experimental ode to the romantic, and fictionalized, idea of the midcentury heyday of magazines like The New Yorker and The Paris Review. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 4, 2021
Dispatch often feels like the filmmaker in concentrate form, both his best and worst instincts on extravagant display. Read full review
75
Slant MagazinePat BrownJul 12, 2021
Wes Anderson’s film is an often fascinating, wondrous exercise in complex narration and visual composition. Read full review
70
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 29, 2021
It moves quickly but exhaustingly; if you’re tired of one trope, there’s always a new one waiting excitedly around the corner. Read full review
70
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsOct 25, 2021
Even when the film doesn’t entirely work, there is, simply, joy in watching Anderson work. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 25, 2021
It would be churlish to deny that The French Dispatch is a box of delights; Wright, in particular, is a joy as the sauntering hedonist. Equally, though, it would be negligent not to ask of Anderson, now more than ever: What would incite him to think outside the box? Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 20, 2021
Anderson expresses a fan’s zeal and a collector’s greed for both canonical works and weird odds and ends, a love for old modernisms that is undogmatic and unsentimental. Which is not to say unfeeling. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensOct 18, 2021
The French Dispatch is a movie made with such deliberate, patient skill, and such brio, that its meandering structure and oddly low emotional temperature come off as intentional choices rather than errors of artistic judgment. Even if it’s not my favorite flavor of Wes Anderson licorice, nothing is there by accident. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonJul 12, 2021
For all its exquisite construction, though, The French Dispatch doesn’t have much of the sneaky sentimental undercurrent that makes Anderson’s films more than just intellectual exercises. Read full review
67
Original-CinLiam LaceyOct 22, 2021
Equal parts clever and annoying, Wes Anderson’s latest film is akin to being locked in a holding cell with a team of cellmates suffering from florid cases of logorrhea. They might be smart, but it would be a relief if they would just shut up or at least slow down occasionally. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiOct 20, 2021
An anthology film of five segments, it is an indulgent celebration of that venerable weekly magazine whose collective bylines helped shape the cultural preoccupations of the last century, not to mention informing much of Anderson’s work. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeOct 24, 2021
Anderson’s backdrop, a kind of steroidally enhanced Frenchness reminiscent of films such as Belleville Rendez-Vous and Amélie, is rather lovely, if ultimately as far removed from reality as is the film’s romanticised view of journalism. Read full review
60
PolygonRobert DanielsOct 22, 2021
The French Dispatch is probably the worst film of the director’s career. But even his worst effort is worth biting the bullet for. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekOct 22, 2021
The French Dispatch is high Andersonia, an elaborate movie contraption with a million tiny parts moving in concert, and depending on your threshold, it might all just be too much. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeOct 22, 2021
The French Dispatch is a lovely, lovely thing. But it is as impossible to grasp as a handful of water. Read full review
60
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJul 13, 2021
Much easier to admire and appreciate than it is to fall head over heels for, The French Dispatch has Wes Anderson in full megamix mode as he packs three short stories into an anthology structure that bubbles with flamboyance and ideas, before keeling over under the weight of own narrative cargo. Read full review
55
Vanity FairRichard LawsonJul 13, 2021
The film—structured as an issue of a New Yorker-esque magazine—is fussy and ornately detailed and difficult to grasp. Where Anderson’s past elaborate worlds have invited us in with all their cozy detail, The French Dispatch’s seems to haughtily sniff in our direction; it doesn’t much care if we get it. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 28, 2021
So what does the film, playing in theaters, want to make millions of moviegoers feel? Delight in graphic design? Sure, but the filmmaker’s familiar motifs, playful and inventive as they may be, operate in an emotional void. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiOct 22, 2021
Anderson’s film is told via a prologue and three episodes that bring to life the quirky publication’s stories. They just barely engage the audience as we watch the director’s entire mobile phone contact list show up for about 15 seconds each. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshOct 21, 2021
If he is trying to say something (and it’s unclear what that might be), all of the fuss and muss obfuscates any message, and even worse, any emotional connection to the film. This latest dispatch is indeed a profound disappointment. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 20, 2021
In his fastidious, exacting, extraordinarily blinkered creation, writer-director Anderson this time has driven straight into a cul-de-sac, stranding every sort of good and great actor in the cinematic equivalent of a design meeting. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 19, 2021
There’s attentive scrutiny here, and a surfeit of playful style, but precious little genuine curiosity or interest. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 18, 2021
The artistic signature is unmistakable — 30 seconds in, you’d know you were watching a Wes Anderson movie. But Anderson’s human connection seems to have short-circuited, so that his irony now bypasses the world and becomes an ironic contemplation of his own work. This is a dead-end, and it’s just not interesting. Read full review
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