The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar cast: Who’s who in Wes Anderson’s Netflix short

After giving us a stop-motion Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009, cinema’s most immaculately-framed filmmaker Wes Anderson is revisiting Roald Dahl for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.

While his first detour into Dahl’s world took the form of a full feature film, his latest adaptation is more condensed, lasting just 39 minutes.

However, what it lacks in screentime it more than makes up for with starry names, with a roster of familiar Anderson faces and a few new ones joining him for a mini-detour into Dahl’s delightful universe.

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Here’s everything you need to know about The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, including its plot, cast and trailer details.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar release date

Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is streaming on Netflix now, following a glitzy premiere screening at the Venice International Film Festival in early September.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar plot

The title of Anderson’s new Dahl adaptation is actually the name of a collection of short stories penned by the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author that was originally released in 1977 under the title The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.

The ‘Six More’ part refers to the other mini adventures featured in the anthology. These include The Boy Who Talked With Animals, The Hitch-Hiker, The Mildenhall Treasure, The Swan, Lucky Break and A Piece of Cake.

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It’s the book’s titular adventure that Anderson is focusing on here and as you might expect from Dahl’s whimsical work, its story is a mixture of childlike wonder, adult stakes and plenty of flights of fancy — elements that align quite nicely with Anderson’s oeuvre.

The original short follows the eponymous Henry Sugar, a gambling man who learns of a mystical stranger with the ability to “see without losing his eyes.” Instantly intrigued, Sugar decides to track this unusual individual down and learn his skill only to quickly discover that he has long since died.

Fortunately, this magical man left a book detailing his methods for seeing through various objects and when Sugar discovers this he decides to learn the skill for himself in order to cheat at card games and make lots of money.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar cast

Benedict Cumberbatch finally joins Anderson’s growing ensemble of frequently-used actors in his new short, taking the lead as titular hero Henry Sugar — a man determined to learn how to “see without using his eyes.”

The Sherlock star is joined by an ensemble cast of stars, many of whom have worked with Anderson before. Ralph Fiennes, star of Anderson's 2014 feature The Grand Budapest Hotel, plays Roald Dahl who narrates the story before passing things over to Cumberbatch's Sugar who leads us through the adventure. Fiennes also appears to be playing a policeman in the film too.

Flashing back into the story we meet Dev Patel’s Dr. Chatterjee, a young man who meets Sir Ben Kingsley’s mystical stranger Imdad Khan, the man who can see through solid objects.

Meanwhile, Anderson’s recent Asteroid City stand-out Rupert Friend joins the cast as a character named Claud, with Submarine director Richard Ayoade appearing as Dr. Marshall.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar will be accompanied by three more Dahl shorts, each directed by Anderson, that will drop onto Netflix in the days following Sugar's debut.

Expect The Swan, starring Friend, Asa Jennings and Fiennes’ Dahl on 28 September, The Ratcatcher featuring Fiennes, Ayoade and Friend on 29 September and Poison, which will bring Fiennes back together with Cumberbatch, Patel and Kingsley, from 30 September.

While these are all short films, they apparently won’t be as long as The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, with each featuring a runtime of around 17 minutes.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar trailer

Netflix dropped the first trailer for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar in mid-September in all of its colour-blocked glory.

Amid plenty of Anderson camera pans we meet a range of characters that are integral to Sugar’s unusual journey, with Cumberbatch talking us through the action in chunks of rapid-fire dialogue. Watch it below:

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is streaming on Netflix now.