The Grand Budapest Hotel

Storyline

Wes Anderson's visually dazzling, pastel-hued 2014 masterpiece The Grand Budapest Hotel stands as the auteur filmmaker's most commercially successful and critically revered achievement, grossing over $172 million globally and winning four Academy Awards. Set in the fictional, idyllic Central European alpine Republic of Zubrowka between the World Wars, the narrative unfolds through intricate nested flashback framing devices inspired by the literary works of Stefan Zweig. Ralph Fiennes delivers a career-defining comic and dramatic tour de force as Monsieur Gustave H., the fastidious, poetry-quoting, and impeccably perfumed legendary concierge of the opulent Grand Budapest Hotel, who maintains intimate romantic bonds with wealthy, elderly female clientele. When his octogenarian lover Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) dies under suspicious circumstances and bequeaths him an invaluable Renaissance painting entitled Boy with Apple, Gustave finds himself framed for murder by her ruthless fascist son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) and pursued by an unfeeling hitman (Willem Dafoe). Aided by his loyal young refugee lobby boy Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori) and an apprentice baker with a Mexico-shaped birthmark named Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), Gustave orchestrates a daring prison break and cross-country train chase to prove his innocence. Featuring Alexandre Desplat's Oscar-winning folk balalaika score and Robert Yeoman's meticulously framed aspect ratio shifts, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a melancholic ode to a bygone era of elegance.