The Most Difficult Thing I've Ever Done
Ranking Paul Thomas Anderson movies.
A few years back, Molly1 and I got into a semi-heated discussion about the best rom-coms. We ultimately agreed on When Harry Met Sally as our joint favorite, but I somehow convinced her to watch Punch-Drunk Love, the Adam Sandler rom-com-ish masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson.
Molly still doesn’t think it’s a rom-com.
She was actually kind of offended that I would even try to make that claim, but it’s romantic and incredibly funny; I’m not totally sure how else you’d even begin to classify it otherwise. She ultimately thought it was okay but pretty bleak, which feels right for something that could very well be one of my 10-20 favorite movies of all time.
And still, I wouldn’t even put Punch-Drunk Love in my top two PTA films.
One Battle After Another is quickly approaching, the new PTA movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Chase Infiniti. And if the reviews are on the mark, it’s somehow the best movie of the 21st century? I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say—I already have tickets for two showings this weekend—but until then, let’s rank Anderson’s nine features.
I’m far from the first person to try this out, but sometimes, you have to do what’s necessary. And I can’t imagine anything more important than categorizing such a masterful catalog.
And yes, I have a Punch-Drunk Love poster in my living room. Thank you for asking.
Boogie Nights
I know Bill Simmons and the rest of The Ringer staff are going to be furious at me, but I never fully clicked with Boogie Nights, PTA’s second feature film set in the porn industry around Los Angeles. It centers on a relationship between Mark Wahlberg’s Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler and Burt Reynolds’ Jack Horner, and is a relatively simple rise-and-fall arc surrounded by almost too many character actors to count. Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Heather Graham are all doing great work, as is one-scene wonder Alfred Molina, but I always feel myself falling out with the second half of the movie, especially when the movie expands and expands its purview. It’s still better than a hell of a lot of movies, and it’s pretty easily my least favorite PTA.
Inherent Vice
This seems to have become a quiet No. 1 for a lot of movie obsessives, and it’s very possible that I just haven’t had the perfect watch yet. I’ve seen Inherent Vice twice since its 2014 release and find it an entertaining and somewhat incomprehensibly-plotted movie, but that’s what’s going to happen when you almost directly recreate a Thomas Pynchon novel. Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Brolin are perfect in this, as is Martin Short, who needs a starring PTA vehicle at some point.
Hard Eight
Paul Thomas Anderson made this when he was in his mid-20s. I hate that so much. I finally watched his 1996 Las Vegas-set crime film earlier this year. And it’s kind of crazy that he immediately had it. Certainly not as flashy and wide-spanning as his later films, Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow are all immediately on PTA’s wavelength. I know this one went through a lot of trouble in post-production. Even then, it still works and plays like gangbusters.
Magnolia
The first time I watched this movie was in the Indiana Memorial Union at Indiana University during my freshman year. The projection was partially off the screen, plus the audio was essentially incomprehensible. I think I made it like 30 or 40 minutes into this three-hour-plus “magnum opus.” I tried to watch it later in my dorm, but at that point, I had had enough. I finally got through PTA’s existential nightmare/dark comedy 11 or 12 years later and loved it despite a clear understanding that it’s way too long and features multiple subplots that could be cut.2 Tom Cruise is unreal in this one, and I hope he’s slowly returning to making bold choices that aren’t just how fast can I run on this rooftop?
Licorice Pizza
Let’s get right to it: Licorice Pizza is a wonderful coming-of-age movie that got stuck in a kind of nonsensical age-gap discourse. A purposefully sticky and odd vignette-style trip through the San Fernando Valley, PTA’s 2021 comedy has some of his most beautiful sequences and stunning performances, most notably Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim as the ostensible leads and Bradley Cooper as the scene-stealing hairstylist Jon Peters. Although it doesn’t have the narrative momentum of some of his more straightforward works, I find myself coming back to this time and time again.
The Master
This is a love story of sorts between a cult leader and a wanderer who gets sucked into the former’s world. It contains maybe my favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman performance as Lancaster Dodd and is almost too beautiful, especially on the big screen. They got to put it back in theaters eventually. Some days, this is my favorite PTA movie. Not today. But if you haven’t seen this epic about the human condition and naked dancing, perhaps you should remedy that as soon as possible.
Punch-Drunk Love
It’s very funny that this movie came between Magnolia and There Will Be Blood, two epics of the widest possible scope, while Punch-Drunk Love is a relatively small comedy-drama centered around Adam Sandler doing what Adam Sandler does, except under a more independent, artsy umbrella. I find this one endlessly rewatchable and quite romantic, while also featuring one of my all-time favorite movie scores from Jon Brion.
Phantom Thread
The first time I saw this movie in theaters in 2017, I was a bit bewildered and out of sorts over … well, everything. And in every subsequent viewing since3, I find myself becoming more and more obsessed with it. Like Punch-Drunk Love, it’s about the dynamics of a relationship and what two individuals put into it. Unlike Punch-Drunk Love, it’s set in 1950s London and stars Daniel Day-Lewis as a renowned dressmaker. It’s overwhelmingly romantic, perhaps PTA’s funniest movie and has one of the best endings in recent moviemaking. Truly remarkable.
There Will Be Blood
Oh, wow. There Will Be Blood. What a bold pick. Crazy that I would choose the Daniel Day-Lewis 2007 silver miner-turned-oilman epic, frequently labeled as one of the best movies of the century. And yet, sometimes, things are beloved for a reason. The lead performance is an all-timer, as is the haunting score, the pitch-perfect script adapted from the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair, Paul Dano as Paul and Eli Sunday and basically everything else. I saw this one in theaters a handful of years ago, after only seeing it on various televisions, and it’s just as good as movies get.
I don’t know why PTA would continue to make movies after this one, but, damn, I’m glad he didn’t stop there.
Most of the William H. Macy stuff does nothing for me.
at least four times