This book is dedicated to director Wes Anderson the genius behind these incredible films. ENJOY
Max Fischer, a precocious and eccentric 15-year-old, is both Rushmore’s most extracurricular and least scholarly student. Herman Blume is a disillusioned industrialist who comes to admire Max. Rosemary Cross is a widowed first grade teacher who becomes the object of both Max’s and Herman’s affection. Max’s life revolves around Rushmore Academy, a private school in Houston, where he is a scholarship student. He spends nearly all of his time on elaborate extracurricular activities, caring little how it affects his grades. He also feuds with the school’s headmaster, Dr. Guggenheim. Blume finds his operation of a multimillion dollar company to be unsatisfying. He is frustrated that his marriage is failing and the two sons he’s putting through Rushmore are boorish and unrepentant brats spoiled by their mother. He and Max become close friends; Max admires Herman’s success while Herman is impressed by Max’s cocksure attitude. Rosemary arrives at the academy as a new teacher after the death of her husband (and former Rushmore student), and Max quickly develops an infatuation. He makes many attempts at courting her. While she initially tolerates Max, Rosemary becomes increasingly alarmed at his obvious obsession with her. Along the way Blume attempts to convince Max that Rosemary is not worth the trouble, only to fall for Rosemary himself. They begin dating without Max’s knowledge. After Max attempts to break ground on an aquarium without the school’s approval, he is expelled from Rushmore. He is then forced to enroll in his first public school, Grover Cleveland High. Attempts to engage in outside activities at his new school have mixed results. A fellow student, Margaret Yang, tries to engage Max, but he pays little attention to her. Rosemary and Blume attempt to support him in his new school. Attempts to engage in outside activities at his new school have mixed results. A fellow student, Margaret Yang, tries to engage Max, but he pays little attention to her. Rosemary and Blume attempt to support him in his new school.
Eventually, Max’s friend Dirk discovers the relationship between Rosemary and Blume and informs Max as payback for a rumor Max started about his mother. Max and Blume go from being friends to mortal enemies, and they engage in back-and-forth acts of revenge. Max informs Blume’s wife of her husband’s affair, thus ending their marriage. Max then puts bees in Blume’s hotel room, then Blume destroys Max’s bicycle with his car. Max cuts the brake lines on Blume’s car, for which he is arrested. Max eventually gives up and explains to Blume that revenge no longer matters because even if he (Max) wins, Rosemary still would love Blume. Max becomes depressed and stops attending school. He cuts himself off from the world and works as an apprentice at his father’s barber shop. One day, Dirk stops by the shop to apologize to Max and bring him a Christmas present. Dirk suggests Max see his old headmaster in the hospital, knowing Blume will be there. Max and Blume meet and are cordial, and Max finds out that Rosemary broke up with Blume. He also manages to bring Dr. Guggenheim out of his coma. Max begins to apply himself in school again. He also develops a friendship with Margaret Yang, whom he casts in one of his plays. Max takes his final shot at Rosemary by pretending to be injured in car accident, soliciting her affection. When she discovers that Max’s injuries are fake, he is rebuffed again. Max makes it his new mission to win Rosemary back for Blume. His first attempt is unsuccessful, but then he invites both Herman and Rosemary to the performance of a play he wrote, making sure they will be sitting together. In the end, she and Blume appear to reconcile. Max and Margaret Yang also become a couple. Max and Rosemary look at each other enigmatically as they share a dance at the play’s wrap party.
Royal Tenenbaum explains to his three children, Chas, Margot, and Richie, that he and his wife, Etheline, are separating. Each of the Tenenbaum children achieved great success at a very young age. Chas is a math and business genius, from whom Royal steals money. Margot, who was adopted by the Tenenbaums, was awarded a grant for a play that she wrote in the ninth grade. Richie is a tennis prodigy and artist. He expresses his love for adopted sister Margot through many paintings. Royal takes him on regular outings, to which neither of the other children are invited. Eli Cash is the Tenenbaums’ neighbor, and Richie’s best friend. Twenty-two years later, Royal is kicked out of the hotel he has been living in. Meanwhile, all of the Tenenbaum children are in a post-success slump. Richie is traveling the world in a cruise ship following a breakdown; he writes a letter to Eli saying that he is in love with Margot. Chas has become extremely overprotective of his two sons, Ari and Uzi, following his wife Rachael’s death in a plane crash. Margot is married to neurologist Raleigh St. Clair, from whom she hides her smoking and her checkered past. Raleigh is conducting research on a subject named Dudley Heinsbergen. Meanwhile, Etheline’s longtime accountant, Henry Sherman, proposes to her. Given the news that Etheline is considering marrying Henry, Royal devises a plan to convince Etheline that he has stomach cancer in order to win her and his children’s affections back. He tells Etheline of his illness, moves in, and sets up medical equipment in Richie’s room. Etheline calls each of her children home. Royal learns of Chas’ overprotective nature and decides to take his grandsons out on an adventure involving shoplifting and dog fighting. Upon their return, Chas berates him for endangering his boys. Royal accuses Chas of having a nervous breakdown. Eli, with whom Margot has been having an affair, tells her that Richie loves her. Royal discovers the affair and objects to Margot’s treatment of Raleigh, who confides to Richie his suspicions of Margot. He and Richie hire a private investigator to spy on her.
Henry investigates Royal’s cancer claim and discovers the hospital had closed years before, his doctor is fake, and that his cancer medication is just Tic Tacs. He then confronts Pagoda, and gathers the whole family to tell them what he’s discovered; after which, Royal and Pagoda leave. Richie and Raleigh get the private eye’s report on Margot, which reveals her history of smoking and sexual promiscuity, including her first marriage to a Jamaican recording artist. While Raleigh only comments on her smoking, Richie takes the news much harder. He goes into the bathroom, shaves off his beard and most of his hair, and calmly slits his wrists. Dudley finds him in a pool of blood, and Raleigh rushes him to the hospital. Soon after, as the Tenenbaums sit in the waiting room, Raleigh confronts Margot before leaving. Later, Richie escapes the hospital and meets with Margot. They share with each other their secret love and kiss. Royal decides that he wants Etheline to be happy and has arranged for the two of them to be divorced. Before Henry and Etheline’s wedding, Eli, high on mescaline, crashes his car into the side of the house, narrowly missing Ari and Uzi, whom Royal moves out of the way. However, the boys’ dog, Buckley, is killed in the crash. Enraged, Chas chases Eli through the house; when he catches up to him, the two wrestle to the ground. Eli realizes that he needs serious help and Chas agrees that he needs help as well. Chas thanks Royal for saving his sons and buying a Dalmatian named Sparkplug off the firemen, to replace Buckley. Forty-eight hours later, Etheline and Henry are married in a judge’s chambers. Some time later, Margot releases a new play based on her family. Raleigh publishes a book on Dudley’s condition, Eli checks himself into rehab in North Dakota, and Richie starts a junior tennis program. Royal has a heart attack and dies at the age of 68, with Chas as the only witness. The family attends his funeral and leave together after the service. Royal’s epitaph reads that he “Died tragically rescuing his family from the wreckage of a destroyed sinking battleship.”
While oceanographer and documentarian Steve Zissou is working on his latest documentary at sea, his best friend Esteban du Plantier is eaten by a creature Zissou describes as a “Jaguar shark.” For his next project, Zissou is determined to document the shark’s destruction. The crew aboard Zissou’s research vessel Belafonte includes Pelé dos Santos, a safety expert and Brazilian musician who sings David Bowie songs in Portuguese, and Klaus Daimler, the German second-in-command who viewed Zissou and Esteban as father figures. Minor crew members include Vikram Ray, a cameraman, described in Zissou’s film documentary as a man “born on the Ganges”; Bobby Ogata, a frogman who is usually seen eating; Vladimir Wolodarsky, original score composer; Renzo Pietro, screen editor; and Anne-Marie Sakowitz, script girl, who is often topless. “Team Zissou” also includes a pack of unpaid college interns from the fictional University of North Alaska. Ned Plimpton is a polite Southern gentleman whose mother has recently died. He believes that Zissou is his father. After they meet at a film premiere, Ned takes a break from his job as an airline pilot in Kentucky to join Zissou’s crew. As no one else will finance the latest documentary, Ned agrees to support the new film with his inheritance. A reporter, Jane Winslett-Richardson, comes to chronicle the voyage. She is also pregnant with her married boss’s child. A rivalry develops between Ned and Zissou, both infatuated with Jane. Klaus also is envious of the attention Zissou pays to Ned. On their mission to find the Jaguar shark, the Belafonte crew has to deal with an attack by pirates. Sakowitz, along with all but one of the interns, jumps ship after the raid. The interns who leave receive “incomplete” grades for the course. The Belafonte crew launches a sneak attack on the pirates to retrieve their money and rescue a “bond company stooge”,
Bill Ubell, who had been hired by Zissou’s producer Oseary Drakoulias. They also discover and rescue Zissou’s nemesis, Alistair Hennessey, who is successful, suave, and rich, and was once married to Zissou’s wife Eleanor. The crew is pursued by the pirates, escaping to the Belafonte on a fishing boat. They are forced to leave behind the pirates’ dog “Cody” that Steve befriended after the pirates left it behind on the Belafonte earlier. While searching for the shark, the ship’s helicopter crashes, injuring Zissou and fatally injuring Ned. A puzzled Eleanor reveals to Jane that Zissou is actually sterile and therefore Ned could not have been his son. Zissou finally tracks down the shark but decides not to kill it, both because of its beauty and not having any dynamite. At the premiere of the finished documentary, Zissou receives a grand ovation.
A businessman in India fails to catch his train as it pulls out of a station. He is beaten to it by a younger man, Peter Whitman, who is carrying heavy luggage. Peter reunites with his brothers Francis and Jack on the luxury train called “The Darjeeling Limited,” which is traveling across India. The brothers have not seen each other since their father’s funeral. Francis, the oldest of the three brothers, has planned their journey in advance. The journey is supposed to culminate in a reunion with their mother, but Francis tells his brothers that they are making the journey for spiritual self-discovery. He tells them of a motorcycle crash that he was in, which explains the reasons for the bandages on his head, and saying that he technically died, and wants to reconnect to his brothers. His brothers are not convinced of this, and get annoyed with Francis’ controlling behaviour such as choosing from the menu for them or making their decisions without their input, which turns out to be a trait inherited from their mother. It is clear that the three do not really trust one another (Jack plans to leave the trip early, Peter is hiding the fact that his wife is pregnant). With his assistant Brendan’s help, Francis draws up an itinerary for the trip and takes his brothers’ passports to prevent them from getting off the train too early. The youngest Whitman, Jack, has written a short story which is similar to his own life, but he denies the similarities. He obsessively listens to the messages on his ex-girlfriend’s answering machine at every train stop. Moreover, he has a fling with the train’s stewardess Rita, whom Francis nicknames “Sweet Lime” for the drinks she offers. Peter, the middle brother, justifies his keeping many of his late father’s possessions (his glasses, his keys) by claiming that he was their father’s favorite. His wife, Alice, is expecting a baby, but Peter fears that their relationship may end in divorce. n their trips through the Indian provinces, Francis has one of his loafers stolen by a shoe-shine boy; Peter buys a cobra, which later escapes from its transport container. This escape results in the brothers being confined to their cabins in the train. Francis and Peter get into a fight over the latter being their father’s “favorite” and Jack uses pepper spray, trying to stop the fight.
The train’s Chief Steward, whom the three brothers have repeatedly annoyed, throws the three of them off the train with all their luggage. Jack is sad to leave Rita, who did not want to carry on her relationship with him before. She asks him what is wrong with him, and he replies that he is “not sure” and will “tell her the next time he sees her”. On their way back to civilization, the brothers see three young boys fall into a river while attempting to pull a raft across it. Jack and Francis rescue two of the boys, but Peter fails to save the third, who dies. This affects Peter deeply. In the boys’ small village, where nobody really speaks English, the three brothers spend the night and are befriended by the villagers. They attend the boy’s funeral. In a flashback, the three brothers and Alice are in a car, going to their father’s funeral. They stop to pick up their father’s Porsche from the repair shop, but the car is not ready so the brothers leave. They find a suitcase of his things in the trunk. It is revealed that their father’s death was a result of him getting hit by a car, and that their mother did not attend the funeral. During their time at the repair shop, the three brothers as they’re grieving, get into a confrontation with a truck driver. Jack forgoes his father’s funeral and impulsively skips town for Paris. Back in the present, the Whitmans get on a bus, which takes them from the village to the airport. However, they rip up their tickets and decide to go visit their mother. She is a nun at a Christian abbey in India. The reunion is very emotional (it is learned that Francis’s accident was, in fact, a suicide attempt) and the family is reunited for a time. The next morning, the three brothers find that their mother has left, after leaving the boys their breakfast. They find out that apparently, she “leaves for a while” sometimes. On the way back the three brothers run for a train, and jettison all their baggage on the railway line as they and some porters run after the train. Jack reads his new short story, and gives in, accepting that it is representative of his own life. Francis wants to give the passports back to his brothers, but the brothers decide that the passports are safer with him.
While raiding a squab farm, Mr. Fox and his wife Felicity trigger a fox trap and become caged. Felicity reveals to Fox that she is pregnant and pleads with him to find a safer job when they escape. Two years later (twelve in Fox Years), the Foxes and their sullen son Ash are living in a hole. Fox, now a newspaper columnist, moves the family into a better home in the base of a tree, ignoring the warnings of his lawyer Badger about how dangerous the area is for foxes. The tree is located very close to facilities run by three mean farmers consisting of Walter Boggis, Nathaniel Bunce, and Franklin Bean. Soon after the Foxes move in, Fox’s nephew Kristofferson Silverfox comes to live with them, as his father has become very ill with double pneumonia. Ash finds this situation intolerable; his soft-spoken cousin is apparently superior to him at sports, and everyone, including his father, Mr. Fox, is charmed by Kristofferson at Ash’s expense. Fox and Kylie Opossum steal produce and poultry from the three farms. The farmers decide to kill Fox and camp out near the family’s tree. When Fox emerges, the farmers open fire, but manage only to shoot off his tail. They then attempt to dig Fox out. After demolishing the site of the tree, the farmers discover the Foxes have dug an escape tunnel. Reasoning that the Foxes will have to surface for food and water, the farmers lie in wait at the tunnel mouth. Underground, Fox encounters Badger and many other local animal residents whose homes have also been destroyed. As the animals begin fearing starvation, Fox leads a digging expedition to tunnel to the three farms, robbing them clean. While the other animals feast, Ash and Kristofferson, beginning to reconcile after Kristofferson defended Ash from a bully, return to Bean’s farm, intending to reclaim Mr Fox’s tail. When they are interrupted by the arrival of Bean’s wife, Ash escapes but Kristofferson is captured. Discovering that Fox has stolen their produce, the farmers flood the animals’ tunnel network with cider. The animals are forced into the sewers, and Fox learns that the farmers plan to use Kristofferson to lure him into
an ambush. The animals are confronted by Rat, Bean’s security guard. After a struggle with Fox leaves him mortally wounded, Rat divulges Kristofferson’s location before he dies. Fox asks the farmers for a meeting in town near the sewer hub; he will surrender in exchange for Kristofferson’s freedom. The farmers set up an ambush, but Fox and the others anticipate it and launch a counterattack. Fox, Ash and Kylie slip into Bean’s farm. A much-matured Ash frees Kristofferson and braves enemy fire to release a rabid beagle named Spitz to keep the farmers at bay. The animals become accustomed to living in the sewers with others considering moving in. Ash and Kristofferson settle their differences and become good friends. Fox leads his family to a drain opening built into the floor of a supermarket owned by the three farmers. Celebrating their new food source and the news that Felicity is pregnant again, the animals dance in the aisles as the film ends.
In September 1965, on a New England island called New Penzance, 12-year-old orphan Sam Shakusky is attending Camp Ivanhoe, a Khaki Scout summer camp led by Scoutmaster Randy Ward. Suzy Bishop, also 12, lives on the island with her parents, Walt and Laura, both attorneys, and her three younger brothers in a house called Summer’s End. Sam and Suzy, both introverted, intelligent, and mature for their age, met in the summer of 1964 during a church performance of Noye’s Fludde and have been pen pals since then. Having fallen in love over the course of their correspondence, they have made a secret pact to reunite and run away together. Sam brings camping equipment, and Suzy brings her binoculars, six books, her cat, and her brother’s battery-powered record player. They hike, camp, and fish together in the wilderness with the goal of reaching a secluded cove on the island. They are confronted by a group of Khaki Scouts who try to capture them, and during the resulting altercation Suzy injures one of the Scouts with scissors and Camp Ivanhoe’s dog is killed by a stray shot from a bow and arrow wielded by one of the Scouts. The Scouts flee, and Sam and Suzy hike to the cove, which they name Moonrise Kingdom. They set up camp, and go swimming. Later, while drying off, they begin dancing to Françoise Hardy in their underwear. As the romantic tension between them grows, they kiss repeatedly. Suzy’s parents, Scoutmaster Ward, the Scouts from Camp Ivanhoe, and Island Police Captain Duffy Sharp find Sam and Suzy in their tent at the cove. Suzy’s parents take her home and when Sharp contacts the foster parents he is told that they no longer wish to house Sam. He stays with Sharp while they await the arrival of “Social Services”—an otherwise nameless woman with plans to place Sam in a “juvenile refuge” and to explore the possibility of treating him with electroshock therapy. The Camp Ivanhoe Scouts have a change of heart and decide to help the couple. Together, they paddle to neighboring St. Jack Wood Island to seek out the help of Cousin Ben, an older relative of one of the Scouts. Ben works at Fort Lebanon, a larger Khaki Scout summer camp located on St. Jack Wood Island and run by Commander Pierce, who is Ward’s boss and views Ward as incompetent.
Ben decides that the best available option is to try to get Sam and Suzy aboard a crabbing boat anchored off the island so that Sam can work as a crewman and avoid Social Services, but before leaving he performs a “wedding” ceremony, which he admits is not legally binding. Sam and Suzy never make it onto the crabbing boat, and instead are pursued by Suzy’s parents, Captain Sharp, Social Services, and the Scouts of Fort Lebanon under the command of Scoutmaster Ward, who displays great leadership after Commander Pierce is incapacitated. A violent hurricane and flash flood strike only three days after Sam and Suzy first ran away from home and, after many twists and turns, Sharp apprehends Sam and Suzy on the steeple of the church in which they first met. The steeple is destroyed by lightning, but everyone survives. During the storm, Sharp decides to become Sam’s legal guardian, thus saving Sam from the orphanage, as well as allowing him to remain on New Penzance Island and maintain contact with Suzy. At Summer’s End, Sam is painting a landscape of Moonrise Kingdom. Suzy and her brothers are called to dinner. Sam tells Suzy, “See you tomorrow”, and slips out through the window to join Sharp in his patrol car.
In the present, a teenage girl approaches a monument to a writer in a cemetery. In her arms is a memoir penned by a character known only as “The Author”. She begins reading a chapter about a trip he made to the Grand Budapest Hotel in 1968. Located in the fictional Republic of Zubrowka, a European alpine state ravaged by war and poverty, The Author discovers that the remote, mountainside hotel has fallen on hard times. Many of its lustrous facilities are now in a poor state of repair, and its guests are few. The Author encounters the hotel’s elderly owner, Zero Moustafa, one afternoon, and they agree to meet later that evening. Over dinner in the hotel’s enormous dining room, Zero tells him the tale of how he took ownership of the hotel and why he is unwilling to close it down. The owner’s story begins in 1932, during the hotel’s glory days, when he worked as a lobby boy. Zubrowka is on the verge of war, but this is of little concern to Gustave, the Grand Budapest’s devoted concierge. When he is not attending to the needs of the hotel’s wealthy clientele or managing its staff, Gustave courts a series of aging women who flock to the hotel to enjoy his “exceptional service”. One of the ladies is Madame Céline Villeneuve “Madame D” Desgoffe und Taxis, and Gustave spends the night with her prior to her departure. One month later, he is informed that Madame D has died under mysterious circumstances. Taking Zero along, he races to her wake and the reading of the will, where he learns that she bequeathed him Boy with Apple, a very valuable painting, in her will. This enrages her family, all of whom hoped to inherit it. Her son, Dmitri Desgoffe und Taxis, lashes out at Gustave. With the help of Zero, Gustave takes the painting and returns to the Grand Budapest, securing the painting in the hotel’s safe. During the journey, Gustave makes a pact with Zero — in return for the latter’s help, he makes Zero his heir. Shortly thereafter, Gustave is arrested and imprisoned for the murder of Madame D after forced testimony by Serge X, Madame D’s butler. Zero aids Gustave in escaping from Zubrowka’s prison by sending a series of stoneworking tools concealed inside cakes made by Zero’s fiancée Agatha. Along with a group of hardened convicts, Gustave digs his way out of his cell.
Gustave teams up with Zero to prove his innocence. Their adventure takes them to a mountaintop monastery where they meet with Serge X, the only person who can clear Gustave of the murder accusations. They are pursued by J.G. Jopling, a cold-blooded assassin working for Dmitri, who kills Serge. Zero and Gustave steal a sled and chase Jopling as he flees the monastery on skis. During a face-off at the edge of a cliff, Zero pushes the assassin to his death and rescues his mentor. Back at the Grand Budapest, the outbreak of war is imminent and the military have commandeered the hotel and are in the process of converting it into a barracks. A heartbroken Gustave vows to never again pass the threshold. They are joined by Agatha, who agrees to go inside and retrieve the painting but is discovered by Dmitri. A chase and a chaotic gunfight ensue before Gustave’s innocence is finally proved by discovery of the copy of Madame D’s second will which she gave to Serge and he subsequently hid in the back of the painting. This will was to take effect if she was murdered. The movie does not make it clear who actually killed Madame D (although there is, earlier in the film, a suggestive shot of a bottle labeled “strychnine” on Jopling’s desk) or exactly how Gustave is proved innocent. The will also reveals that she was the mysterious owner of the Grand Budapest. She leaves much of her fortune, the hotel, and the painting to Gustave, making him fabulously wealthy in the process. He becomes one of the hotel’s regular guests. During a train journey across the border, enemy soldiers inspect Gustave and Zero’s papers. Narrating the story, Zero describes Gustave being taken out and shot after defending Zero, as he did on the initial train ride in the beginning of the movie. Agatha succumbs to “the Prussian grippe” and dies two years later, as does her infant son. Zero inherits the fortune Gustave leaves behind and vows to continue his legacy at the Grand Budapest, but a Communist takeover of Zubrowka and the ravages of time slowly begin to take their toll on both the building and its owner. An aged and devastated Zero confesses to the Author that he cannot bring himself to close the hotel because it is his last link to the best years of his life. The Author later departs for South America and never returns to the hotel.