Tuesdays with Tom: The Paul Thomas Anderson Collection
Ranking and analyzing one director's filmography, plus thoughts on Task, Riot Fest and AI glasses
With Hollywood’s increasing reliance on reboots and franchise iterations, auteurist directors with original ideas are a dying breed. Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the last of this endangered species. Over 30 years, Anderson has created an unflinchingly unique collection of films. He’s written and directed ten movies, many of which are completely original works. Each one stands on its own, but they often feature Anderson’s recurring interests and themes. Last weekend, his latest movie, One Battle After Another, was released in theaters.
I’m fond of Paul Thomas Anderson. I decided to rank each of his movies to prepare for the newest addition. I watched them chronologically to write this. Some of these were first-time watches. I believe he’s made a few of the greatest classics in modern filmmaking and several fascinating movies. Anderson is obsessed with American ambition and the dangers that come attached with it. He loves aimless drifters searching for a purpose. He’s maniacal about fathers, sons and the tension between them. How these feelings and ideas are expressed ranges wildly from film-to-film, but collectively they embody a thematic consistency.
#10) Inherent Vice
Inherent Vice was adapted from a 2009 Thomas Pynchon novel. Perhaps Anderson is better off living in his own head because Inherent Vice is an incoherent mess. Joaquin Phoenix plays Doc Sportello, a perpetually stoned private investigator hired to work a series of seemingly related mysteries. Doc Sportello is basically The Dude dropped straight into 1970. If you can keep track of what’s happening inside this film, you’re better off than me. I’m not convinced Anderson himself cared about the minutiae of Sportello’s hazy, convoluted journey.
Inherent Vice is more interested in its gaggle of cameos, 70s verisimilitude and horny mishaps. I’ve seen worse noir films and stoner comedies, but I’ve seen far better of both, too. Inherent Vice is a pure litmus test of your PTA tolerance. If you’re cool with 150 minutes of vibes, a pretty illogical story and a series of fun yet pointless cameos, I’ve got two movies for you: Happy Gilmore 2 and Inherent Vice. One of those received two Oscar nominations. I’ll let you figure out which one it is.
#9) Hard Eight
Anderson turned a short film, Cigarettes & Coffee, into his first full length feature. Hard Eight is a slick, slow burn drama about an aimless man, his out-of-nowhere mentor and their misadventures in Nevada casinos. Hard Eight works better as a syllabus for future PTA films than as a standalone story. Everyone felt like they were auditioning for their next project, except Hall, who commands the screen. There’s a Tarantino-esque pacing and delivery with each scene, further buoyed by Samuel L. Jackson’s presence as a street-level thumper.
Hard Eight marks the first of many Anderson collaborations with Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Gwenyth Paltrow gets a lot grimier than usual as a server-turned-prostitute. Hall’s rare leading performance is the standout, establishing Anderson’s penchant for damaged father figures with complex protégés. Hard Eight is essentially a pilot for Boogie Nights. But it’s a story with promising elements, kind of like a good pilot episode.
#8) Punch-Drunk Love
Every five years, Adam Sandler drops his goofball shtick to remind everyone that he’s a thespian. Punch-Drunk Love is the debut of Serious Adam Sandler. It was written for Sandler, which flummoxed Hollywood at the time. Punch-Drunk Love is occasionally funny and ridiculous, like a lot of Sandler fare. But while it’s refreshing to see Sandler play against type, it’s a bit too much of a departure for my liking.
This is a perplexing romantic comedy. If you like character studies about oddballs with simmering rage, here you go. If you like Serious Adam Sandler, here you go again. Oh, there’s Philip Seymour Hoffman! Watching Punch-Drunk Love feels like following a Sandler SNL character home after he melts down in a sketch. Maybe that’s your thing. I’ll admit that despite my challenges with Punch-Drunk Love, I still wanted Barry Egan to find love and peace. Maybe that was the point.
#7) Magnolia
This is what happens when a generationally talented filmmaker decides he’s ready to tackle the meaning of life and unburden himself from a lifetime of familial trauma, all in one fell swoop. Magnolia is a day-in-the-life story, set in his home of the San Fernando Valley, but it’s also about everything that’s ever happened in his life. Bold? Pretentious? Outrageous? Anderson spares nothing in this three-hour grasp at greatness.
Whether it actually lands remains up for debate. My head is still spinning. Magnolia gives us a mesmerizing Tom Cruise performance, likely the last time he ever cracked open that blockbuster demigod shell. There’s great directing at times, a haunting score, beautiful images and lots of ideas. But Magnolia is purposefully painful and painfully long. The climactic twist is extremely polarizing. I suspect PTA diehards love it. I’d call it a fascinating swing for the fences. I’m just glad that my parents loved me, so that I didn’t have to make something so cathartically verbose.
#6) Licorice Pizza
Anderson grappled with his childhood trauma as an adult in Magnolia. Licorice Pizza is a recreation of his childhood era, without the pretension that bogged down Magnolia. The lower stakes and lightly biographical nature make it feel like his least essential film. But it’s his most lighthearted and wistful one, making it a nice change of pace. It completes his 1970s San Fernando Valley trilogy and introduces Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip) and Alana Haim (from the band Haim) as promising future stars.
Licorice Pizza is a coming of age story. There is a sweetness about Gary Valentine and Alana Kane’s flawed mutual attraction, an Anderson speciality. But if you can’t get on board with them, I’d understand. I’ll argue Licorice Pizza is a mostly harmless hangout movie. Bradley Cooper delights the screen in a brief turn as unhinged Hollywood producer-hairstylist Jon Peters. This was clearly personal for Anderson. Even if it’s not his strongest, it’s still a good hang.
#5) Phantom Thread
It’s easy to correlate Reynolds Woodcock’s unhealthy commitment to his craft with both Daniel Day-Lewis and Anderson. But Phantom Thread has grander ambitions beyond the obvious. It is a delicately designed dissection of toxic artists and the people who worship them. Although he’s a women’s fashion designer, Woodcock is treated like a rock star. He is annoyingly fastidious about his routines. His sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville), coddles and protects him like a band manager. His quirks are admired as mysterious and ingenious. You’d have to be as toxic as he is to ever get close. His latest muse, Alma (Vicky Krieps), is game for this daunting task.
I’ll say it: this movie is for the weirdos. It’s funny in a British way, incredibly dry, full of biting insults. Daniel Day-Lewis’s transformation alone makes it worth a watch. On one level, Phantom Thread is about a fussy man throwing fits over food. On another, it’s about the frustrations of creative endeavors and how far one is willing to go to achieve their dreams. Alma and Reynolds have a bizarre, but genuine connection. The shocking lengths Alma goes to match his toxicity reframes Phantom Thread into the warped romantic comedy it was always meant to be.
#4) The Master
After years of memorable PTA supporting roles, Philip Seymour Hoffman finally gets a juicy lead part in The Master. But he’s forced to go head-to-head with Joaquin Phoenix. This heavyweight actor’s brawl is the movie’s focus. It’s an electrifying duel between men with opposing ideologies. You wonder what Tom Cruise could have done playing a thinly veiled fictionalization of L. Ron Hubbard. Instead, Hoffman gives one of his greatest performances doing just that in The Master.
Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman) is like many of Anderson’s alpha male characters: charismatic, cocky, tightly wound, impeccably presented. Underneath it all is a broken, insecure man with much seedier goals. Freddie Quell (Phoenix) is the exact opposite and Dodd’s greatest challenge. He is crass, unfiltered, volatile and untameable. But Freddie never pretends to be anything he’s not. Freddie might be too stupid to realize he’s being indoctrinated into a cult, but Dodd is the real fool in their relationship. Phoenix delivers one of PTA’s funniest and most unpredictable characters.
The Master is about belief systems and the forces behind them. It gets better for me with each viewing. The juxtaposition between Freddie and Dodd is transfixing and their dynamic crackles in every scene. There’s plenty to chew on about the nature of religion, Scientology and even the craft of acting. This is the most extreme examination Anderson offers about people’s ability to truly change. For what it’s worth, he’s said this was his favorite to make. It’s one of my PTA favorites and incidentally it’s a great showcase of his filmmaking mastery.
Leonardo DiCaprio provided one of Hollywood’s greatest sliding door moments when he turned down the Dirk Diggler role in Boogie Nights to star in Titanic. DiCaprio finally teams up with PTA in One Battle After Another, the second Thomas Pynchon adaptation that he’s tackled. One Battle After Another hurtles forward with PTA’s most urgent storytelling yet, weaving contemporary anxieties about resistance and surveillance into a white-knuckle action drama.
In the film’s stunning prologue, Perfidia and “Ghetto” Pat (DiCaprio) develop explosive chemistry as members of The French 75, a hardcore revolutionary and quasi-terrorist group hellbent on disruption. Cut to the present, “Bob Ferguson” can barely manage as a single father to Willa, both inhabiting false identities to evade his past. They are forced out of hiding by The French 75’s arch-nemesis, Col. Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who is highly motivated to find them.
DiCaprio brings his signature star power to the bereft Bob, but the movie’s heartbeat flows through Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) and her daughter (Chase Infiniti). The fabulous Jonny Greenwood score propels the action, leaving you on the edge of your seat. Sean Penn throws himself into Lockjaw with such furious commitment that the performance teeters on absurdity. Benicio del Toro steals scenes as the eccentric “Sensi”, grounding the chaos with sly, unpredictable humor. Chase Infiniti delivers the film’s breakout performance, balancing the vulnerability of her unconventional upbringing with the hardened resilience the modern world demands. Taken together, it’s one of Anderson’s boldest departures and a reminder that even after thirty years, he still finds new ways to surprise audiences.
Digging into the earth of the American oil boom, There Will Be Blood is a riveting tragedy and a possessed descent into madness, brought to terrifying form by Daniel Day-Lewis. There’s no dialogue for the first 15 minutes, but from the first frame I couldn’t wait to see what Daniel Plainview did next. Initially, he seems no different than other ambitious 1900s men trying to strike gold. By the time the credits roll, he’s a cripple, fueled by pure greed, left alone with his fortune and a stack of unrepentable sins. To get what he wants, Plainview must become the devil.
There Will Be Blood is not subtle about dissecting the similarities between capitalism and faith. It’s an American epic of sprawling scale, shot with sinister cinematography. The Johnny Greenwood score terrorizes the senses. But the standouts are the spellbending performances from its leads (shoutout to Paul Dano’s Eli Sunday). This film isn’t just great: it’s biblical in both scope and spirit. Anderson orchestrates the camera with surgical precision. This road to hell is paved flawlessly. There’s no hyperbole about Daniel Day-Lewis’s acting: it’s that spectacular. It’s so special that he steals the movie from underneath Anderson’s nose. Or as Plainview would say, he drank his milkshake.
#1) Boogie Nights
Anderson made Boogie Nights when he was 28 years old. Even for a massive talent, it’s a stunning achievement that it remains his most assured, complete piece. Boogie Nights is Anderson at his best. It’s a shamelessly forward tale about 1970s porn stars. They form a surrogate family while making ‘movies’ for eager perverts. And Anderson knows the terrain well: he’s one himself. He expertly deploys this through Dirk Diggler. Everyone is fascinated with his…talents. Diggler is an avatar for many dim-witted actors that get sucked into the intoxicating world of Hollywood.
This is by far the funniest and most fun PTA movie, but it’s far from a farce. It’s Goodfellas-meets-porn stars: the enigmatic rise and fall of lunatics who fight, fuck, and folly their way through their warped little world. These are incredibly memorable and oddly lovable characters. Many become criminals (or worse). Once again, Anderson inspires some historically great acting from dozens of stars.
The looming darkness in Boogie Nights slowly poisons each storyline, but it leaves hope for redemption in the end. Anderson has shied away from redemptive arcs in his later years. Only he can answer for that, but I’m happy he left the door ajar. I’m blown away that he made a group of idiotic pornstars endearing. It’s really hard to imagine Boogie Nights getting made today. I applaud Anderson for embracing the good, bad and ugly elements of life and translating them through his one-of-a-kind mind. Boogie Nights makes moviemaking feel magical, even when it’s ugly. And despite our better judgment, we can’t look away.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I am doing another mailbag soon. Please send me your hard hitting questions and you could be featured in the next edition of Tuesdays with Tom!
Tom’s Thoughts of the Week
In the last two episodes of Friday Night Beers, we reviewed Little Juice Coupe and Pilsner Urquell. Double Clutch Brewing is obsessed with cars, which inspired us to break down some of our favorite car-featured films. We also discussed obvious product placement in various movies. Pilsner Urquell is the world’s first pilsner. It hails from the Czech Republic. We went through some Czech legends and other notable “checks.” Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast here and follow our Instagram page for relevant updates!
I was itching for an exciting Sunday night HBO series. You’re welcome for manifesting that into existence. Task is a new HBO miniseries, written and created by Brad Ingelsby. He previously created an HBO classic, Mare of Easttown, a crime drama with Kate Winslet as a traumatized Pennsylvania detective. Task repeats the small town Pennsylvania setting from Mare, but swaps Mark Ruffalo into the Winslet spot. Instead of solving a child murder case, Tom Brandis (Ruffalo) begrudgingly leads an FBI task force aiming to track down a local crew that’s robbing drug stash homes in the area. Tom Pelphrey plays Robbie Prendergrast, a trash collector who is secretly orchestrating these robberies. You might remember Pelphrey from Ozark and he brings a similarly engaged performance in Task. The show wastes no time putting the audience into the action. The series’ pilot ends with a gigantic moral quandary that sets the stage for everything that follows. I’m completely locked in four episodes into this seven-episode series. Brad Ingelsby seems acutely tuned into this type of story, set in this particular part of the world. Task is exactly what I was craving and hopefully it concludes as thrillingly as it began.
Riot Fest celebrated its 20th anniversary this year and delivered one of its best lineups since I’ve been attending the festival. I went all three days to Douglass Park to immerse myself into the scene. On Friday, the main draws were Blink-182 and Alkaline Trio: two of my all-time favorite bands. Senses Fail put on a memorable show earlier that day. I caught portions of sets from The Hold Steady, Rico Nasty and Knocked Loose. The most bizarre act of the day? “Weird Al” Yankovic. It’s strange enough that he would play at Riot Fest, but seeing it up close was even stranger. It’s more like a comedy karaoke show with alternative lyrics and costumes. But I wasn’t invested in “Weird Al”, so who cares. Blink-182 and Alkaline Trio were so great that nothing was going to spoil that.
On Saturday, my favorite sets were Militarie Gun, Citizen and Knuckle Puck. The headliners, Weezer and The Beach Boys, were a bit underwhelming for me. While I greatly respect The Beach Boys, they’re a poor fit for this event demographically and they showed their ancient age. It was obvious they were only invited to ensure John Stamos’s attendance at Riot Fest. Stamos and Riot Fest have had a playful online feud for 12 years, culminating in his hero’s welcome all weekend long in Chicago. On Sunday, Hanson (yes, that one) sparked some drama by starting 30 minutes late on a stage that experienced many technical issues. This inadvertently allowed me to see “MMMBop” featuring Stamos on tambourine, on the same stage where Gwar sprayed fake blood over an enthusiastic crowd the day before. The Hanson delay slightly derailed my plans, but it didn’t prevent me from seeing the incredible set from The Wonder Years. Later, I enjoyed learning about Idles, seeing Cobra Starship’s one big hit and catching the top half of The Academy Is… playing through their best album. The final headliner, Green Day, came prepared to meet the moment. I don’t take for granted how amazing it is to have access to so many talented acts in one place on one weekend in Chicago. It makes it worth the treading on my legs and body afterwards.
As someone who lived through the Snapchat Spectacles debacle, I thought that we’d collectively moved on from the glasses-as-smart-tech era. But Mark Zuckerberg thinks he knows better than Snap did with Meta’s new AI-powered Ray Ban glasses. He was so confident that he personally walked through the demo at MetaConnect 2025 last week. Zuckerberg’s demo was a humiliating flop, but the concept of these glasses is even more embarrassing. For $800, the Meta Ray-Ban Display comes with “a small high-resolution display built into one lens” and “a Neural Band that lets you use muscle signals and control the glasses.” Put another way, it comes with an annoying screen that’s constantly in your eyes. The glasses come with voice-enabled AI, in case you want to interrupt your day to ask your glasses a question. If you just want Ray Bans that have the Meta label on it, you can get these for merely $379. Who wants this? In a world increasingly cluttered with unimaginative AI tools, this is a strong contender as the most pointless AI application available. Is it not enough that we have computers in our pockets and on our wrists? Now, we can have one on our face, covering our eyes and everything we see, all courtesy of the fine folks at Meta. This product is as expensive and useless as it gets.