Your essential guide to marathoning all of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 10 feature films

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most well-regarded American filmmakers consistently working today. Utter the acronym PTA and any cinephile will know exactly who you’re talking about.

With the critical success of One Battle After Another, he finds himself again in the hunt for that elusive Academy Award. He’s come close, having previously been nominated for 11 Oscars, including three times as best director.

One Battle After Another is Anderson’s most commercially accessible release in a career full of ambitious, challenging and distinctive filmmaking. If you’re on a high after the adrenaline-fuelled experience of One Battle After Another, now’s the time to marathon his brilliant works.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (2025)

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a former anti-authoritarian political revolutionary forced out of hiding with his 16-year-old daughter when a former foe (Sean Penn) decides to clean up some “loose ends” while pledging a white supremacist cabal.

Truly an original and gut-punching film that entertains from the first frame to the last, while urgently engaging with the US’s divided political milieu.

Watch: In cinemas now

LICORICE PIZZA (2021)

A nostalgic mood piece, Licorice Pizza is a freewheeling ode to 1970s California, where Anderson grew up. The focus of the film is a 15-year-old boy who becomes enamoured with a 25-year-old assisting with the photographs for the high school yearbook, and the various shenanigans they get up to over summer.

In addition to the almost dream-like aesthetics and his command of tone, the key to Licorice Pizza is the masterstroke casting of Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman, the son of one-time Anderson collaborator, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Watch: Digital rental

PHANTOM THREAD (2017)

This was to be Daniel Day-Lewis’s swan song, until he came out of retirement this year to work with his son on the upcoming Anemone, and in Anderson’s film there’s an interesting thread to pull on in terms of an all-consuming commitment to creation and art.

As a famed 1950s fashion designer, Day-Lewis’s Reynolds Woodcock is a fastidious and coddled genius, obsessed with form and beauty, while a revelatory performance from Vicky Krieps as Alma, the waitress who challenges his heretofore unflinching worldview, makes for an intense match-up.

Watch: SBS On Demand

INHERENT VICE (2014)

With a gonzo vibe, this neo-noir comedic crime thriller features Joaquin Phoenix is a hippie stoner private dick who is investigating the potential kidnapping of his ex-girlfriend’s billionaire developer boyfriend, and then she too goes missing.

It’s an alluring grab-bag of 1970s crime, corruption and absurdities, plus an ensemble cast that also includes Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro, Reese Witherspoon, Maya Rudolph (Anderson’s real-life partner), Owen Wilson and Katherine Waterston. Adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s novel.

Watch: Digital rental

THE MASTER (2012)

The Master explores the complex relationship between two men – one a traumatised soldier home from World War II, searching for meaning, purpose and belonging, and the other, a cult leader based partly on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, who takes the younger man into his inner circle.

Starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master is widely considered a monumental cinematic achievement with peerless performances from its leads, which also includes Amy Adams.

Watch: Prime Video

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)

Loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, Oil!, There Will Be Blood is a frightening treatise on obsession, ambition and the win-at-all-costs ethos of chasing untold wealth, and the price it exacts on those in its grip.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, an oil prospector at the turn of the 20th century who, from a sliver of good fortune builds an empire though exploitation and ruthlessness.

Watch: Stan

PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002)

Punch-Drunk Love was the movie that for years was cited as evidence that there was something more to Adam Sandler’s thespian talents than goofy comedies where he acts the fool. He’s still a fool here, but with a tenderness and introspection you hadn’t seen before.

He plays Barry, a lonely and emotionally repressed man with crippling confidence issues. One day, he meets Lena, a friend of his sister’s who is sweet on him. If only he can extricate himself from four henchman out to extort him, and find success in a scheme to amass a million frequent flyer points from a pudding promotion.

Watch: Digital rental

MAGNOLIA (1999)

Anchored by what many consider to be Tom Cruise’s best dramatic performance (sorry, Ethan Hunt) back when he used to play in many different genres, Magnolia takes place over 24 hours in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.

There are parallel and interconnected stories that weave together tales about the contentious relationships between parents and their estranged children. The ensemble cast also includes Julianne Moore, Jason Robards (in his final role), John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Watch: Digital rental

BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997)

Everyone sat up and took notice of Paul Thomas Anderson after the barnstorming Boogie Nights with its infectious energy and dynamic story about the business of pornography in the 1970s, centred on a young hospo worker’s rise and fall.

It was the movie that heralded the proper arrival of not just Anderson but Julianne Moore, and had everyone reconsider Mark Wahlberg and Burt Reynolds. A true classic.

Watch: SBS On Demand

HARD EIGHT (1996)

Adapted from Anderson’s short film, Cigarettes & Coffee, you find in Hard Eight many of the preoccupations that would dominate the rest of Anderson’s work – flawed characters with a singular focus they can’t quite shake.

In Hard Eight, John C. Reilly plays a down-on-his-luck gambler who becomes involved with a mentor (Philip Baker Hall), a waitress and sex worker (Gwyneth Paltrow) and small-time player Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson).

Watch: SBS On Demand