Paul Thomas Anderson is widely known as one of the few true auteurs left in worldwide cinema. From his early days as the hyper-kinetic “wunderkind” of the 90s to his evolution into a master, Anderson has never made a “safe” movie.
Ranking his work is a daunting task because even his worst film is often better than most directors’ best. His body of work now spans ten features – each a unique experiment in style and soul.
Let’s list the best Paul Thomas Anderson films.
Hard Eight
PTA’s debut is a cool character study that introduced the world to his clinical precision. It follows a veteran gambler named Sydney who takes a young, desperate man under his wing in Reno. While it lacks the dizzying technical ambition of his later pieces, it’s a masterclass in tension and dialogue.
The film established PTA’s “found family” theme and his career-long collaboration with Hall and Reilly. Hard Eight remains an honorable entry that proves Anderson arrived on the scene with his voice already fully formed.
Inherent Vice
Adapting Thomas Pynchon is notoriously difficult, but Anderson leaned into the chaos. This “stoner noir” stars Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello, a private investigator navigating a hazy, 1970s California. Inherent Vice is designed to be felt rather than strictly followed. The plot is a labyrinthine of conspiracies and eccentric characters, including an unforgettable Josh Brolin.
While some viewers found the narrative frustratingly confusing, the film is a lush, melancholic eulogy for the hippie era. It’s PTA’s most overtly comedic work, blending slapstick with a deep, soulful sadness about the “Golden Fang” of capitalism devouring the American counterculture.
Licorice Pizza
A sun-drenched, episodic trip through the San Fernando Valley in 1973, Licorice Pizza is perhaps Anderson’s most joyful film. It centers on the unusual, push-and-pull relationship between 15-year-old Gary Valentine and 25-year-old Alana Kane.
The film is a series of vignettes – running from movie sets to waterbed deliveries – that capture the frantic energy of youth. It features appearances from Bradley Cooper and Sean Penn, but the heart of the movie is the chemistry between its two first-time leads. It’s a nostalgic masterpiece that trades the darkness of his previous films for a sense of pure, breathless movement.
Punch-Drunk Love
PTA famously claimed he wanted to make an Adam Sandler movie. Luckily, he got to do so, which was especially beneficial for him after dealing with difficult themes in Magnolia. Sandler plays Barry Egan, a man suppressed by seven sisters and prone to sudden outbursts of rage. When he meets Lena (Emily Watson), the film transforms into a surreal, vibrating romance.
The score by Jon Brion is anxiety personified, mirroring Barry’s internal state. It’s a slim, 95-minute explosion of color and sound that proves love can be just as chaotic and frightening as any thriller. Punch-Drunk Love remains one of the most unique romantic comedies ever made.
Boogie Nights
This is the film that defined the late-90s indie movies boom. A vibrant, Scorsese-influenced dive into the Golden Age of the porn industry, it tracks the rise and fall of Dirk Digler. Beyond the flashy long takes and the iconic 70s soundtrack, Boogie Nights is a deeply empathetic story about a surrogate family of misfits.
Every member of the cast – from Burt Reynolds to Julianne Moore – is iconic. It balances the high of the disco era with the devastating low of the 80s drug scene, creating a tragicomic epic.
The Master
A haunting, enigmatic look at the relationship between a traumatized WWII veteran (Joaquin Phoenix) and a charismatic cult leader (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The Master is a visual beauty, shot on 70mm, and features some of the best actors of the 21st century.
It doesn’t offer easy answers about the “Cause” or its leader’s motives. Instead, it focuses on the animalistic struggle of Phoenix’s Freddie Quell to find a home. The film is cold, beautiful, and deeply psychological, exploring how we enslave ourselves to others in a desperate attempt to be civilized.
There Will Be Blood
A towering achievement of cinema, this is PTA’s definitive masterpiece. Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as the misanthropic oil man Daniel Plainview is the stuff of legend – a terrifying portrait of greed and isolation. The film is a dark origin story for the American century, pitting the ruthless power of capitalism (Plainview) against the manipulative power of religion (Paul Dano’s Eli Sunday).
From the wordless, brutal opening sequence to the finale, There Will Be Blood is a visceral experience. It’s a perfect marriage of direction, acting, and Jonny Greenwood’s jarring, brilliant score.
Phantom Thread
On the surface, this is a refined drama about a 1950s London dressmaker (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his muse (Vicky Krieps). In reality, it’s a twisted, hilarious, and gothic battle of the sexes involving poisoned mushrooms and obsessive-compulsive breakfast habits. The film is impeccably crafted, Anderson served as his own cinematographer, and the score by Jonny Greenwood is legendary, as always.
Phantom Thread is a subversion of the “great man” trope, showing how a woman can dismantle a genius’s rigid world to create a new, shared madness. It’s sophisticated, perverse, and endlessly rewatchable. Of course, Day-Lewis is fantastic, but Vicky Krieps also showed that she’s one of the most underrated actresses of today.
Magnolia
Another crucial film on this Paul Thomas Anderson movies ranked list is Magnolia, which is also my favorite. If Boogie Nights was Anderson’s breakout, Magnolia was his “blank check” epic. This three-hour mosaic follows a dozen interconnected characters in the Valley as they search for forgiveness and meaning. It is operatic, emotional, and famously culminates in a literal plague of frogs.
Tom Cruise delivers arguably his greatest performance as a misogynistic motivational speaker. It’s a film about the “sins of the father” and the cosmic coincidences that shape our lives – a massive achievement of 90s cinema.
One Battle After Another
Anderson’s most expensive film is a monumental synthesis of everything he has learned. Loosely inspired by Pynchon’s Vineland, it stars DiCaprio as “Ghetto Pat,” a former revolutionary living in paranoid hiding with his daughter. Set against a backdrop of a fractured, near-future America, the film is a high-octane “action screwball.” It manages to be both a pulse-pounding chase movie and a devastating political critique. On top of it all, it’s also extremely funny and entertaining.
PTA created a film that feels modern, urgent, and deeply cynical, yet anchored by a surprisingly tender father-daughter relationship. One Battle After Another is a maximalist masterpiece about which we’ll talk for many more years, and rightfully so.
Oh, by the way, Benicio Del Toro is also excellent in this movie.
Final Words on the Best Paul Thomas Anderson Movies
Paul Thomas Anderson’s career is a rare example of a director who continues to take bigger risks the more successful he becomes. Whether he’s filming a drug-fueled car chase in One Battle After Another or a quiet, tense dinner in Phantom Thread, his focus remains on the messy, complicated ways human beings try to connect.
It’s hard to make a Paul Thomas Anderson movies ranked list because all his movies are great. Each of these ten films is a world unto itself, and together, they represent one of the most impressive bodies of work in cinema.
framebyframecritic 
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