Filmography Worship: Ranking Every Paul Thomas Anderson Film
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Filmography Worship is a series where we review every single feature of filmmakers that have made our Wall of Fame
By now, auteur Paul Thomas Anderson feels very difficult to define in simple terms. The filmmaker has leapt around from style to style, tone to tone, and message to message. Sure, maybe each film of his has this certain gaze: a distant observation of usually-Californian goings on, typically with a fondness of the relationships these inhabitants have with one another, shot on film whenever possible. Anderson has had different phases where people have likened his works to those of other legends: his Altman years (of giant casts, an outlier distance from the films’ subjects, and a look at the inner-workings of America), and his Kubrick era (a focus on photography as art, an amount of coldness emitting off of the screen, and a more cynical outlook). In between these phases are outlier works that round his filmography more and more: evidence that Anderson is capable of anything. So far, Anderson has not released a single bad film yet, and even the lowest ranked work here is still worth watching and enjoying. So, what will the opposite end of the spectrum look like? How do we discern what his magnum opus is? Let’s rank the films of Paul Thomas Anderson from worst to best. It’s not going to be easy, but I will try my best.
9. Hard Eight
Unless you really don’t like any of the other films by Anderson, then the only logical film to come in last place is Hard Eight: his feature length debut. Still, the film is a solid start for the long career of an American powerhouse. It also happens to be — perhaps — his film that is the most deeply rooted within a genre of a certain kind: neo-noir (or a general crime film, if you’re wanting to boil it down even more). It is an adaptation of Cigarettes & Coffee: a short film that Anderson did (also starring Hard Eight’s centrepiece actor Philip Baker Hall). The feature boasts some major names, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson, but I’m more interested in another PTA mainstay showing up here (John C. Reilly, who was a fixture in Anderson’s earlier works).
Hard Eight is a rare shorter film (an hour and forty minutes) for PTA, but in that same breath there’s a weird dichotomy where I feel like he could only explore as much as he did here (and yet I also wish he could be as adventurous as we’ve seen from him after the fact). Not to worry, as Anderson’s career only went up from here; even still, Hard Eight is far from a bad film. Although I’d recommend it mostly to PTA fans who want to see everything of his, I’d also tell ‘90s crime aficionados to give this curious caper a try.
8. Inherent Vice
I recall being quite disappointed by Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, despite still liking the neo-noir stoner-comedy blend just enough. I feel like my initial frustrations with this film are with how unbelievably hard it is to follow: I rarely have this much of a challenge when it comes to knowing what is going on in a picture. However, seven years later, I have accepted the fact that that’s kind of the point, and that the film isn’t about the discovery of truths and resolutions as much as it is a study on characters, a commentary on Los Angeles as a city that can swallow its own people whole, and the fickleness of memory and nostalgia.
If anything, Inherent Vice is quite a bold effort that i don’t think many established filmmakers would even dare try to attempt, particularly because of how much it could cause the momentum of a career to come to a screeching halt. Luckily, even within the miasma of insanity here, Anderson knows how to make the most of what he has, including the last remnants of the fossils of screwball writing, knowledge on how to best utilize fishes-out-of-water like harpist Joanna Newsom (who, frankly, should be acting more, given what we can see here), and the ability to still have such a purposefully-messy film be as artistically profound as can be. While I still feel comfortable ranking Inherent Vice this low, it’s a film I feel like I may have misunderstood and under-appreciated for all of these years.
7. Punch-Drunk Love
In the same way that Inherent Vice has been reevaluated even just seven years after its release, Punch-Drunk Love has already experienced its full on rebirth (you can see what twenty years can do to a slept-on cult classic). Before I touch upon the film, I love that this work feels like the bridge between the two most notable phases of Anderson’s career: the Altman and Kubrick eras. I feel like it made sense to make this discovery-of-self first before the juggernauts like There Will Be Blood that would come afterward. I feel like Punch-Drunk Love was maybe underloved when released; maybe it was the casting of Adam Sandler (who we’ve seen is actually quite enticing from this film, and since) that put people off, even though it shouldn’t have.
Well, ever since its release, Punch-Drunk Love’s legacy has grown tenfold, even to the point that it has become the greatest PTA film to some. While I won’t go that far, I will say that the film is a powerfully connective dramedy that enhances the quirks of human beings in such a unique way. I feel like the film may have felt like a weird deviation for PTA upon release, but now we can all recognize that not many films really feel like this peculiar, candid production. If anything, I almost sense that there have been works that have tried to mimic this PTA film more than any other within his canon, and that really says something right there. By now on this ranking, I’m really placing brilliance amongst brilliance, so please understand that I hold Punch-Drunk Love in high regard, but we knew that trying to sort through a near-perfect filmography would be a bloodbath.
6. Phantom Thread
Seeing Anderson tackling a genre-specific period piece film like this is really nice, and I despise that I have Phantom Thread only at this spot on the list. There’s an explanation for this: the rest of the films from here on out are perfect five-out-of-five works (in my opinion), and to me Phantom Thread is a 4.5 (only for the smallest of reasons regarding the ambiguity towards the end of the film that I don’t think lands as well as some of his other works). Otherwise, this is a clear aesthetic wonderland (its music and cinematography made both of my best-of lists) with so much character analysis that your head will spin.
At the centre of it all is a swan song performance by Sir Daniel Day-Lewis as a fashion mastermind with a monstrous amount of perfectionism. His better half — muse Alma (Vicky Krieps) — is also his polar opposite, and their contrasting natures clash at the core of this pink-hued drama. Seeing the juxtapositions of grace and prestige with vice and distaste is the main draw (outside of the powerhouse acting, of course), and I do think that — if this is the final film within the Kubrickian era of PTA, that Phantom Thread has wrapped up this time period so beautifully.
5. Licorice Pizza
Not that I would ever doubt Anderson with anything he would make, but knowing that he nailed a straight-up comedy-drama like Licorice Pizza is such a relief. If anything, I feel like this is a whole new world that he can explore since he clearly can pull off lighter material also well. To me, this is PTA at his most personal, with so many ties to his childhood and adult life shown here (whether it’s the casting of loved ones, or the inclusion of favourite landmarks). What I love the most about this work is that I honestly don’t know where the film is going until it wraps up. Otherwise, it’s Anderson at possibly his most free, and it’s astonishing to see.
As Anderson is so serious all of the time, it’s a nice change of pace to see this funnier flick from him (even though even his most intense works have great comedic relief). You also feel more immersed than you typically do with PTA; his typical fare captures the surroundings of people more than it places you amongst them as one of their own (outside of Magnolia, maybe), but Licorice Pizza makes sure to make you a part of the bigger picture. The film isn’t blindly feel-good either, because all of its vignettes amount to a greater good (an acceptance of life for its downs as well as its ups). Licorice Pizza is the moment where PTA broke out of the previous compartmentalization that could describe him: if one of his greatest achievements is this film, then is he really a director of one certain kind of voice?
4. Boogie Nights
It didn’t take long for PTA to make a perfect film: he got there with his second try. Boogie Nights is a massive achievement of the ‘90s, and it’s not a film that was taken for granted (fortunately). Given its taboo subject matter (the lives within and around the adult film industry in the ‘70 and ‘80s), you could have imagined that a budding American filmmaker would have tested their luck by pushing towards shock territory. Not Anderson, who finessed this film with the kind of maturity and depth that it deserved. Clearly, he was less interested in the exploitational aspects of this discussion than the untold stories of those who have lived these realities.
What blows me away the most with Boogie Nights is its blistering three act structure, which is indicative of being a part of something before being cast out into the streets with zero remorse. You ride the highs-and-lows of Dirk Diggler’s stint in porn with all of the hideous extremities here (and the empathy for the outcasts of society throughout). Like Hard Eight, Boogie Nights is the revisitation of an earlier Anderson short (The Dirk Diggler Story), but you can already see how far ahead he got with his capabilities. His knack for balancing uncomfortable hilarity, savage drama, and all of the oddities that one cannot describe was already present here, and he would only improve with his next feature (slightly, of course, because how much better than a slam dunk can you get?).
3. Magnolia
The first PTA film to grow in legacy overtime (and I mean greatly so: from under-loved to masterpiece) is Magnolia: a massive webbing of stories and twists of fate that goes on for over three hours. For me, Magnolia is his peak film in the ‘90s, because of its ability to juggle all of its unfortunate souls in such an effortless way. Anderson himself has gone on to criticize this film, saying it’s overlong and that he would have made it differently. Luckily, I don’t have to agree with him (despite that he is the mind behind it, of course). Does every thing line up? Not exactly, but I feel like this can be excused by the overall themes of serendipity and being in the right place at the right time.
Ever since I first saw Magnolia as a teenager, I have been in awe of the long passages where so many pieces of each storyline can carry out the same emotion at the same time. Considering the scope of the film, that means you’re looking at nearly forty minutes at times of pure depression and/or tension, with so much hysteria going on at once (the mastery here is real). Then comes the climax, and there is virtually no way you can predict what will happen: a case of chance that changes everything that came in the hours (and lifetimes) before this surprise. This was Anderson’s answer to Altman’s Short Cuts, but I think the former had the latter beat in this instance: Magnolia’s conclusion is far more titanic.
2. The Master
Until two little films known as Roma and Moonlight came out, I was fully convinced that The Master was the best film of the 2010’s. I couldn’t believe the gall of Paul Thomas Anderson to make a film this based on character and without even the most simple of plots; there’s also the miracle that he got away with it. What we have here is straight forward: a battle between the most destroyed of minds (via the form of a shell shocked war veteran who drowns his sorrows in poisonous concoctions and the chasing of his perversions) and one of the most successful brainwashing schemes of our time (Scientology, known as “The Cause” here). Without telling the exact story of L. Ron Hubbard (likely as to not ensure the pitchforks and torches at Anderson’s house), The Master goes far enough to expose the lengths of his organization and uprising in the form of such an obscured perspective.
This tug-of-war of poison could have gone on for five hours and I wouldn’t have had an issue. Even still, Anderson knew how to wrap up this experiment in a way that feels almost magical: such an impossible task still manages to feel nicely concluded. Do we get a concrete answer from Anderson on this debate between the enablement of sickness and the tortured? Not quite, as we are left to our own devices to feel our own way. We do, however, get the revelation that we all need something — or someone (a master, if you will) — to dictate our own personal worth for us. All I can say is that I’m so thrilled that Anderson decided that his master should be cinema.
1. There Will Be Blood
Ranking every film by Paul Thomas Anderson has been incredibly difficult, and it has felt sadistic towards myself to force a ranking without any ties. However, I was always certain of what would be the number one spot. As brilliant as everything else by Anderson has been, I have been beyond sure that his magnum opus — ever since I laid eyes on it — is There Will Be Blood. Rarely have I ever seen an American film this enigmatic, singular, and untouchable. If anything, I have called it an anti-western since it dropped. For me, it’s the antithesis of American westerns of old in every way: the town is too small for the lone wolf who craves more, the landscapes are decimated by oil rigs, and a bitter scorn towards the capitalism that runs the United States. Eventually, there is blood as the title promised, but it leaks out like oil seepage (both at the hands of the business monster that controls the lifeblood of the world around him, much to the chagrin of many).
Not once can Daniel Plainview be stopped in this over two-and-a-half-hour affair, and that’s what is the most terrifying; he can go on shouting about milkshakes without any potential demise ahead. What we do see is the greed of others spew out around him, all in an attempt to join his financial escapades; as evil as Plainview is, you can see that many of the other major characters around him are quite capable of their own sins (albeit not quite as incredible as Plainview’s). Anderson’s adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s Oil! is a loose one, but he was able to extrapolate the concerns of the political writer: things can only get worse in this rat race. There will be blood, and it will only continue again, again, and again, as long as civilization prioritizes success over lives. This may be Anderson at his most heavy-hitting with cynicism, but I also feel safe enough stating that this is his masterpice.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.