In just over twenty-five years and nine feature films, Paul Thomas Anderson has developed a body of work that’s unmatched in contemporary cinema. Where other filmmakers of the video store generation swayed towards genre (Quentin Tarantino), or some towards blockbuster actioners (Christopher Nolan), Anderson stayed true to the emotive impulses of classic cinéma vérité, all whilst dipping his toe in the waters of so-called lesser art. Much like Stanley Kubrick, Anderson immerses us in a different world with every new film, but what’s fascinating is how he manages to stay faithful to his discernible style, still always bringing us something fresh to the table.

Whether it’s Hard Eight or Phantom Thread, if PTA’s films have fundamentally centered on anything, it’s loneliness and alienation. Take Magnolia, an ensemble film in which every character feels the weight of these issues, or Adam Sandler’s Barry in Punch Drunk Love, with his failing business prospects and social ineptitude. Many common themes echo through the eight (soon-to-be-nine) features of the infamous director’s canon, like the parental troubles of Boogie Nights, Magnolia, or There Will Be Blood, but what leaves an everlasting impression of a supposed ‘trademark style’ isn’t just the thematic commonalities, but the technical aspects, too.

This is where film history comes into play, and more specifically, the importance of a great director’s inspiration. Fortunately for us, PTA has been relatively vocal on his influences over the years. He’s never been much for publicity, and for the fanatics of his work, it won’t take long to exhaust the few behind-the-scenes tapes and Q&As floating around on the internet. Nevertheless, through various comments made in written interviews and unashamed references in his work, we can start to determine exactly which pictures define that PTA touch, and precisely which films he recommends to the cinephiles out there.

10. Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

In a 1998 list titled ‘10 Films That Influenced Boogie Nights’, Anderson referenced François Truffaut’s noir classic Shoot the Piano Player for its lasting impact on him, praising Truffaut’s deft ability to play with genre and even calling it the film that taught him how to dress. Upon viewing, much sense can be made of this statement, almost every character clad in either a swanky suit, loosely bound necktie, or flashy blazer, curiously similar to elements of PTA’s attire in his earlier public appearances.

Alas, we’re not here to discuss fashion trends, but the reasons for Anderson’s recommending this film in the first place, of which there are many. A standout aspect the auteur praised was the use of Cinemascope here, which at the time was reserved mostly for big-budget Hollywood movies. This extra space on the screen, although seemingly insignificant, allowed for more focus on character, creating a world in which the backdrop of Paris was simply another landscape alongside the multiple faces that danced across the frame.

Many modern directors found inspiration through French New Wave, Quentin Tarantino even naming his production company A Band Apart after Jean-Luc Godard’s classic of a similar name. What makes PTA’s recommendation interesting, however, is that it isn’t amongst the most renowned entries of the French film movement, Jules and Jim, Breathless or The 400 Blows generally being higher regarded in the broader critical circle. Still, when you take a step back, it’s no wonder this one is an all-timer for the veteran filmmaker. Of all Truffaut pictures, Shoot the Piano Player gets closest to mirroring PTA’s unique approach, resulting in an effortless blend of arthouse and genre.

9. Stray Dog (1949)

Another outlier when compared to the respective filmmaker’s greatest hits, Stray Dog is a hidden gem of master director Akira Kurosawa’s legendary oeuvre, and a general highlight of his police procedural entries. This was yet another film mentioned as a primary influence on Boogie Nights, and when taking the time to set aside the differences, it shows. The film centers on a budding detective who loses his gun, and the ramifications that follow. Anderson complimented the film’s disarming simplicity, saying ‘it has the simplest plot you can say in one sentence: rookie cop loses his gun, he has to get it back. It’s unbelievable.’

Outside of the breakneck pace and sweltering heat of Boogie Nights, Stray Dog has many similarities with PTA’s other work, Inherent Vice being an obvious one. Inherent Vice was Anderson’s first all-out noir film, and so it would make sense that the noirs he adores can be seen in its meandering premise, Joaquin Phoenix’s listless protagonist Doc bearing many of the same traits as Toshirō Mifune’s nerve-wracked Detective Murakami. Mifune’s character is uncharacteristically amateur here, lacking the confidence and sturdiness of his more well-known characters. It’s a role that best displays the versatility of the cherished actor, and his knack for immersing himself in the personalities he assumed.

Like Kurosawa’s more revered High and Low, Stray Dog can be set apart from the rest of the titan director’s work in the sense that it’s not a period piece nor a samurai venture, but a scathing look at the psychological consequences of governmental responsibility, and the social strain of a postwar Tokyo. PTA’s The Master follows similar themes, but instead of looking at Japan, it focuses on those on the other side of the sea. As with most of Anderson’s films, this is a movie that encompasses an entire universe of eclectic topics, all whilst hanging on to its simplistic gravitas as it stumbles drunkenly to the finish line.

8. The Big Sleep (1946)

If Stray Dog had some similarities with Inherent Vice, The Big Sleep utilizes a near-identical method of storytelling. Like PTA’s 2014 noir, Howard Hawks’ genre milestone is as convoluted as it gets, actively challenging the viewer to get lost in its messy myriad of puzzling mysteries. Adapted from the original novel by Raymond Chandler, who openly admitted to not knowing who the murderer of his own story was, the film tells the tale of Humphrey Bogart’s private dick Philip Marlowe, and the rabbit-hole case he finds himself on.

PTA once said of the movie: ‘The Big Sleep is impossible to follow, but it doesn’t matter. You just want to keep watching it, seeing where it goes.’ This, in many ways, is the formula of Inherent Vice; a chaotic adaptation of a chaotic source material. Beyond that, the ramping tension of The Big Sleep resembles many other PTA pictures, making it a movie that’s affected the director’s entire career. The amount of iconic couples the big screen has seen is ceaseless, and whilst John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands will never be bested on their level of cool, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart will never be reckoned with on their level of class.

It would be easy to dismiss The Big Sleep as nothing more than a scrambled collage of ideas, but that would be underestimating its legendary influence on the genre. Hawks proves here that an audience needn’t always comprehend a story. If they’re enjoying the performances or the imagery on screen, the tickets will sell themselves. Film noir is a genre that saw its defining years in the 40s, its signature cynicism birthed by the universally endured trauma of WWII, making it like the western in that real-life issues fed into the principles of its style. For its 1946 release, The Big Sleep came at the very end of this terrible time, making it not just a film for the ages, but a film that acts as a mournful, final call. The noir to end all noirs.

7. Something Wild (1986)

Aside from master of Americana Robert Altman, no director has had as much an effect on PTA as veteran craftsman Jonathan Demme. Anderson has long championed Demme as his ‘favorite, top-of-the-line filmmaker,’ referencing his eclectic filmography and masterful use of subjective camerawork. So much of Anderson’s visual technique can be traced back to this, particularly when studying his closeups. It’s no coincidence that the shots of Joaquin Phoenix’s Freddie Quell or Amy Adams’ Peggy Dodd in The Master recall the POVs on Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, but it’s Something Wild that resembles the impulsivity of PTA, specifically the youthful allure of his earlier entries.

Something Wild is, for the most part, exactly what it says on the tin. When successful businessman Charles Driggs is kidnapped by free-spirited young woman Audrey ‘Lulu’ Hankel, the unlikely duo wreak havoc on a road trip across America, meanwhile Lulu’s mobster ex-husband Ray Sinclair is hot on their tail. With breathless performances from Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels, and a suitably tough-guy turn from Ray Liotta, Demme’s screwball masterpiece oozes entertainment value, making it one of the most thoroughly engaging road movies of the 80s.

It’s no big mystery why Something Wild is a PTA favorite. It’s a typically refreshing entry from a notoriously intangible filmmaker, complimented by master cinematographer Tak Fujimoto’s exquisite framing. Like PTA, Demme was a filmmaker who took pride in realizing a brave new world every time he stepped behind the camera, producing concert films such as Stop Making Sense, courtroom dramas like Philadelphia, or politically taught documentaries like The Agronomist. Sadly, Demme died in April 2017 after battling multiple illnesses, leaving such an impression on Anderson that he dedicated his 2017 film Phantom Thread to his memory. No end credit moment is as emotionally charged as this; a tip of the hat from one great artist to another, thus concluding a long and mutually invaluable friendship.

6. The Passionate Friends (1949)

David Lean was a director adored by many great filmmakers, from Italian masters like Sergio Leone to American icons like Stanley Kubrick, but PTA has always been one of his very most enthused fans. In The Passionate Friends, a film in which a classic love triangle is dissected into its various pros and cons, we find echoes of Anderson’s work, specifically the baroque aesthetic of Phantom Thread. With its snow-capped mountains, New Year’s Eve sequence, and period-Britain backdrop, there are countless reflections of Anderson’s 2017 film here, but what makes the movie extraordinary is how criminally undervalued it is.

Lean, of course, is known for his more famous works Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, or Brief Encounter. Interestingly, Brief Encounter focuses on many of the same issues as The Passionate Friends and was released just a few years before, so it’s easy to see the reasons behind its being overshadowed. Anderson confirmed the film as an influence on his work in multiple Q&As, expressing confusion as to why it isn’t more talked about. Upon seeing the film, one can only agree with these comments. This is classic, achingly romantic Lean, representing a sweeter time before sprawling epics would dominate his back-catalog.

If the stellar direction doesn’t do it for you, the performances surely will. With heartbreaking turns from Ann Todd and Trevor Howard, and a standout performance from Claude Rains, this one is a lot more than the Brief Encounter knock-off critics mistook it for. The Passionate Friends is as much a searingly accurate depiction of love, as it is a spot-on portrait of jealousy. Just what is it with love and trains, and why does Lean make them feel so right for each other? Maybe it’s the coming and going, or the skip in the heart when saying goodbye. Lean – forever the master of passion in transit.

Otherwise, we didn’t get a single piece of promotional material until the winter release date was looming over our heads; it was almost as if the film wouldn’t arrive at all. This isn’t unusual for Anderson, who has hidden behind the spotlight of other films while “The Master” seeped into the forefront from out of nowhere.

“Phantom Thread” worked the same way. This works because we have come to expect great things from the Californian director, whose canon is possibly one of the most solid you can find today (“Hard Eight,” “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” “There Will Be Blood,” The Master” and “Inherent Vice”). That isn’t an unranked top 10 list. I simply spewed out the films he made in order, and the quality from all of the above says enough that it could be mistaken for either.

When it comes to “Phantom Thread,” whose lush qualities have the cinematic world in a stranglehold, it is a typical day at the office for PTA. In terms of how it sits in the scope of 2017’s films, it certainly is one of the best of the year. When you look at Anderson’s directorial work on the film, it is actually difficult to argue against the notion that it may possibly be the best direction in a film from 2017.

1. He accurately portrays the highs and lows of the fashion industry

Like every other film he has ever made, Anderson has a signature style that can be felt in an entirely new world that feels alien to him. You know what you’re getting, but you never know what to expect. In “Phantom Thread,” Anderson analyzes the fashion industry of the upper class society in 1950’s England.

His dedication to fixating on every miniscule detail of dressmaking is seemingly akin to what Day-Lewis did to prepare for his role as the unforgettable Reynolds Woodcock. Day-Lewis learned how to stitch and make dresses well enough to actually put together clothing.

It’s almost as if Anderson also became a dress maker himself, because he knew exactly how to outline each and every scenario in a way that both educated and accepted its audiences of all types.

He zooms in on the notes that are being taken, and the measurements as well, with such intensity. The close-ups of buttons being sewn and fabrics being stitched together puts you in the mindset of Reynolds (or one of the seamstresses). These shots do not go wasted, because you now feel like a part of these experiences; you are sewn into the fabrics of the film.



After our introduction to the film’s style and nature, we get into its anxieties. It pinpoints each and every aspect of the fashion industry with such flair. When Reynolds’ models are walking the runway without a stir in the air, you rightfully see Reynolds losing his temper with the heightened energy backstage.

This is a highly accurate portrayal of any fashion show, and Anderson didn’t just capture it literally, he caught it thematically to place you in both shots.

2. He turns the film into a lush caricature of the fashion industry

Before I continue, it is worth noting that the director of photography would usually get the credit for this kind of work, even if it is what the director intended. However, Anderson operated the camera for this film (with the help of other crew members, hence why he refuses to be called the director of photography for this picture), so every single shot is likely exactly what Anderson intended.

With that in mind, his use of lavenders, magentas and other pastel-like colours cannot go unnoticed. “Phantom Thread” to the general public is a tastefully shot film that engulfs you with its soothing visual textures; it is its own top design.

For cinephiles, this looks like a slightly aged film (early coloured Kodak stock would turn magenta over time, so it is common to see pink-clad films from before the mid ’70s when different stock was then used). For all, this film feels like a distant memory, but one we wish to welcome into our present.

3. He creates claustrophobia so well between bickering lovers and siblings

This discomfort is no stranger at this point of the film. By now, no one is still truly sound within the claustrophobic house that Reynolds brings his latest muse to (Alma, played by Vicky Krieps).

Alma is a free spirit who leaps toward any opportunity with spontaneity, and Reynolds is a stickler who hates to have anything out of line. She is thus the ideal who walks freely within the confinement of his garments (as he is a perfect dressmaker).



What pits these two opposite forces together is the lack of distance in the small household (which is also the home of Reynolds’ sister Cyril, played by Lesley Manville).

Opinions clash, especially when the fight is usually two against one (siblings against the newcomer, women against the sole man, lovers against your sibling).

4. He turns the every objects in the film into something much more

It will sound like an insane comparison– mostly because it is a mild one– but “Phantom Thread” bears a weird resemblance to Darren Aronofsky’s polarizing thriller “mother!” because of the metaphorical households they both entail. In “mother!,” the entire story is an allegory to the world and how humans have treated it.

In “Phantom Thread,” while you are still watching a tale of actual characters who go through real events in their lives, you are still given fairly strong representations of love, stability, life and death. In one household and its immediate surroundings, you have so many items to work with.

The mushrooms provide health and sickness depending on which ones are picked. What once represented a key ingredient to life in the Woodcock household is now a sign of malice and even death. Death is a notion Reynolds is familiar with, since he is superstitiously afraid of the ghost of his dead mother. This mother appears to him during his episode of sickness after having eaten the wrong mushrooms.

The doors that close right next to each other when Alma and Reynolds go to bed are representative of a struggling relationship. They close each other off, yet they are still side by side, whether they wish to be or not. The spiraling staircase is often used as a way to show that neither Alma or Reynolds are on the same level when it comes to ideas (a strong example is the surprise dinner sequence).

Between the precise use of the household, the faintly pure colour schemes and the exquisite wardrobe throughout the film, “Phantom Thread” becomes a living and breathing fashion editorial illustration. There is something so imaginatively artistic about it, as if it were almost a series of cartoon images. Yet the themes all seem to hit close to anyone who has ever fallen in love, so the extremities mirror our own experiences.

5. He works with absurd plot points with flair

Speaking of qualities that are over the top, we can also look at the biggest surprise of the entire film: the mushroom subplot. It has been described by numerous other critics as a plot thread (perhaps the stray thread that Reynolds overlooked in his final design) that mimics Alfred Hitchcock’s kind of deviousness. I couldn’t agree more.

It seems like such an odd story element to include, but lest we forget that Anderson also brought us frogs that rain from the sky from virtually out of nowhere. Here, you are witnessing a woman who becomes hateful with love; she wishes to harm her partner to make him a stronger partner.

It’s so out of left field, so questionable, and yet it fits reasonably well because it’s just so Paul Thomas Anderson. If any director can work in what-the-fuck moments from thin air in normal films without insulting his audience, it’s Paul Thomas Anderson.

6. He handled complex characters with ease

Like this plotline, the characters and their natures could have also been stupidly obnoxious under the wrong direction. Having three people clash for an entire film can easily be a recipe for disaster (much like the dishes that include poisonous mushrooms).

However, Anderson knows how to utilize his characters of varying styles well enough to make each trait a catalyst for another character. Reynolds’ perfectionism is not helped by his protective sister, which results in the loss of patience within Alma. These bursts from Alma combat with the stern Reynolds until she realizes that he only is all in one piece when he is in control of himself.

Once he loses his abilities to function, he has no idea how to cope at all and needs guidance. Cyril could be his beacon, but Alma takes charge through the very driven nature she learned to have in order to keep up with the Woodcock family.

7. His different kind of twist left at the end of the film ties the film off in a way that feels nearly magical

With the swirling character traits and the elements of surprise within an impeccably definitive picture, you actually aren’t quite sure where the film will go. For a period piece picture, it isn’t unusual to not be predictable, but it certainly feels refreshing to be completely out of the game. This is where that ending comes in to finally seal the deal.

Throughout the film, you see Alma tell her tale about living with Reynolds. You don’t know if she has left the house, but you can gather that she has. When the mushroom storyline starts, you dread to think that maybe Alma killed Reynolds.

Finally, you see Reynolds eventually get a word in edgewise at the end of the picture; he is laying on Alma’s lap like a child or a pet. She has some power in the relationship now, and he has some humility.

The entire film suddenly shapeshifts into a bizarre love story that is of bittersweet memories of both partners. She was the phantom thread that was meant to not only finish the garments of Reynolds life, but to seal in his story by giving him a story to tell. Through the cinematography, writing and directing, Paul Thomas Anderson told us one hell of a dazzling story in a way no other filmmaker in 2017 did.

Frogs falling out of the black night sky. An oil well owned by a man possessed by greed blowing up. A drug-infused investigative endeavour. Two men fighting in a garden, rolling around on the grass – in love or repulsion? Dissecting the emotion that drives the characters or the storyteller in a Paul Thomas Anderson film is a futile task. The crystalized imagery is so inherently pristine, that it makes the reason for why a particular emotion exists or why many particular emotions exist, utterly unnecessary. The only thing of consequence is that an emotion does exist, and there is palpability, there is urgency to it.

Anderson’s perception is so singularly incisive and intelligent, that more often than not, you have no choice but give into the shaded absurdity of some of his most radical ideas. Brimming with consciously crafted detail, his films rage and rile like the placid ocean in “The Master” and whisper and contemplate without saying almost anything like Phil Pharma in “Magnolia”.

In a time when most filmmakers seem content with attempting to tell the same stories as were being told decades ago, wrapping them in the neat packages of modern convention, Anderson’s stylistic traits seem nearly old-fashioned, in that they still seem to consider cinema as an art form that can be moulded, reshaped and pushed to new extremes. He began his career with the frenzy of an artist afforded opportunities few harbouring the dream of filmmaking ever come across.

There is an urgency to express anything and everything that ever came into his head and a certain restlessness that wouldn’t go away unless all of those ideas had been expressed. This impatience benefited the films he made in those initial years, breathless with the layered exploration of their characters’ experiences, accompanied by an intoxicating poetry that elevated those ideas to a level of mystifying, epic realism.

In his recent films though, he has begun to exercise much more discipline, both in the craft and the design, but in the structure and the patience with which he employs his narratives to captivate us. This became evident with 2007’s “There Will Be Blood”, considered widely to be his masterpiece – a sprawling, gritty, unsentimental, yet richly emotional epic on greed and ambition.

The films that followed still retained the vivid sense of experimentation similar to the high of his earlier films, but exhibited a more ruthless, sharp visual and acoustic energy, making them much more effective experiences. That’s not to say the earlier films lacked an eye for the filmmaking tools he has become so adept at exploiting, but in his more recent work, he has begun to understand more of experiential qualities of cinema, taking risks that are in turns reckless and carefully considered.

So here are 10 reasons why Paul Thomas Anderson, with his meagre filmography, has become the greatest filmmaker of our generation.

10. Experimentation

Let’s consider the filmography of the subject of this article. He began with “Hard Eight”, a noir film based on his short film “Cigarettes and Coffee”. The film doesn’t demonstrate Anderson’s strengths the way the others do, but still shows a willingness to take unlikely tonal leaps most would assume to be jarring. He followed it with his humane examination of the adult film industry, where he deploys such meticulous detailing to his crafting of each character and their believable loneliness that for a second feature “Boogie Nights” is a gigantic step forward.

In “Magnolia”, Tom Cruise hisses and expositions about the superiority of men and how they, with will and intelligence, can conquer the weaker sex, while his father dies an unhappy, bitter death. A lot of highly divergent things happen to a lot of other people, all connected to each other somehow, and all telling the same story: when we are beyond repair, we can only be saved.

He lurched forward with the oddly romantic comedy “Punch-Drunk Love”, by the end of which the only thing that makes any sense is the relationship of the two protagonists, the lemony tinge of sadness making the film a small-scale miracle in its own right.

“There Will Be Blood” doesn’t need any further adoration and “The Master” is a love story of two men – one who cannot be controlled and one who desires more than anything to control the former – masquerading as a telling of how cults came into prominence after World War II left everyone feeling unmoored. “Inherent Vice”, his most recent adventure, is based on the highly complex Thomas Pynchon novel, inheriting the humour and the darkness of its source material entirely to create a full-bodied, if somewhat incoherent imagery of the world of Pynchon.

All this can only be evidence to how diverse and bold Anderson’s creative choices are, not only in terms of the delectably risky subject matters, but also in terms of the narrative scope of his films. “Magnolia” and “Punch-Drunk Love” for instance, are the most intimate examination of vulnerability, but their universality expand their access to landscapes much wider than their prickly absurdity might suggest. “There Will Be Blood’ and “The Master”, on the other hand, seem to be painted on a much larger thematic canvas, but focus as intently on the tiniest of strokes as they do on the big ones.

In the hands of a less inventive filmmaker, the blueish white hue that makes much of the vinegar-like “Punch-Drunk Love” resonate would have been a catastrophic misfire, but Anderson plays with it like a precious child with his new-found toy in that he takes the risk of never leaving it alone, and it pays off in multitudinous ways.

9. Subtly Intense Focus on the Craft

Like the dangerously subversive and fanatically attentive Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson tells more than half of his story through the detailing of the lighting, the production design and the costumes. There are secrets to be unravelled within the knotty textures of an Anderson setting and he lays it all almost deceptively bare for the audience to discover.

This is not to say the craft, which also includes the deftly implemented sound design and the staggeringly moody scores of his films, is only to relate the filmmaker’s thematic intentions, which if communicated otherwise, would lose all their enigmatic qualities that make them so utterly transfixing in the first place. It also induces a nearly indescribable other-worldly sense of pleasure at being witness to such indomitable command of the cinematic tools.

In films like “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia”, the craft is almost singularly purposed for character development. Each aesthetic choice reflects a deep understanding of extending the character’s experience to a degree where it touches the muddied realm of wisdom.

There is wisdom in the warmth radiated by the dying man’s house and in the impossibly expressive eyes of his compassionate nurse, while standing sharply in contrast is the dying man’s son lecturing men on how to win over women in his glossy attire. There’s also wisdom in the wailing of a woman who can only tell her most secret predilections to a pharmacy store worker, the store’s densely placid colouring contrasting brilliantly with the woman’s deep red fur coat and her bright red hair.

Anderson has begun to venture more frequently into historical narratives, giving his diligently manufactured craft the opportunity to adorn his bold storylines with textured, inventively populated frames. With “There Will Be Blood”, “Inherent Vice”, “The Master” and now the upcoming “Phantom Thread”, which promises nothing short of being the most meticulously crafted of all of his films, his reflection of our ever-fascinating perception of history has only gotten more breath-taking to inhabit. But at the end of the day, the sheer omnipresence of the blue-white colour palette of “Punch Drunk-Love” should suffice in informing anyone of how Anderson interweaves sensual cinematic pleasure with deviously knit observations on the human condition.

8. Radicalism

In the past few years, cinema has become a medium where either radicalism can exist or realism. When Kubrick, Bresson, and even Lynch were in their prime, both could exist without causing the film to be a complete disaster. Cinema was still being explored as a medium of expression and the likes of Jodorowsky and Buñuel were expanding the perception of the audiences who had never seen anything like their work.

It was almost an inaccessible combination of reality and unsheltered radicals that transcended the medium and became something beyond the cinematic language audiences assumed they were well versed in. The blood is real, but the reason it flows is beyond our reach. We not only feel the pain, we are also captivated by the mystery of its muddied cause.

But since the form took the established shape it finds itself in today, real stories are rarely radical and the radical ones seem to be either too far off our condition to be of consequence or depressingly self-indulgent. Paul Thomas Anderson is that invaluable contributor to the cinematic evolution whose oeuvre is neither too radical nor too real.

It’s a double whammy of tangibly heartfelt realisation of our deepest emotions cooked with exactly the right amount of fluidly singular absurdity. His films do not purport to carry a higher meaning or neatly shaped messages. They begin as a reflection of life at its basest, gradually building up to a crescendo of pure, cinematic, off-kilter mastery.

Anderson can manipulate your senses with something as small as an unusually long pause or as huge as a song all the major characters of his film break into out of the blue; throwing you off the scent and still somehow holding your attention in his palm. There is grittiness and pulsating emotion to his narratives, but his visual styling ensures that a sweeping limitlessness is constantly felt by us.

There is a vastness to his intimacy and a raw untarnished reality to his odd affinity with the epic. So, is Paul Thomas Anderson a radical? One would be inclined to say yes, and there is a part of Anderson’s fluttering, breathless, at once stoic and impatient style that wants to be called a faithless radical. But that does not mean we must be swift to do so.

7. Symmetry of the Camera

Like the other filmmaker who shares his last name, Anderson is known for a painstakingly diligent composition of the frames of his films. The other Anderson knows how to exploit the impossibly symmetrical frames to assign a mysteriously lived-in discipline to his hipster sensibilities.

This one uses it in such a rebelliously breathy manner that blink and you will miss the economic employment of this symmetry that works more as a filmmaking tool than a storytelling one. It makes a quantifiable difference to our experience, even in places where the story would suffice to appease us and a lesser filmmaker would be willing to limit himself to that. But it would be half a film when compared to the one Anderson would make.

This symmetry is not just restricted to what populates the frame, but also includes the way those objects do so. They are colored in ways so honest to the way the story and the dialogue serve the characters and the thematic intentions of the filmmaker.

As Anderson is evolving as a filmmaker, his frames, in their askew simplicity, are pulsating with a greater authority and vibrancy – a combination so rare it makes the work of filmmakers who either disappear into their ivory towers once their presence has been established on a global stage or those who continue to take risks that have never paid them off, seem embarrassingly inferior.

Like another one of his great contemporaries Todd Haynes, Anderson has, with time, conceded to becoming a part of the industry that profits off of their art but has had his feet firmly planted on the outside. He looks at his characters as tiny specs of sand disappearing into the desert or a man of incessant greed overpowering another one of cloth, but has constantly, despite all the odds stacked against him, captured them in the most generous lights and the most forgiving colors, making them more human than any sentimentalist ever could.

6. Cool Irony

Irony is that unattainable cinematic high most filmmakers don’t come in proximity of, let alone comprehend the dynamics of. Literature, admittedly, offers more accessible opportunities for ironical narratives and themes but great filmmakers have, in the past, led us into the darkest nightmares only to subtly make us realize that all they are attempting to do, even in post-apocalyptic avenues and historical fiction, is hold a mirror out to us and leave us as ill at ease as possible. Few are able to pull this off without the heavy-handedness of forced, unnatural comical detours and even fewer with the kind of covert airiness that adds a subtle believability to even the most acidic infusion of irony that Anderson so frequently, so consistently does.

Take for instance, the ending of “Boogie Nights”. In what is only his second outing as a feature film director, Anderson takes all of his characters out of their misery at being confronted with reality, only to bring them back to their world of make believe because he knows their denial is their only saviour.

While on the surface, he has given them a happier ending than we assumed they would get, his treatment of their surficial joys is delectably ironical, best exemplified by Mark Wahlberg’s final monologue in front of his green room mirror. He can see himself in the mirror, and not shy away from his reflection. Can we say the same about ourselves, Anderson delicately asks, ending his film, like the best of movies, with a question that is not only unanswered, but is largely, unanswerable.

The animalistic tendencies of Freddie Quell, the enigmatic protagonist of “The Master” is only human when he gives up all control of his senses, to break and contort his body in ways so abhorrent that you can’t look away. When he quietly reflects on a past love, or peacefully submits to his deplorable condition, he seems to belong from another world.

Peggy Dodd, another player in this endlessly fascinating landscape, passionately convinces her husband after he has humiliated himself in a high society gathering of how inconsequential the eccentric scepticism of the big city is. But in Amy Adams’s incandescent performance, her devotion comes off more as ambition, the purpose of which is only to fuel her husband’s ego, and if you were comforted by it, how are you any better?

#1 Michael Haneke

New Film: Amour

Last Film: The White Ribbon (2009)

#2 Ken Loach

New Film: The Angel’s Share

Last Film: Route Irish (2009)

#3 Walter Salles

New Film: On the Road

Last Film: Linha de Passe (2008)

#4 David Cronenberg

New Film: Cosmopolis

Last Film: A Dangerous Method (2011)

#5 Abbas Kiarostami

New Film: The End

Last Film: Certified Copy (2010)

#6 Wong Kar-waï

New Film: The Grandmasters

Last Film: My Blueberry Nights (2007)

#7 OlivierAssayas

New Film: Something in the Air

Last Film: Carlos (2010)

#8 Michel Gondry

New Film: The We and the I

Last Film: The Green Hornet (2011)

#9 Hong Sang-soo

New Film: In Another Country

Last Film: The Day He Arrives (2011)

#10 Xavier Dolan

New Film: Laurence Anyways

Last Film: Heartbeats (2010)

#11 Lu Chuan

New Film: The Last Supper

Last Film: City of Life and Death (2009)

#12 Manoel de Oliveira

New Film: Gabo and The Shadow

Last Film: The Strange Case of Angelica (2010)

#13 Paul Thomas Anderson

New Film: The Master

Last Film: There Will Be Blood (2007)

#14 Wes Anderson

New Film: Moonrise Kingdom

Last Film: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

#15 Woody Allen

New Film: Nero Fiddled

Last Film: Midnight Paris (2011)

#16 Terrence Malick

New Film: Voyage of Time

Last Film: The Tree of Life (2011)

#17 François Ozon

New Film: Dans la maison

Last Film: Potiche (2010)

#18 Leos Carax

New Film: Holly Motors

Last Film: Pola-X (1999)

If those come backs can’t excite you enough,try to find more big names here.

Which come back you expect the most ?? And which director needs a come back ASAP??