Look, it's pretty easy to find a "perfect" movie. You go to a theater, you sit through two hours of polished CGI and predictable character arcs, and you leave feeling exactly how the studio wanted you to feel. But the films of Paul Thomas Anderson aren't interested in being perfect. They’re messy. They’re sweaty. They’re loud, often confusing, and sometimes—like in the case of Inherent Vice—they feel like they’re actively trying to outrun the audience.
Paul Thomas Anderson, or PTA as everyone calls him now, is basically the last of the Mohicans for a certain type of big-budget, auteur filmmaking. He’s the guy who still shoots on 35mm and 70mm film. He’s the guy who convinces Daniel Day-Lewis to come out of retirement, or stay in it, depending on the decade. People talk about his movies like they’re religious experiences because, in a way, they are. They deal with the big stuff: fathers, sons, greed, oil, and the weird, desperate things people do to feel loved.
He started as the kid who dropped out of film school after two days. He spent his tuition money on a short film called Cigarettes & Coffee. That’s the kind of confidence that either makes you a legend or a punchline. For PTA, it was the former.
The San Fernando Valley and the Weight of 80s Excess
If you want to understand the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, you have to understand the Valley. Not the glamorous Los Angeles of Hollywood Hills, but the flat, suburban, strip-mall-laden San Fernando Valley. This is where Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia live.
Boogie Nights is usually the entry point for most people. It’s a 1997 masterpiece that feels like a drug trip that starts fun and ends with someone bleeding on your shoes. It’s loosely based on the life of John Holmes, but it’s really about the surrogate family formed in the 70s porn industry. Mark Wahlberg’s Dirk Diggler isn't just a porn star; he's a kid looking for a dad, and he finds one in Burt Reynolds' Jack Horner. The camera moves in that movie are insane. Long, sweeping steadicam shots that follow characters through pool parties and nightclubs without a single cut. It’s showy. It’s "look at me" filmmaking. And it works because the energy of the 70s was exactly that.
Then came Magnolia. If Boogie Nights was a cocaine high, Magnolia is the crash. It’s three hours long. It has an ensemble cast that includes Tom Cruise giving arguably the best performance of his career as a misogynistic motivational speaker. It literally rains frogs. Critics at the time didn't know what to do with it. Some called it pretentious; others called it a work of genius. Honestly, it's both. It’s a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve so aggressively that it’s almost embarrassing to watch, which is why it stays with you. It’s about the "sins of the father." That’s a recurring theme you’ll see in almost every PTA flick.
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How There Will Be Blood Changed Everything
By 2007, the films of Paul Thomas Anderson shifted. The frantic, Scorsese-inspired energy of the 90s died. In its place came something colder, harder, and much more monumental.
There Will Be Blood is basically the Citizen Kane of the 21st century. It’s a loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's Oil!, but PTA stripped away the politics to focus on one man: Daniel Plainview.
Plainview is a monster. He’s a silver miner turned oil tycoon who hates everyone. The movie starts with fifteen minutes of zero dialogue. Just a man in a hole, breaking his leg and dragging himself across the desert. It’s brutal. The score by Jonny Greenwood—the lead guitarist of Radiohead—sounds like a hornet’s nest. It’s discordant and terrifying. This was the moment PTA stopped being a "talented young director" and became a "master."
The "I drink your milkshake" scene has become a meme, which is kind of a shame. In the context of the movie, it’s not funny. It’s the final, pathetic breakdown of a man who has won everything but lost his soul. He’s sitting in a private bowling alley, screaming at a priest (played by Paul Dano), and you realize you aren't watching a period piece. You’re watching the birth of the American corporate psyche.
The Master and the Mystery of Connection
Following up a masterpiece is hard. PTA did it by making a movie about a cult that isn't really about a cult. The Master (2012) stars Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell, a WWII vet with a "nervous stomach" and a penchant for drinking paint thinner. He falls in with Lancaster Dodd, played by the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman.
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People thought this was going to be a takedown of Scientology. It wasn't. It was a love story between two men who couldn't be more different but are both deeply broken. The "Processing" scene, where Hoffman’s character grills Phoenix with rapid-fire questions without letting him blink, is some of the most intense acting ever put on screen.
The film doesn't give you answers. It doesn't tell you if Freddie is cured or if Dodd is a fraud. It just lets you sit in their weird, magnetic presence. This is where PTA’s style became more observational. The camera stopped moving just to show off. It started lingering on faces. It became interested in the pores of the skin and the flicker of an eyelid.
The Costume Drama That Isn't a Costume Drama
Then you have Phantom Thread. On paper, it sounds like a boring BBC miniseries. A high-end dressmaker in 1950s London falls for a waitress. But because it’s a Paul Thomas Anderson film, it’s actually a gothic horror movie about power dynamics and poisoned mushrooms.
Daniel Day-Lewis is Reynolds Woodcock, a man so obsessed with his routine that the sound of someone spreading butter on toast is enough to send him into a rage. Enter Alma, played by Vicky Krieps. Most directors would make Alma a victim. PTA makes her an equal. It’s a twisted, funny, and deeply romantic movie about what we’re willing to tolerate to be with someone we love. It’s also probably the best-looking movie of the last decade. PTA served as his own uncredited cinematographer, and the grain of the film practically glows.
The Joy of Licorice Pizza
After years of heavy, intense dramas, PTA went back to the Valley for Licorice Pizza (2021). It’s a "hangout movie." There isn't much of a plot. It’s just Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour) running around 1973 Los Angeles, getting into trouble, starting a waterbed business, and trying to figure out if they should be together.
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It’s nostalgic, sure, but it’s not sentimental. It captures that specific feeling of being young and having nowhere to go, but having all the energy in the world to get there. It’s a movie that feels like it’s exhaling. It’s loose, it’s funny, and it features Bradley Cooper in a cameo as Jon Peters that is genuinely unhinged.
Why the Critics Can't Stop Talking About Him
What makes the films of Paul Thomas Anderson so distinct is the refusal to compromise. In an era where every movie is a "content play" designed to fit an algorithm, PTA is making movies for himself.
He uses real locations. He uses real film. He works with the same collaborators over and over—Joaquin Phoenix, Jonny Greenwood, Robert Elswit. There’s a handmade quality to his work. Even when a movie doesn't quite "work" for everyone—like Inherent Vice, which is so dense with 70s stoner noir jargon that you almost need a map to follow it—it still feels like a singular vision.
He’s also one of the few directors who understands how to use music. From the Aimee Mann sing-along in Magnolia to the percussive, jazzy score of Punch-Drunk Love, music isn't just background noise in his films. It’s a character. It tells you what the characters can't say.
Actionable Insights for the Aspiring Cinephile
If you’re new to the world of PTA, don't try to watch everything at once. You'll get burnt out. His movies require a lot of emotional real estate.
- Start with Boogie Nights. It’s the most accessible. It’s fast-paced, colorful, and has a soundtrack that kicks. It’ll give you a sense of his visual language without being too "heavy."
- Watch Punch-Drunk Love for a different side of Adam Sandler. It’s only 90 minutes long, which is rare for PTA. It’s a surrealist romantic comedy that feels like a panic attack, but in a good way.
- Save The Master and Inherent Vice for later. These are "growers." They’re movies you watch once and kind of like, then watch a second time and realize they’re geniuses.
- Pay attention to the background. One of the hallmarks of his style is that things are always happening in the corners of the frame. Whether it’s a character making a weird face or a piece of set dressing that explains a plot point three scenes later, he rewards the attentive viewer.
The films of Paul Thomas Anderson are a reminder that movies can still be art. They don't have to be products. They can be frustrating, long, and weird, but they can also be the most rewarding things you'll ever see on a big screen. He’s currently working on his next project, rumored to be a big-budget epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Whatever it turns out to be, you can bet it won't be boring.
To truly appreciate this filmography, stop looking for the "meaning" and start feeling the "vibe." These movies are about textures—the sound of a dress rustling, the smell of oil on a hot day, the feeling of a steering wheel under your hands. That’s where the magic is. Go find a theater showing a 35mm print of There Will Be Blood or Magnolia. Turn off your phone. Let the grain of the film wash over you. It’s the closest thing to time travel we’ve got.