The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun is a 2021 American anthology comedy drama film written, directed, and produced by Wes Anderson from a story he conceived with Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, and Jason Schwartzman.

It features an expansive ensemble cast and follows three different storylines as the French news bureau of the fictional Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun newspaper publishes its final issue.

The first segment, "The Concrete Masterpiece", follows an incarcerated and unstable painter, and stars Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton and Léa Seydoux.

Bill Murray also stars as Arthur Howitzer Jr., the paper's editor, while Owen Wilson appears in a short segment that introduces the film's fictional setting of Ennui-sur-Blasé.

Following a delay from 2020, The French Dispatch premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on July 12, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States by Searchlight Pictures on October 22, 2021.

According to the wishes expressed in his will, publication of the magazine is immediately suspended following one final farewell issue, in which four articles are published, along with an obituary.

Herbsaint Sazerac delivers a cycling tour of Ennui-sur-Blasé, demonstrating several key areas such as the arcade, Le Sans Blague café and a pickpocket's alleyway.

Berensen delivers a lecture at the art gallery of her former employer, Upshur "Maw" Clampette, in which she details the career of Moses Rosenthaler.

Despite her insistence on maintaining "journalistic neutrality", Krementz has a brief romance with Zeffirelli, a self-styled leader of the revolt, and secretly helps him write his manifesto and adds an appendix.

A few weeks later, Zeffirelli dies attempting repairs on the tower of a revolutionary pirate radio station, and soon a photograph of his likeness becomes symbolic of the movement.

Five years later, Krementz translates Mitch-Mitch's theatrical dramatization of his conscription, and Zeffirelli's death, for a National Playhouse production of his play (at the downstairs Knoblock Theatre).

The dinner is disrupted when the Commissaire's son Gigi is kidnapped and held for ransom by criminals, led by a failed musician labelled The Chauffeur.

The kidnappers represent the warring criminal syndicates of Ennui-sur-Blasé, and demand the release of an underworld accountant Albert, nicknamed "the Abacus", who possesses their shared financial records.

In it, a recovering Nescaffier tells Wright that the taste of the poison was unlike anything he had ever eaten before, before they reflect on the state of being foreigners in France, and outsiders to society as a whole.

In an epilogue, the French Dispatch staff mourn Howitzer's death, but set to work putting together a final issue to honor his memory.

During the closing credits, there is a dedication to the following writers and editors, many of whom were associated with The New Yorker: Harold Ross, William Shawn, Rosamond Bernier, Mavis Gallant, James Baldwin, A. J. Liebling, S. N. Behrman, Lillian Ross, Janet Flanner, Lucy Sante, James Thurber, Joseph Mitchell, Wolcott Gibbs, St. Clair McKelway, Ved Mehta, Brendan Gill, E. B.

The film has been described as "a love letter to journalists set at an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city", centering on four stories.

[8][13] The story "Revisions to a Manifesto" was inspired by Mavis Gallant's two-part article "The Events in May: A Paris Notebook", centering on the May 68 student protests.

"[14] In August 2018, it was reported Wes Anderson would write and direct an untitled musical film set in France, post World War II.

[20][21] In January 2019, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Henry Winkler,[22] Willem Dafoe, Bob Balaban, Steve Park, Denis Ménochet, Lyna Khoudri, Alex Lawther,[23] Félix Moati, Benjamin Lavernhe, Guillaume Gallienne, and Cécile de France were cast.

[26] In February 2019, it was announced Wally Wolodarsky, Fisher Stevens, Griffin Dunne, and Jason Schwartzman had joined the cast of the film.

[35] French New Wave films were primary sources of inspiration for Yeoman's lighting; In Cold Blood (1967, shot by Conrad Hall) was another major reference.

[38] A real building in Angoulême was chosen as the basis for the Dispatch headquarters, enhanced with foreground sets and miniatures in order to create the symmetry typically seen in Anderson films.

"[42] DeAngelo and her team sourced the furniture for Le Sans Blague café from various places in Paris, and the coffee cups were specially made in Limoges, a city famous for its porcelain.

[38] She also shopped once a month during filming at prop houses and flea markets in Le Mans, from which she sourced the furniture for Roebuck Wright's office.

[38] Rosenthaler's abstract paintings were created by the German-New Zealand visual artist (and Tilda Swinton's partner) Sandro Kopp in a three-month-long process.

Desplat enlisted pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and drew inspiration from composers Erik Satie and Thelonious Monk to pair him in unusual duos, such as with a harp, timpani, bassoon, or tuba.

[81] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film's "hand-crafted visual delights and eccentric performances", and wrote: "While The French Dispatch might seem like an anthology of vignettes without a strong overarching theme, every moment is graced by Anderson's love for the written word and the oddball characters who dedicate their professional lives to it".