The French Dispatch features the fictional newspaper The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.
The 2021 film presents itself as an anthology of stories published by an American magazine based in the fictional French city of Ennui-sur-Blasé. Its title refers both to the publication and to the film itself. Bill Murray plays editor Arthur Howitzer Jr., whose death prompts the staff to prepare a final issue.
The movie is structured around a framing story and several articles, including a prison-art profile, a political report about student protests, and a food-and-crime piece. This magazine format allows Anderson to shift between color and black-and-white photography and between different genres of storytelling.
The newspaper is fictional, so it should not be confused with a real Kansas publication. The title also differs from the film’s commonly used short title, The French Dispatch. The fictional Kansas town of Liberty supplies the publication’s American origin.