Paramount Vantage
Paul Thomas Anderson has never made a sorry movie . He ’s never even made a subpar one . You ca n’t say that about a lot of filmmakers , but you’re able to about Anderson . That fact progress to the bare deed of trying to rank his films a intimidating task . He ’s made more masterful , indelible movies than almost any other filmmaker of the preceding 30 years , and the space between some of those film is so modest that one must squint to even see it .
Anderson is currently in the thick of filminghis new , Leonardo DiCaprio- and Regina Hall - precede production , so now seems like as good a clip as any to lionise Anderson ’s filmography the only means the internet knows how : by rank his feature film exertion from dependable to sorry . Be warn , though : Any ranking of Anderson ’s film will inevitably be ground on both accusative quality and personal sense of taste , including this one .
Paramount Vantage
9. Hard Eight (1996)
Hard Eightis the plastic film that get Paul Thomas Anderson into Hollywood , and it ferment well on nearly every horizontal surface . There ’s a straightforwardness to the style it spread out that lends it a blunt - butt against form of effectuality . Despite his inexperience at the meter , Anderson also had the Wisdom of Solomon to sit back and really letHard Eightbe anchored by Philip Baker Hall ’s quietly commanding lead twist as its soft - speak lead , Sydney .
The resulting motion-picture show is an undeniably first - pace directorial debut , but watching it now is like see a stadium rock band play an acoustic set . There ’s nothing inherently amiss with what you ’re listen to , but it does n’t quiteripthe way you know it could .
8. The Master (2012)
strict to a flaw , The Masteris one of the most technically astounding films of this 100 . It ’s both a not - so - elusive exploration of the birth of Scientology and yet another story from Anderson about two inflexible frame challenging and falling sideways in beloved with each other . Mihai Mălaimare Jr. ’s sun - soaked , 65 millimeter picture taking fills the film with some of the most stunning look-alike that Anderson has ever had a hand in producing , and Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman ’s duple track performances rank high among the most awe - inspiring that the film producer has ever captured on - screen ( a compliment of the in high spirits order ) .
And yet , when everything is said and done , The Masteremerges as slightly less than the sum of its parts . When the parts in interrogation are as astounding as they are here , that ’s not the worst matter , but it is enough to preventThe Masterfrom plug a higher spot on this leaning .
7. Licorice Pizza (2021)
The shaggiest movie that Paul Thomas Anderson has ever made , Licorice Pizzaisn’t so much a come in - of - years story as it is an episodic series of escapade involving a young son who desperately wants to develop up and a late-20s girl hell - out to on ignoring that she has . The film , Anderson ’s latest love missive to the reading of the San Fernando Valley that he grew up in , is a breezy , bubbly drollery that could be love solely for the wacky escapade that its principal get into — most of which involve them running into view - steal heavy hitters like Bradley Cooper and Harriet Sansom Harris .
Anyone eager to get something more out of it , though , wo n’t have to look hard to recognise the thorny struggle Alana Haim ’s character feel between desire to embrace her eld and stay put young forever . That battle reveals itself in a heartbreaking , Benny Safdie - led last - moment scene , which , in bend , castsLicorice Pizza ’s seemingly fairy story end in a far more complex , melancholic light .
6. Inherent Vice (2014)
A lapidator detective comedy in the same vein asThe Long GoodbyeandThe Big Lebowski , Inherent Vicewas written off by many as a minor effort when it was in the beginning secrete after the more apparently impressiveThere Will Be BloodandThe Master . The years , however , have been kind toInherent Vice . Its mistiness continues to seem less like a crutch and more like a defining feature , one that both purposefully evoke the confusedness of the moving picture ’s other 1970s California setting and necessarily dulls the edge of the brokenheartedness and horror that populates its story .
repetition viewings reveal the gloominess lurking within Anderson ’s challenging Thomas Pynchon adaptation and only make one further apprise the misty - eyed style that it simultaneously embraces and eulogizes a clip when it felt like love might still prevail . The California of the past tense seems to continually haunt both the film ’s characters and Anderson himself , and that ’s whyInherent Viceresonates as deep as it does .
5. Magnolia (1999)
An expansive , messy exploration of grief and personnel casualty set against the backcloth of a pelting - soaked , late 1090s San Fernando Valley , Magnoliais the least categorizable picture show of PTA ’s career . It ’s indulgent and at times fret , but never not spellbinding . To look out it is to watch an angst - pervade , heartache - stricken film director — coming off the breakout success of a lifetime — taste to create his magnum opus using nothing but his own instincts and unchecked self-assurance . It ’d be a stretch now to callMagnoliathe most important study of Anderson ’s life history , but it does seem to still be his most singular form .
No one else could have madeMagnolia . It ’s far too sensitive , personal , and frantic to have been produced by anyone else , and that just prepare the relief with which it fix you get up in its own consuming convolution of emotion all the more telling . They gradually amass and then , almost without warning , drop on you from the sky — the full weight of Anderson ’s vision hitting you with the same military group of an anvil ( or a wave of toad ) .
4. Boogie Nights (1997)
Boogie Nightsis the moving-picture show that in truth put PTA on the mathematical function . Nearly 30 years later , it ’s still not difficult to see why . A California - invigorate riff onGoodfellas , Anderson ’s soph campaign is a stylistically overtop crime saga coiffe during the rise and fall ( i.e. , move to television ) of the porn industry in the late seventies and other ’ 80s . Made in the wake of the director ’s conflict - hassle experience behind the scene ofHard Eight , Anderson travel intoBoogie Nightswith a chip on his shoulder and a desire to cement his place as one of the most redoubtable film producer of his generation .
He did just that — deliver a propulsive , coke - up portrait of one of Hollywood ’s oddest find families that sense like both a manifestation of all of PTA ’s former influence and a completely original aesthetic look . Every one of its trailing shots feels indebted to Martin Scorsese and its ensemble social organisation is an undeniable result of Anderson ’s devotion to Robert Altman , but only he could have madeBoogie Nightsso simultaneously seedy and glamorous , screaming and sobering .
3. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Punch - Drunk Loveshouldn’t be as good as it is . It ’s an unflinchingly sweet other 2000s rom - com that star Adam Sandler in a function that , at the time , many presumed he could never pull off . At every turn , though , Punch - Drunk Lovedefies expectation . PTA has repeatedly said that the motion-picture show was inspired by his own , coincidental consumption of classic Astaire and Rogers musical comedy and Sandler ’s mid-1990s comedy , and you canfeelthat .
The film oscillate with the same implicit in rage present inBoogie NightsandMagnolia , and yet there ’s an infectious musicality toPunch - Drunk Lovethat constantly propels it forward . Sandler is spellbind as its violently insecure star , and Anderson wisely juxtaposes the anxiety of his protagonist against a comic fatuity and overwhelming grade of amatory sweetness . The result is a rom - com that is alternately ridiculous and startling , and which has the capacity to swipe you up the same way that it does its long - isolated Italian sandwich .
2. There Will Be Blood (2007)
IfBoogie NightsandMagnoliaannounced Paul Thomas Anderson as a promising movie maker in the 1990s , it wasThere Will Be Bloodthat batten his place among the greatest voices of celluloid story . Centered around Daniel Day - Lewis ’ towering , Oscar - gain lead performance , the film is an enthralling , fittingly blackhearted drama about the war between religion and commerce that America was , at the very least , partly founded on . As both a battle of volition and an exploration of the corrosiveness of American greed , There Will Be Bloodis practically unrivaled in both magnate and insight , and there ’s nary a fault to be found throughout its 158 - minute runtime .
It ’s a timeless epic that visually connects back to the similarly gargantuan Hollywood productions of old and yet pulses with PTA ’s decidedly modern voice and acidic sensory faculty of humor . Its ending is one of unholy intensity , itself both a fulfillment of the hope made by the motion-picture show ’s form of address and a final , pearl - crunching coup de grâce that bringsThere Will Be Blood‘s narrative to an appropriately derange , unforgettable conclusion .
1. Phantom Thread (2017)
Many will in all likelihood always regardThere Will Be Bloodas Paul Thomas Anderson ’s career - fix masterpiece . As was posit in the opening paragraphs of this piece , there ’s not much that can be said to controvert that ruling , either . Of all the films that Anderson has made , though , none acquit quite as much unlikely power asPhantom Thread . A gothic romance about a immature woman and a couture dressmaker who devolve in sexual love in the 1950s , the motion picture is , likeThere Will Be Bloodand so many of Anderson ’s other picture , essentially a struggle of wills . But it ’s so much more than that , too . It ’s a funniness , yes , as well as an verbalism of defeat over one ’s own stubborn ways and a moving exploration of the hungriness even the most unbending of us sense to be stuffy to another .
It ’s a mankind stumbling through the crowded eubstance of a New Year ’s Eve party desperate to find the cleaning lady he do it , only to emerge unable , once again , to soften just enough to dance with her . It is , in other words , a full - full-blood romance , and the termination it arrives at is sickandsweet — contradictory in ways that should n’t work or make sense . And yet , like so many of Anderson ’s greatest dramatic bequeath - bit , it does . That ’s becausePhantom Threadcrackles with a legerdemain that is rarefied even in a managing director like PTA ’s filmography . The more time you spend with it , the deeper under its spell you fall .
