If I had to choose a favorite film director, Wes Anderson just might take the cake. His quirky films are extremely aesthetically pleasing, often featuring deliberate symmetry and pastel color palettes, contain brilliant writing and always leave me smiling as I’m exiting the theater. And if you’re a fan of Anderson’s work too, pandas, you’re in for a treat today!

Below, we’ve gathered some of our favorite posts from the Accidental Wes Anderson subreddit. This community features snapshots from real life that look like they could perfectly fit into the wild world of Wes Anderson, so we hope you’ll enjoy scrolling through the cinematic pics below. And keep reading to find conversations about Anderson’s signature style with journalist Nik Dirga and film expert Darren Mooney!

#1 Bull Terrier In Abandoned Train, Belgium

Image credits: diaperpeng

#2 Accidental Budapest Hotel

Image credits: Oski_1234

#3 Path Of Dogs

Image credits: normabelka

To learn more about Wes Anderson’s signature style, we reached out to Nik Dirga, an American journalist based in New Zealand who’s very familiar with the director’s work. “I first came across Wes Anderson when I rented a VHS tape of Bottle Rocket on a whim way back in 1997 or so, and I've been a big fan ever since,” he told Bored Panda. 

“I think what's always appealed to me the most about his style is the way he intricately crafts his worlds in a way that feels just a little askew from our own reality, but still has an emotional heart. I still get choked up by The Life Aquatic every single time I watch it, for instance,” Nik noted.

#4 Montmartre Paris

Image credits: crispchin

#5 Pink Restaurant In London

Image credits: breehanna

#6 This Laundromat/Bar

Image credits: tracygav

“[Anderson’s] style has kept on evolving, and his recent movies like Asteroid City and The French Dispatch are so heavily designed and mannered that they feel a bit more artificial than Rushmore,” Nik went on to explain. “But that's also kind of the point - he's been playing with the very idea of storytelling itself, drawing attention to the fact that what we see on screen is only a story rather than pretending it's a documentary portrait.”

#7 Room Service

Image credits: RzrRainMnky

#8 Palace Of The Winds, Jaipur

Image credits: enfanta

#9 North Korea

Image credits: Garfunkels_roadie

Nik also shared that you can actually spot “Wes-style” anywhere you go once you’ve trained your eyes a bit. “Start looking beyond the surface of suburban sprawls of Costcos and Burger Kings, and you can find an offbeat beauty in everything up to a display of neon-yellow Cheetos containers at a Walmart,” he noted. 

“Wes fetishizes elements of reality but never entirely leaves reality behind. I think part of the reason Wes Anderson style has become a meme is that it lets us pause a second and think, ‘Hey, that old grocery store logo is kind of gorgeous in its own way, that thrift shop outfit makes you look a little like a movie star,’” Nik explained. “It lets us imagine real life as a movie.”

#10 Ah! If Bus Had Been Straight....japan

Image credits: elpsrz9

#11 Woolwich Town Hall | London, England | C. 1906

Image credits: candycigarette

#12 The Chicken Really Did It For Me

Image credits: whatsaustindoin

We also got in touch with film expert Darren Mooney, who runs The m0vie blog, to hear his thoughts on the topic. First, Darren broke down Anderson’s signature style for us. “I worry that this is going to sound very pretentious, but it's a very rigid formalism that draws the audience's attention to the artifice of the world,” he told Bored Panda. 

“He does this by embracing the inherent unreality of film, presenting worlds that are very obviously constructed and not aspiring to verisimilitude or realism. He wants the audience to be aware that everything they see is constructed, and often draws attention to the artifice of the frame itself - symmetrical composition, limited planes of movement (dollies in and out or left to right, but rarely hand-held and rarely on multiple axes at once), shifting aspect ratios and even shifts between color style,” Darren explained.

#13 Cinema In Germany

Image credits: TheLordofDankMemes

#14 This Hotel (Xpost /R/Architecture)

Image credits: leelaloolaa

#15 Streetcar In Lisbon, Portugal

Image credits: yesradius

“I am very fond of Anderson. In particular, I'm fonder of ‘late Anderson’, which is perhaps a rarer opinion,” Darren went on to share. “I really like Rushmore, but my favorite films of his are all from Fantastic Mr. Fox onwards. I think I prefer his style when it is completely disconnected from anything approaching reality or naturalism.”

“It's a lot easier to buy his characters and his style, for me, when these films take place in a realm completely separate from the mundane world,” the cinephile explained. “So my favorites would be the more stylised ones: The Grand Budapest Hotel, Asteroid City, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom. I like most of his films, but I think his weakest is The Darjeeling Limited, because I'm not sure Wes Anderson is the guy to make a movie about India.”

#16 Wind Shaped Tree (Marc Alcock)

Image credits: earthmoonsun

#17 This House, And This Crosswalk

Image credits: PM-ME-ROAST-BEEF

#18 The Building I Live Next Door To

Image credits: HauntingInteraction

We also asked Darren if he’s seen anything in real life that reminds him of a Wes Anderson film. “Unsurprisingly given Anderson's fondness for old Europe (The French Dispatch, The Grand Budapest Hotel), it's European cities and environs that feel most Andersonian to me,” he shared.

“Paris and Vienna can feel quite quaint and old-fashioned and unreal in a way that reminds me of Anderson's style, while the French and German countryside occasionally has houses that feel like they could have come from an Anderson production,” he noted. “But even then, there's something magical about Anderson's worlds that I don't know I've ever felt replicated in reality, if that makes sense?”

#19 Adjacent Bedrooms

Image credits: MorPie99

#20 This Dim Sum Restaurant In Hong Kong

Image credits: TheWittyShad

#21 Accidental Isle Of Dogs

Image credits: SJFree

Darren went on to note that Anderson is a rare modern director with a distinct visual and aural aesthetic that cannot be replicated. “You can look at thirty seconds of a given film and go, ‘That's a Wes Anderson movie.’ That's rare, particularly in an era where a lot of major movie-making is being pushed towards a more homogenous style,” he explained. 

“Anderson is arguably to this modern generation of audiences what Tim Burton was to the previous generation. ‘Baby's First Auteur’, so to speak. And there's something beautiful in that, which you see in these trends,” Darren added. “People try to imitate it or reference it because it's so distinctive and recognizable. That's incredibly valuable, particularly now.”

#22 A Lone House

Image credits: Blubbqw

#23 I Just Saw This Pic

Image credits: AlexxOrange

#24 Politics In Moldova

Image credits: nneiste

The cinephile went on to note that “Anderson's movies are largely about the idea of authorship, about the idea that somebody is telling you the story you're hearing; the magazine in The French Dispatch, the novelist in The Grand Budapest Hotel, the show about the play in Asteroid City.”

“This is what makes the AI ‘Wes Anderson trailer’ fad so frustrating to me, personally,” Darren says. “Because it takes something that is personal and is about how art is fundamentally personal, and reduces it to an algorithmic piece of content. I actually quite like the human efforts to replicate Anderson, because you inevitably see more humanity in them, and that is what the appeal of Anderson's art is, to me.”

#25 This Little Lighthouse In Kamouraska, Québec [oc]

Image credits: P1ct0r1s

#26 A Train In Inner Mongolia, China

Image credits: reddit.com

#27 The Georgian Hotel. 1415 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica, California

Image credits: cchurchcp

Are you feeling inspired to have a Wes Anderson movie marathon after scrolling through this list, pandas? My personal favorites are The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, Isle of Dogs and Asteroid City. But you can start wherever you’d like! Keep upvoting the pics that you think would perfectly blend into Anderson’s world, and if you’d like to see even more accidentally Wes Anderson style photos from Bored Panda, check out this list next!  

#28 Arcade In New Jersey By Franck Bohbot

Image credits: earthmoonsun

#29 "Girl Pool" By Maria Svarbova

Image credits: Upvoteanthology_

#30 This Japanese Vending Machine In The Snow

Image credits: reddit.com

#31 The Standard In Copenhagen

Image credits: Milonade

#32 My Kitchen In My New Apartment

Image credits: reddit.com

#33 It Says "Dreams" In Italian. Should I Go In?

Image credits: Phedericus

#34 Residential Block In Japan

Image credits: Bekelele_xD

#35 Tried To Pay Homage To This Sub, Spent Longer Than I Care To Admit Trying

Image credits: Yoinkie2013

#36 Bar

Image credits: shehzad

#37 Strong Isle Of Dogs Vibes

Image credits: acutemalamute

#38 Hotel In Prague

Image credits: olaj

#39 A Bakery In Nice, France

Image credits: quasifandango

#40 These Cottages In Oceanside,california

Image credits: pp0787

#41 Maybe This Grocery Store? [oc]

Image credits: Jeffislive

#42 Radios At A Local Bar

Image credits: emlips

#43 Gander Airport, Newfoundland, Canada

Image credits: free2bejc

#44 These Days In Venice

Image credits: snjevka

#45 My Puppy Looks Like She's Straight Out Of The Isles Of Dogs

Image credits: Paper_McGibblets

#46 A Lavender Field Next To A Wheat Field

Image credits: dsalvatoire

#47 1965 Cool Scouts And Girls

Image credits: mistermajik2000

#48 A Bavarian Hotel

Image credits: reddit.com

#49 Bathroom At My Friend’s Parents’ House. Check Out That Phone!

Image credits: bewareofmolter

#50 These Seats Once The View Changed To Just Water

Image credits: andronaut_

#51 This Ship Sailing By An Iceberg

Image credits: reddit.com

#52 Jaipur, Rajasthan

Image credits: WifeOfSuncrusher

#53 This Cottage In Quebec

Image credits: ns1337

#54 Texas Track Club Of Abilene In 1964

Image credits: TryingSquirrel

#55 Hong Kong Playground By Ludwig Favre

Image credits: WilliamTorpedo

#56 Bus In Ukraine

Image credits: arhi23

#57 A Hotel In Tenerife

Image credits: Piiipsy

#58 Geometric Sunset

Image credits: cactusfarm

#59 Thought This Belonged Here

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#60 I Know This Sub Is Usually Buildings Or Scenery, But I Feel Like This Is Also Pretty Relevant

Image credits: justindangerpants

#61 In Mallorca (Ramin Nasibov, 2018)

Image credits: albo_underhill

#62 Shipping Containers

Image credits: griffcoal

#63 Lost Dog. Moscow, Russia

Image credits: grabyourbroomamerica

#64 Swimming Pools

Image credits: runtillyoushine

#65 Coffee Fit For Any Zissou

Image credits: chelsealikethehotel

#66 Lovely Looking Apartment Entrances In Northwest Washington

Image credits: glatts

#67 Thrift Store, Los Angeles

Image credits: albo_underhill

#68 Library In Tokyo

Image credits: westondeboer

#69 My Dorm's Courtyard This Morning

Image credits: reddit.com

#70 This Hotel Lobby I Delivered Pizza To Last Night

Image credits: BeckonJM

#71 Child’s Room

Image credits: Jonelololol

#72 The Toronto Reference Library

Image credits: crndwg

#73 A Picture I Took In Copenhagen

Image credits: KarlLohmann

#74 Train Station In Singapore

Image credits: akafernando

#75 My Cat... But He Knew What He Was Doing. This Wasn’t No Accident!

Image credits: lyrikOX

#76 German Bowling Alley

Image credits: Flamingo_Etiquette

#77 This Mongolian Airport

Image credits: thingsjusthappen

#78 Wes Anderson In Germany – Goth, Germany

Image credits: jstek

#79 My Coworker Kinda Looks Like A W.a Character

Image credits: mayonnaise-dad

#80 Going For A Swim

Image credits: Ceneromanc98