Paul Thomas Anderson is Robert Altman’s heir apparent, a virtuoso filmmaker from the 1990s independent auteur boom who has cemented himself as one of our most important cinematic artists.
The director’s tenth film, One Battle After Another, has hit the road with full force, garnering Anderson some of the best reviews of his career and gathering lots of Oscar moss as it rolls down the hill.
As we contemplate PTA’s latest, it’s worth it to go back and look at his filmography and do a little ranking. Sure, rankings are highly subjective and always open to debate, but it does give us an additional lane to appreciate so many great films on Anderson’s cinematic ledger. Honestly, films two through eight blend together for us.
Let’s go through and see how these 10 excellent films stack against each other.
10. Hard Eight
While Hard Eight doesn’t reach as closely to the sky like Anderson’s other nine films do, you still see the awesome glimmers of a filmmaker veering on something special. The way Anderson shoots Philip Baker Hall in particular, a man fighting his dark past to give his warm future a chance, illuminates the parameters of greatness. This is much more California Spirit than Nashville for the Altman comps, but every great auteur needs a gambling movie.
9. The Master
The Master is a tricky film to grab hold of, elusive and sacrosanct as it is bludgeoning and breathlessly alive. It’s a film about power, yes, about prickly persuasion and the polarizing pull of piousness. More than that, it’s bookended by two weak men who will be forever bound to the women who uphold them. In The Master, the rib squarely comes from Eve. Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams all dazzle in Anderson’s dreamy tug-of-war.
8. Punch-Drunk Love
Anderson was the first filmmaker who tapped into Adam Sandler’s incredible range as a dramatic actor, his volcanic instability melding in harmony with his sullen nobility. Punch-Drunk Love is one of Sandler’s finest showcases, and Anderson wisely allows the actor to pierce through the veil at the drop of a hat. The results will leave you shaken.
7. Licorice Pizza
Growing up is hard to do, and holding young love in the palm of your hand is like trying to catch and keep a snowflake. However, we keep trying because that’s what coming of age is all about. Licorice Pizza is Anderson at his most tender, but it’s also a riotous foray into the sweltering dog days of wayward youth in the summer. A gem.
6. Phantom Thread
Daniel Day-Lewis is at his fussy best as Reynolds Woodcock as Anderson throws him to the hounds in Phantom Thread. Much like The Master, this is a period piece about male fragility, how especially men of high standing and erudite taste are only as good as the women who keep them running. As far as marriage movies go, this is a classic.
5. Boogie Nights
Anderson flexes his love for Altman in full grandeur with Boogie Nights, his sprawling American epic set against the adult entertainment industry. Iconography can be trite to assess, but you can’t forget the highs of Boogie Nights. Everything Anderson would fully embody in his filmography takes an earth-shaking first breath in his second film.
4. There Will Be Blood
Daniel Plainview has been drinking our milkshakes for nearly two decades now, his ruthless oilman’s grimy greed and icy amorality making him one of the all-time movie villains. Anderson takes a bold leap to make such a despicable businessman addicted to capital and competition his protagonist, but the results are generational. Day-Lewis cracks open the same vault of energy used for Gangs of New York’s Bill the Butcher and never looks back.
3. Inherent Vice
Only Anderson could make a modern The Long Goodbye this supremely silly and sun-kissed. As homage, Inherent Vice is perhaps the most direct play Anderson makes to one of Altman’s great films. Joaquin Phoenix’s Doc Sportello is a goofier Philip Marlowe, a bumbling good heart sussing through the feigned liberty and moral decay of 1970s Los Angeles noir. It’s Anderson at his most romantic and free-wheeling. It’s his most underrated film.
2. One Battle After Another
The new Anderson film is obvious in its greatness. Every now and then, a film comes along that just clicks so hard into place on the first viewing that you know it’s special. One Battle After Another operates in that precious space. It’s the biggest project of Anderson’s career, one so pressing in its relevancy but timeless in its electricity. This film hums along at a delightful clip, giving Leonardo DiCaprio ample room to romp around in clumsy-paranoid glory. It’s only been in the world for a short while, but One Battle After Another gives us Anderson at his most confident. It’s a slam dunk that breaks the glass on the backboard and pushes against the cynicism of the era with meaningful hope.
1. Magnolia
Anderson’s Magnolia is Nashville with frogs, a symphony of dangling lives all pouring into each other in ways they can’t predict until the sky literally falls out from above. It’s less about the American condition than the human one, a fluorescent tribute to our inherent messiness and need to be in community with one another… particularly a community that can extend grace when its not owed. It’s his best ensemble working with a director fully within reach of his immense talents. Experiencing Magnolia is a cinematic right of passage; you’re never the same after.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Paul Thomas Anderson films ranked, with One Battle After Another
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