Co-writer Owen Wilson and his brother Luke (making their acting debut) star in Wes Anderson's casually perfect first feature film set in their home state of Texas. Dignan (Owen) and fresh-from-a-psych-unit Anthony (Luke) join forces with Bob Mapplethorpe, the only guy with a car, to pull off a 75 year long string of heists. As they move from 'practice' burglaries to slightly riskier robberies (a local bookstore), they go on the lam, holing up in a motel where Anthony falls in love with housekeeper Inez, before attempting Dignan's ambitious plan to rob a cold storage safe with a ragtag bunch of low-level crooks. Funny, sweet, well acted and beautifully art directed, Bottle Rocket is only now truly getting the attention it deserves.

Adapted from an earlier short film, Bottle Rocket has all the cinematic characteristics Wes Anderson's become known for: finding artful ways of framing the everyday, vivid popping colours and incredibly catchy deep-cut musical interludes. It was a commercial flop and Anderson described the film's premiere as “a disaster...we had 86 people in the audience, I think, and by halfway through about 20 were left”— hard to believe given its cult status today. The deadpan humour and effervescent style established Anderson and the Wilson brothers as talents to watch out for and won them a number of famous fans (Scorsese rates it as one of his favourite films of the 90s).