“One Battle After Another” has caused quite a stir, scooping a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and garnering plenty of Oscar buzz. If you’ve seen it, loved it and are wondering which of director Paul Thomas Anderson’s films to watch next, there’s plenty of quality work to choose from. Here are some of his best movies to add to your watchlist.
There Will Be Blood
This epic period drama captures “the pursuit of the American dream in all its nightmarish horror”, said Esquire. Set in early 20th-century New Mexico, it follows the “ruthless quest for wealth by silver-prospector-turned-oil-baron Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day-Lewis in an Oscar-winning performance)”. It begins with a silent prologue as a lone Plainview hacks at a rock in a small mine in a desolate landscape (the first dialogue doesn’t come until almost 15 minutes in), and concludes with an “emotionally explosive” finale. Tackling themes of cold-blooded ambition, corruption, greed and the clash of Church and state, it’s a “true modern masterpiece”.
The Master
“There’s really never been a performance like the one Joaquin Phoenix gives as Freddie Quell”, a “shattered and strange” Second World War veteran, said Vulture. Struggling to readjust to society and his old life, he falls under the spell of charismatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd, played by a “spectacularly preening” Philip Seymour Hoffman. Anderson’s filmography is “full of bangers” but “The Master” is “the greatest of them all”, filled with characters who are “at once intensely human and also the stuff of otherworldly fables. Watching it is like seeing the world from a new, upsetting, moving angle.”
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Inherent Vice
“Part silly and part sad”, this faithful adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel follows “stoner detective” Larry “Doc” Sportello as he’s “drawn into a labyrinthine world of power and corruption” in Los Angeles “by his wayward ex-girlfriend”, said the Los Angeles Times. Anderson expertly hones “what could be a sprawling mess into something that knows just where it’s going”. The film “reveals itself to you layer by layer”, as Sportello gets caught up in a tangle of ever-more complex criminal conspiracies. It’s “downright intoxicating”.
Phantom Thread
This intimate film about the relationship between a “tyrannical couturier” and a headstrong waitress is “the most romantic movie to feature a consensual poisoning by omelette”, said Vulture. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as the “tetchy” and controlling Reynold Woodcock, who meets Alma (Vicky Krieps) in the restaurant where she works. The film soon unfurls into a “love story as a battle”, with Alma “laying siege to the sealed-off life” Reynold has built for himself, and refusing to be another “muse and helpmate to be discarded”.
Boogie Nights
“If you were a male filmmaker coming of age in the 1990s, chances are you had a coke- and cock-addled crime epic percolating within you, à la Martin Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’ and Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’,” said Slant magazine. “Boogie Nights” is one of those but what makes it stand out is Anderson’s obvious “affection for his characters”. The movie chronicles the rise of Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), a nightclub dishwasher who becomes a porn actor under the tutelage of adult film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds). Diggler builds a supportive circle of friends and soon becomes a porn star but his spiralling drug habit and growing ego threaten to bring his world crashing down. “Anderson tries to be a bad boy but settles, thank God, for being a humanist.” It’s an “amazing achievement”.
Punch-Drunk Love
Adam Sandler plays the socially awkward and struggling Barry Egan in this absurdist romantic comedy. Tormented by his sisters and making “desperate calls to phone sex hotlines”, he urgently “needs a life vest, fast”, said Collider. Then he meets Lena (Emily Watson), a “sweet, kind, empathetic and odd” woman who turns out to be exactly what he has been missing. As their love “blooms into thrilling, unique sweetness”, “darkness” also looms as Barry finds himself being blackmailed by a phone sex line owner. “Captivating” and “absolutely perfect”.
One Battle After Another
If you haven’t yet seen it, there’s still time to catch “One Battle After Another” at the cinema. Anderson fans “whip themselves up into a lather” over any small thing the filmmaker turns his hand to but this movie is “anything but minor”, said The Guardian. Loosely based on another Pynchon novel, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a “former far-left revolutionary turned schlubby dad trying to protect his daughter from a psychotic colonel (Sean Penn, in his best performance in God knows how long)”. Packed with thrilling shoot-outs, car chases and other expertly choreographed action sequences, it’s “a hell of a ride: ambitious, scary, funny and poignant in parts”. The Anderson aficionados will “love it – and I suspect plenty of others will too”.
