His grades are so poor he risks being thrown out of school, but precocious 15-year-old Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) isn’t about to let an academic performance cramp his career at Rushmore Academy. He’s editor of the student paper, president of the chess, astronomy, German and French clubs, captain of the fencing and debate teams, and the creative force of the Max Fischer Players. Then there’s his unreciprocated passion for Miss Cross (Olivia Williams), the new first grade teacher. With the help of his industrialist friend Mr Blume (Murray), Max reckons he can win her heart by constructing an aquarium on the school baseball field.
Anderson’s oddball second feature picked up rave reviews and remains one of his touchstone pictures. Even by his own standards, this is a peculiarly poignant comedy, with an outstanding character turn from Bill Murray as… a depressed middle-aged man obsessed with a 15-year-old boy? Granted, Max is 15 going on 50. With his beret, braces and blazer, he’s part Ferris Bueller, part Jay Gatsby. And yet it’s Blume, the first of Anderson’s lost father figures, who gives the movie it’s gravity — and this movie was central to Bill Murray’s late career resurgence.
Line for line this is as witty as any Anderson movie, and the lopsided love triangle at its heart makes this one of his most emotionally accessible films.
Staff Pick: Sean
This tender coming-of-age tale gave the director his most enduring (and endearing) onscreen alter ego in Max Fischer, a bright, brashly big-thinking and socially inept high school misfit negotiating an awkward first crush on a kindly schoolteacher. Max’s own overreaching school plays speak to Anderson’s own soaring creative ambition, though it found its perfect scale in this sophomore jump.
Guy Lodge, Variety
One of the happiest moments of my moviegoing life…. Mock-sophisticated and actually sophisticated, pretentious and unpretentious, arch but sincere — this impossible balance of snobbery, warmth, and pseudo-adolescent craftsmanship… When it was over, I just kept saying, Yes, yes, yes.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
Media Partner
Wes Anderson
Jason Schwartzman, Olivia Williams, Bill Murray, Brian Cox, Seymour Cassel, Mason Gamble
USA
1998
English
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Credits
Producer
Barry Mendel, Paul Schiff
Screenwriter
Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson
Cinematography
Robert Yeoman
Editor
David Moritz
Original Music
Mark Mothersbaugh
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Unforgiven
Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood) is face down in pig shit when we first see him. He's a bad farmer, but has a natural facility for killing people – a vocation to which he returns in a quest that combines both profit and justice. Or so he chooses to believe.
Malcolm X
In an indelible role, Denzel Washington give us a layered, compassionate, conflicted man who finds the strength in Islam to transcend his demons and confront the inequity and racism in America head-on. Along with Do the Right Thing, this is Spike Lee's greatest film.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Short Cuts
Altman's adaptation of Raymond Carver short stories, Short Cuts weaves between 8 or 9 overlapping storylines and 22 characters. it's a teeming, caustic and compassionate human comedy; a singularly astringent, often cynical view of America and Americana.
Three Colours: Blue
The first of Kieslowski's acclaimed Three Colours Trilogy, inspired by the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity and the French flag, the Tricolour. Blue stars Juliette Binoche as a young woman grieving her husband and child.
Schindler's List
One of the most acclaimed films of the 90s, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark is the story of a German industrialist whose conscience is stirred to save his Jewish workers from the camps.
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Three Colours: Red
Irène Jacob plays Valentine, a runway model living in Geneva, who crosses paths with a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who's a bit of an eavesdropper. Initially repelled, she becomes intrigued by this man, as do we... Kieslowski's sublime adieu.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings begins with an onslaught of fucks. It's the first signal that this rom-com will break from tradition, despite the ritualized structural conceit described in the title. The witty screenplay is by Richard Curtis — it's still his best.
The Lion King
With its beautifully drawn East African setting, its humour, pathos, and engaging characters, as well as its stirring songs, The Lion King stands as the pinnacle of traditional Disney family entertainment.
Image: © Disney, 1994
To Die For
Buck Henry (The Graduate) wrote this acidic black comedy about a ruthless weather girl on the make (Nicole Kidman in her breakout role). A young Joaquin Phoenix is the dim teen she seduces on her way to achieving stardom.