In a cemetery in the former nation of Zubrowka,[a] a woman visits the shrine of a renowned writer, known simply as "Author", reading his most-cherished book: The Grand Budapest Hotel. The book, written in 1985, recounts the 1968 vacation of the young writer at the once-grand, then-drab hotel. There, he meets its owner, Zero Moustafa, who tells his rags to riches story at dinner.
In 1932, Zero is an illegal refugee escaping a war waged by a fascist regime, which killed his entire family. He is hired as a lobby boy supervised by Monsieur Gustave H., the hotel's concierge. Gustave strikes up affairs with old, wealthy clients, including dowager Madame Céline Villeneuve Desgoffe-und-Taxis (known as Madame D.), who secretly owns the hotel. She mysteriously dies a month after her last hotel visit so Gustave and Zero visit her estate, where relatives come for the reading of her will. There, her attorney, Deputy Vilmos Kovacs, announces a recent codicil which bequeaths the famous Renaissance painting Boy with Apple to Gustave. Madame D.'s son and an agent of the regime, Dmitri, refuses to let it happen. Gustave and Zero abscond with the painting, hiding it in a safe in the Grand Budapest.
After a testimony by Madame D.'s butler Serge X, Gustave is arrested by Inspector Alfred J. Henckels for Madame D.'s murder; Serge then goes into hiding. Gustave befriends a gang during his imprisonment and provides them with pastries from Mendl's, a well-known bakery. After extensive research of the prison, one of Gustave's cellmates, Ludwig, tells the gang that they can escape via a storm-drain sewage system. Convinced to join the prison break, Gustave has Zero place hammers, chisels, and sawblades inside pastries made by Agatha, an apprentice of Herr Mendl and Zero's fiancée. The guard responsible for checking contraband cannot bring himself to break open the pastries since Mendl's pastries are works of art. During the prison break, the group of convicts runs into guards who secretly gamble at night, and convict Gunther is forced to sacrifice himself to dispatch the guards. The rest of the group manages to escape and disperse. Meanwhile, Dmitri sends his hitman, J. G. Jopling, to kill Kovacs after questioning his loyalty, as well as Serge's sister for hiding his whereabouts.
When Zero and Gustave are reunited, they set out to prove Gustave's innocence with the assistance of a fraternity of concierges known as the Society of the Crossed Keys, which locates Serge and facilitates a meeting between him, Gustave and Zero. Serge reveals that he was pressured to implicate Gustave by the real killer, Dmitri, and that Madame D. had a missing second will, which would only take effect should she be murdered. Jopling arrives and kills Serge, leaving Gustave and Zero without a witness, then tries to flee. After a chase through the snow, Gustave is left dangling of a cliff at the mercy of Jopling. Before it is too late, Zero rescues Gustave by pushing Jopling off the cliff, and the two men continue their escape from swarming Zubrowkan troops led by Henckels.
Gustave, Zero, and Agatha return to the Grand Budapest to find it converted into a fascist headquarters by Dmitri. Agatha sneaks in to retrieve the painting but is spotted by Dmitri. Gustave and Zero rush in to save Agatha, but Dmitri shoots at them and initiates a melee with Zubrowkan troops, which Henckels stops. At the back of the painting, Agatha finds Madame D.'s second will, which makes Gustave the hotel owner. He is exonerated in court, while Dmitri becomes the main suspect and flees the country. Over time, Gustave becomes one of the wealthiest Zubrowkans, and Zero and Agatha are wed. However, while the three are later traveling by train, soldiers come by and destroy Zero's refugee documents; Gustave tries to fend them off but is killed. His own will bequeaths the hotel and his fortune to Zero. He maintains the Grand Budapest up to its eventual demolition in memory of Agatha who, like their infant son, died from Prussian Grippe.[9]
