All Ten Paul Thomas Anderson Feature Films Ranked

The man from the valley, Paul Thomas Anderson, who on encountering a professor belittling Terminator 2: Judgement Day, dropped out of the film school the next day, with One Battle After Another he puts money where his mouth is. For the PTA fans, it’s nothing less than a festival season, and for the Pynchon fans, what is fall season ’25 if not One Pynchon After Another. Happening to have made exactly 10 feature films now, and unlike his buddy Tarantino, no plans to retire after his 10th, it gives an opportunity—both exciting and tough—to rank the master’s films, a list full of tough choices, tough because what is PTA’s oeuvre if not One Masterpiece After Another.

His films are so intoxicating and addictive, it’s as if PTA stopped doing coke and started putting it all into his films. The epic in PTA’s films are the family dynamics, friendship, mentorship and what have you, his mastery over letting the magic happen by holding shots, the ASL longer than any mainstream American Filmmaker; it’s like PTA says it’s not the car, but the people in the car that matter the most. The filmmaker whose sensibilities allow him to adapt Pynchon with such ace—the zig-zag dance of author and director in Inherent Vice, and with One Battle After Another a way of PTA attaining Pynchonesque with his ingenuity intact—not to mention his Pynchon inspired characters like Freddie Quell, very much a schlemihl like Benny Profane.

From Jon Brion to Jonny Greenwood, one only wishes more movies to have such intense act of love-making between images and music, PTA’s use of silence only compounds the intensity when music kicks in and cherry on top, his needledrops, not a way to conceal the narrative cavities, rather earned by narrative to enhance the images. The director’s superpower is his ability to make the celluloid time travel possible.

So, without any further ado, the rankings:

10. ‘Hard Eight’ (1996)

An engaging character piece with a straightforward plot, PTA’s debut that reeks of angry young man’s energy to show the world that he’s an egg and not merely a cackle. Philip Baker’s performance in the movie is a force to be reckoned with. There’s something magical about Aimee Mann’s songs blending in perfectly in Hard Eight and Magnolia, setting up a whole mood.

9. ‘Licorice Pizza’ (2021)

PTA revisits his childhood in the Valley, which means he takes us back in the 70s, spiritually in the same karmic level of a Linklater flim, a picaresque narrative which despite the very loose screenplay structure has its charms. It’s the only PTA film that has few notes that haven’t resonated with me yet despite multiple viewings. I love the whole Hollywood episode with Jack Holden and Bradley Cooper losing it at the petrol station always has me chortling. The movie is brimful of iconic songs, but the “Let Me Roll It” needle drop takes the cake for me.

8. ‘Boogie Nights’ (1997)

Though they say cinema is young man’s medium, it’s still crazy to think that PTA was 26 when he made this. Do yourself a favor and watch Boogie Nights with PTA’s directors commentary if you haven’t already.

7. ‘Punch Drunk Love’ (2002)

Altman’s influence on PTA is no secret but the way he pays tribute to the man with Duvall’s “He Needs Me” from Popeye—the film that resulted in Altman’s exile from Hollywood—is truly incredible. I would be surprised if PTA never watched Godard’s A Woman is a Woman (1961), but unlike that film, the moral of this film (Punch Drunk Love) doesn’t lack cheerfulness. Laced with anxiety complemented by Jon Brion’s score that’s been on constant shuffle in my playlist, the film—like all PTA films—hits like a crack on rewatch.

6. ‘Magnolia’ (1999)

Magnolia, the love-child of Altman and Demme, conditioned with PTA’s sensibilities, despite its flaws doesn’t crack and retains its magic on a rewatch, atleast it did for me. May or may not be that the centripetal motion of all these interconnected stories strengthen the argument for significance of that opening sequence to the entire film that convincingly—even though the intention travels across—yet PTA engages us, it’s perhaps not as thematically deep as other PTA films, it is however very engaging (and strong on emotions); the cathode ray soaked postmodern America, a cathartic-melodrama often undercut with humour, this 3 hour film just glides so smoothly, and by god if this doesn’t make one’s ear crave for Aimee Mann’s music then I don’t think anything else in the world can…(Ofc that’s an exaggeration, though I’m serious).

5. ‘One Battle After Another’ (2025)

PTA who sees not merely the allusions but actual meaning behind Vineland’s text offers a weltanschauung whereas Thomas Pynchon offers the welt itself; and as far as the “blockbusters” go, this is the flagship of all blockbusters; not a zig-zag dance of author and director as seen in Inherent Vice, but a way of PTA approaching Pynchon-esque with his ingenuity and sensibilities intact. Pleasanty not exactly suprised so much as content in the way it is and isn’t Vineland: PTA lifts not more than one sentence (three words) from the novel yet Vineland is in the DNA of the film: tube addiction replaced by mobile phones, fascist cult CAMP by Christmas Adventurers, Frenesi’s revolutionary fantasy around 24fps replaced by Perfidia’s for French 75, yet the fecoventilatory collision—the shit hitting the fan moment—is more or less in the same key. PTA avoids surfing on tangents, the stuff that Pynchon foregrounds acts quite effectively as film’s background, the foundation of the film are the characters, navigating their life during not exactly a change but upheaval of the world.

Steven J. Lockjaw, a proper Pynchonian character, a mix of GR’s Captain Blicero, (tint of) Slothrop with Darth Vader-esque voice and verily Sean Penn embodies the Looney Tunes characterization with every fabric in his muscle. The torchbearer of hypermilitarized, self-destructive capitalism, Lockjaw despite the cartoonish energy has more dimensions to him than one, not a black and white antagonist as much as white fetishistic towards black, a victim of his own myopic obsession.  The third act chase scene is the one for cinema-books. The way PTA constructs space is so seamless complemented by PTA-Bauman cinematography that only makes the world feel more real. Greenwood’s score, sublime man sublime. Indubitably PTA will finish his Pynchon Trilogy, but whether with a female lead next (TCoL49, Bleeding Edge) or by tapping into 1930s with Shadow Ticket, remains to be seen.

4. ‘There Will Be Blood’ (2007)

Four words every anaemic wants to hear. Honestly, I need not say anything about this, I’ll just say, that one match-cut in the film always hits me deep, I’m talking tear-in-the-eyes deep.

3. ‘Inherent Vice’ (2014)

The Paul, The Thomas & The Pynchon, as far as book adaptions go, this is one of the finest, the film itself is like a smooth coagulate of Pynchon’s zaniness and PTA’s sensibilities; while Pynchon’s elegy to the 60s counterculture is more overt, PTA approaches the same with an inversion, a sort of warm melancholy, looking at a certain bygone era of the past from future, a search for lost time, or in PTA’s case lost love. On my first watch, I felt a-okay with it being Incoherent Vice (even though it’s quite straightforward), the thing that registered for me were the vibes, a cherry-on-top being that this film, introduced me to CAN and Thomas Pynchon, even though, neither Inherent Vice was the first Pynchon novel that I read nor Ege Bamyese the first CAN album I conveyed to my ears.

So what changed on rewatch? Well duh, the connective tissues became tangible, but as is the case with all great films it’s not the plot, it’s the vibes that count, and I felt them even stronger this time, while one may not feel it in parts, but as a whole this thing, it’s magic. It’s an endlessly rewatchable film. While Inherent Vice happens to be the most accessible Pynchon, it is still Pynchon, and it’s got gazillion things happening in the background with gazillion characters, that a faithful adaptation would be a nightmare, PTA picks up a solid thread and kneads it into a pattern, without compromising any complexities and solidifying the zags where Pynchon zigs, a mesmerizing dance. The Demme influences are evident with his close-ups and framing. I can see why the film doesn’t work for many people; rewatches only strengthened my love for the film. It’s like those hippies say, whatever turns you on, right. The film has one of the hardest, sickest and grooviest title needledrop of all time.

2. ‘Phantom Thread’ (2017)

If I start then I won’t be able to stop myself from yapping, but every fucking thing be it actors, cinematographer (who happens to be the director), director, composer and what have you, all of it comes together in telling this wonderful story with such perfection, it hits in a way that’s emotionally so fucking right, despite the rewatches, the movie just won’t lose its charm, on the contrary it only gets better and better and better; and the chemistry among the trio of actors here feels so natural with each of them being peculiar in their own way: Alma, the catto, Woodcock the obsessive and Cyril like a spiritual sibling of Grenouille; and then there’s an entire serenade to Barbara Rose, wonderful stuff with Greenwood’s music and Anderson’s images making the most intense act of celluloid love possible and delivering the cinemorgasm to this spectator. Wwhat a cinematically blissful experience man, an unconventional romantic drama transforming the mundane into let’s say, thrilling, shrouded by ghostly atmosphere with lots of humor—would love to see Anderson doing a horror movie head-on, but first I would prefer to see him finish his Pynchon Trilogy—I just fucking wish more movies had this fertile marriage between music and images (many do, but the more the better), music not used for concealing the cavities but enhancing the images..just wow. Love love love love. Now if only they will stop being naughty and release the score as it plays in the film, for this, for The Master, for One Battle After Another, and for Inherent Vice…

1. ‘The Master’ (2012)

Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), like Benny Profane, a human yo-yo, like a ship with clouded latitude and worse, no longitude, more fractured than neurotic but a schlemihl nonetheless, ending up as directionless as he begins. Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and his “Cause” finding new answers in the post WWII America when old answers stop working, offering longitude to Freddie Quell who anything but rejects it, what he does accept is the love and friendship of The Master. The frienship is what drives the film, it has to say as much about Scientology as One Battle After Another has to say about contemporary politics, which is not much, since it is the characters that are at the foreground, while the background never converts the subtext into text, and god bless PTA for that. A film that from the very first image arrests the viewer, starting with a cool nod to supercool Sam Fuller, Greenwood’s “Baton Sparks” leading to an extended “Able Bodied Seaman” in the film’s first 10 minutes forms an impression that the viewer in for a cinematically religious experience. The movie has the correct amount of mysticality to it, it’s my most rewatched PTA film, that Greenwood score is one of my all time favourite.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, One Battle After Another, is now playing in theatres worldwide.

Thanks for reading this Paul Thomas Anderson-ranked article. For more, stay tuned here at Feature First.