Wes finally wins
Houston-born filmmaker Wes Anderson wins first Oscar for Netflix short
![Wes Anderson Oscar Academy Awards](https://houston.culturemap.com/media-library/wes-anderson-oscar-academy-awards.jpg?id=51704850&width=2000&height=1500&quality=65&coordinates=0%2C0%2C334%2C0)
Wes Anderson seen at the 2018 Academy Awards.
One of Houston’s own snagged some sweet Oscar gold last night: Wes Anderson.
The 54-year-old filmmaker won his first Academy Award during the 96th annual telecast, picking up the Best Live Action Short statuette for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes. Although he released a full-length film in 2023 titled Asteroid City, Sugar is one of four short-film adaptations of Roald Dahl stories he directed for Netflix last year. (Anderson was too busy working on his next film to attend the ceremony, prompting host Jimmy Kimmel to joke that "he's home building a diorama made of corduroy.")
Anderson has been previously nominated seven times for five of his features. He and Owen Wilson got a Best Original Screenplay nomination in 2002 for The Royal Tenenbaums. Eight years later, he scored his first nomination in the Best Animated Feature category with his first animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox (another Dahl adaptation). In 2013, he got another Best Original Screenplay nod for Moonrise Kingdom. Two years later, he got three nominations — Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay — for The Grand Budapest Hotel. And he received another Best Animated Feature nomination in 2019 for Isle of Dogs.
Although Anderson diehards might be upset that a filmmaker with years of acclaimed, full-length features under his belt has won an Oscar for a 39-minute film, Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday feels that winning the award couldn’t be more apt. “After all, Anderson’s astonishing debut film, 1996’s Bottle Rocket, started life as a short,” Hornaday wrote, adding “the movie world’s most punctilious miniaturist couldn’t have found a better showcase for his exactingly detailed gifts.”
Anderson famously grew up in Houston and graduated from St. John’s School in River Oaks in 1987. His 1998 movie Rushmore included scenes filmed on the St. John’s campus as well as its Memorial-area rival The Kinkaid School. From there, he attended the University of Texas, where he and Owen Wilson became friends, roommates, and collaborators. He now lives in Paris, France.