1. Max Fischer (Rushmore)
''I saved Latin today. What did
you ever do?''
The Royal Tenenbaums,
Moonrise Kingdom...Gifted but aggrieved children are clearly one of Wes Anderson's trademarks, and so it only makes sense to place his king of the overachievers at the top of this list. Fifteen-year-old Fischer is something of a prodigy: an exceptional scholarship student whose presence permeates every class and corridor of Rushmore Academy. But coasting on his myriad extra-curricular clubs (of which he is invariably the founder, president or captain) is to the detriment of his grades. And it's his work with the Max Fischer Players with which he's especially proud, forever reminding his alleged rivals that ''I wrote a hit play!'' as almost a defence mechanism. The above language preservation is hardly the fruits of an anti-establishment crusade, merely just one more achievement to brag about. His relationships with adults is fractious, to say the least. When the principal, Dr Guggenheim (Brian Cox), warns him of his slipping grades, Max reacts as if expulsion is an empty threat. And the unlikely rapport between him and millionaire/potential school benefactor Herman Blume (Bill Murray) comes to blows once the latter steals his love interest, first-grade teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). The fact that Rosemary has emphatically ruled out Max's chances is, to this adolescent at least, irrelevant. In a rare moment of piercing self-perception, Max realises he's ''spending too much of my time starting up clubs and putting on plays. I should probably be trying harder to score chicks. That's all anyone really cares about.'' So begins a rather ungainly campaign to win her over and thwart his rival. A school full of Max Fischers would hardly survive inspection, but there'd be one hell of a closing production.