Wes Anderson has frequently been referenced as a cinematic auteur, as he is involved in every aspect of his films' production: writing, cinematography, production design, and music selection.

Anderson has recently acknowledged that he went to India to film his 2007 film, The Darjeeling Limited partly as a tribute to the legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, whose "films have also inspired all my other movies in different ways." He dedicated the movie to Ray's memory.

Anderson's films feature many of the same actors, crew members, and other collaborators. For example, the Wilson brothers (Owen, Luke, and Andrew), Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Seymour Cassel, Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Kumar Pallana and son Dipak Pallana, Stephen Dignan and Brian Tenenbaum (Anderson's close friends), and Eric Chase Anderson (Anderson's brother).

Other frequent collaborators are: writer Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Fantastic Mr. Fox, whose film, The Squid and the Whale, Anderson co-produced; Owen Wilson, who co-wrote three of Anderson's feature films; cinematographer Robert Yeoman (A.S.C.); music supervisor Randall Poster and composer Mark Mothersbaugh.

Jason Schwartzman reunited with Anderson on the 2007 film, The Darjeeling Limited. The script is written by Anderson, Roman Coppola and Schwartzman. Anderson's stop-motion animation adaptation of the Roald Dahl book, Fantastic Mr Fox was released in 2009. In 2008 Wes Anderson was hired to write the screenplay of the American adaptation of My Best Friend, a French film, for producer Brian Grazer, Anderson's first draft was titled "The Rosenthaler Suite".

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese is a big fan of Anderson's, praising Bottle Rocket and Rushmore in an Esquire magazine article.

In September 2006, following the disappointing commercial and critical reception of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen released a tongue-in-cheek "letter of intervention" of Anderson's artistic "malaise." Proclaiming themselves to be fans of "World Cinema" and Anderson in particular, they offered Anderson their soundtrack services for his The Darjeeling Limited, including lyrics for a title track.

In September 2007, Wes Anderson oversaw a series of six commercials for AT&T: “College Kid,” “Reporter,” “Mom,” “Architect,” “Actor” and “Businessman.” The campaign also includes online, print and outdoor advertising. These TV spots are part of AT&T's "Your Seamless World" national campaign from BBDO/New York. Each ad embodies Anderson's distinct style by focusing on a subject and having the environment around them change. Each of the six AT&T commercials introduces us to a different AT&T customer. As each of these people comes before the camera and talks about the different, far-reaching locales where he or she needs cell-phone service, the visuals behind the customer change dramatically to reflect the different destinations.

The "Reporter" piece was subject to controversy when several Lebanese-American groups protested its airing as ignorant given the complex and sensitive nature of the Lebanese political situation. The ad portrayed photojournalists dodging bullets on a Beirut rooftop while the city was being bombed. It was subsequently pulled from rotation after the assassination of Antoine Ghanem on September 19, 2007 with AT&T and BBDO issuing public apologies.[citation needed]

Anderson starred in and directed an American Express "My Life, My Card" commercial, which chronicled the "filming" of an action movie starring Jason Schwartzman. Anderson acts as if he is being interviewed by someone from American Express for the ad, while walking around completing tasks on set, a scene paying homage to the movie Day for Night by Francois Truffaut. It was aired on television and in movie theaters in both a short and extended version, during and shortly after the theatrical release of The Life Aquatic.