Storyteller Wes Anderson broke onto the scene with 1994’s Bottle Rocket and hasn’t really looked back. He’s developed a signature style while assembling what’s best described as a theatrical troupe, a set of actors who relish the chance to return to work under Anderson’s direction. His work is so beloved that The Criterion Collection is releasing, in September 2025, a collection of 10 films (some new to the collection, some not) in 4K UHD and Blu-ray to mark 25 years of work. His latest, the crime adventure dramedy The Phoenician Scheme, was released into theaters earlier in 2025 and is now available on home video. Accompanied by roughly 15 minutes of bonus features, viewers who find themselves dazzled by Anderson’s immaculate production design, knack for casting, and quirky characterizations will delight in the little tidbits provided as they revisit this adventure from the safety of their home.
Benicio del Toro as Zsa-zsa Korda in director Wes Anderson’s THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME, a Focus Features release. Photo courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features. © 2025 All Rights Reserved.
For 30 years, Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) has worked with a motley consortium to develop a project that would keep all members (his family, especially) funded for the next 150 years. One problem: someone keeps trying to kill him while others try to sabotage him while members of the consortium try to back out. Ok… that’s three problems. With his estranged daughter, Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton), and tutor, Bjorn Lund (Michael Cera), at his side, Korda will try to complete the deal even if it means sacrificing himself multiple times to get it done.
What follows is a review of a Blu-ray retail copy provided by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
L-R: Benicio del Toro as Zsa-zsa Korda, Michael Cera as Bjorn, and Mia Threapleton as Liesl in director Wes Anderson’s THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME, a Focus Features release. Photo courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features. © 2025 All Rights Reserved.
All reviews are driven by the writer’s perspective, their own quirks, their own worldview. So it’s important to understand that when reading something a critic writes, they’re not writing for an audience of you, they’re writing for themselves, wrestling with their interpretations of/reactions to a work. To that end, this critic doesn’t particularly care for Anderson’s work. It’s not that they’re not impressive; they are and I’ll gladly admit that. There’s a technical precision evident in every frame from the costume design to the cinematography to the production design to the casting. Everything flows into the others, uplifting it as it all functions to deliver a cohesive tale. Despite this, so much of Anderson’s work leaves me cold; that’s odd to both feel and express. This schism of self is abnormal to experience as this same kind of talent in another director might elicit a more passionate reaction. Yet, despite all the things that one can acknowledge about Anderson’s work, I cannot get past the sense of distance between art and audience, which makes any desire to revisit his work rare. Again, my aim is not for others to agree, merely to articulate my personal perspective of The Phoenician Scheme. It matters not if you love it or hate the film, but you should know where I stand before continuing as that knowledge will best frame the context for my assessment.
To that end, The Phoenician Scheme is the first Anderson title in some time that felt complex and deep in its narrative, aiding the often-silly composition of its pieces in collecting into a fascinating work decrying capitalistic secular living in favor of a virtuous collective. Particularly as aspects of theme, narrative, and costume design remind of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957), one begins to seriously meditate on what matters in this world, if corporeal life is finite and what lies beyond is, in fact, eternal. This isn’t to imply that prior works haven’t been in possession of deeper philosophical meaning, it’s that there’s something within Scheme that resonates far more than the others. The stiff performances, the dry dialogue delivery, the fast movements. These all become quite droll after a fashion, yet, here, they more accurately convey the circumstances of the world in which Korda exists, one of cheating death repeatedly, one of navigating the afterlife time and again with soul-crushing revelations discovered, and one in which Korda’s best allies are a conglomerate of the worst kinds of people. The film opens in media res, Korda in transit via plane somewhere when a side explodes, taking his assistant (brutally) with it. Korda moves to the cockpit, removes an insolent-though-not-incorrect pilot (Stephen Park) by forcibly ejecting him post-firing, and then proceeds to crash land the plane himself, sending the multihyphenate businessman to his first of several brushes with death (that we see). What was once colorful is stripped to monochrome, what was once resplendent is now simplified, and what was once recognizable is treated as unknowable in the afterlife. Each one of these sequences in which Korda “meets his maker” is designed like a medieval or Renaissance painting in the characterization of the souls there and the presentations of angels and the Maker. These scenes not only inspire Korda to reconsider his Earthly activities, they also push the narrative forward, acting as his subconscious battling his greater angels and lesser demons for what remains of his soul. These sequences are brief, yet impactful, as they play out like vignettes staged so that we, the audience, can better understand the otherwise guarded Korda. Between these sequences, setting up a comparison to Korda’s choices when alive and the depiction of his daughter as an about-to-take-her-vows nun, Anderson walks a fascinating line interrogating the similarity between capitalism and organized faith as two hands of the same figure and that true piety doesn’t require such choices.
In terms of the bonus features, these are oddly brief and not entirely informative. That is to say, the bulk invites audiences behind the scenes of sequences but we don’t get walked through them. Rather, in “The Airplane,” “Marseille Bob’s,” and “Zsa-zsa’s World,” the audience is shown on-set footage with them setting up shots and shown different angles, but we don’t get much more than hearing a bit of comments from Anderson as he directs alongside watching the actors perform. The one interesting thing being that the cross-cutting of final shot and on-set work does allow for homeviewers to get a sense of the making of the film. Anderson does go slightly more in-depth in “Zsa-zsa’s World” and “The Cast,” but, in both cases, it’s his voice only. Comparatively, in both featurettes, del Toro (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Threapleton (Scoop), and Cera (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) offer their thoughts in a more typical talking head interview style amid shots of behind-the-scenes and final footage, as well as production design drawings and storyboards. The longest one, “The Cast,” provides the most in-depth look at the film and does support the sense that Anderson cultivates loyalty amid the actors he works with, as so many hop at the chance to work with him whether or not they’ve seen a script. Additionally, we learn how Anderson wrote all the parts specifically for each of the actors we see, with the exception of Threapleton who was selected via audition. There’s nothing particularly revelatory in any of these featurettes, which is slightly surprising as one would’ve expected deeper dives into aspects of the production design, costuming, and cinematography, all of which impress.
The one benefit of the feature brevity is that it leaves more room for the on-disc presentation. According to the technical description, the Blu-ray edition is a BD50, meaning that it’s a dual-layered disc that can hold 50 GB of data. In this case, it means that the 102-minute feature has a great deal of space with the minimal-in-length featurettes, correlating to less compression when the disc is pressed. There’s nothing in the presentation that really demands surround audio, so one is likely going to be as equally satisfied from the visual presentation on Blu-ray as one would be with the 4K UHD edition merely by nature of the available space on the Blu-ray disc. Certainly, while being upconverted by my Panasonic 4K UHD player, the colors are appropriately vibrant and detail is present, making all the hallmarks of a Wes Anderson production as vivid and impressive as always.
L-R: Actor Mathieu Amalric, director Wes Anderson, and actors Mia Threapleton and Benicio del Toro during the production of THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME. Photo Credit: Roger Do Minh/TPS Productions/Focus Features. © 2025 All Rights Reserved.
Though there’s little in The Phoenician Scheme that calls to me to revisit, I can at least appreciate what it seeks to do and the manner in which it does it. Academically, at least, one can identify the impeccable research and application of vision to create this world and the concepts it explores. If Anderson’s work connects to you differently, then, by all means, revel in this latest physical edition now or prepare thyself for a possible Criterion edition in the future. Either way, may you enjoy the work and contemplate your role in the world you exist within. Secular or not, our choices come with consequences mortal and immortal. Just as Korda himself experiences.
The Phoenician Scheme Special Features*:
- The Cast (7:35)
- The Airplane (1:20)
- Marseille Bob’s (2:02)
- Zsa-zsa’s World** (4:16)
*Features availability dependent on participating retailers
**Special feature not exclusive
Available on digital July 8th, 2025.
Available on Peacock July 25th, 2025.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD July 29th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Focus Features The Phoenician Scheme webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
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