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‘Licorice Pizza’ and the Paul Thomas Anderson Rankings

November 26, 2021/ 83 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins

A spoiler-light first look at Licorice Pizza, then Sean and Amanda rank all nine Paul Thomas Anderson features.

10 films across 2 segments.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

‘Licorice Pizza’spoiler-light first look

Licorice Pizza poster

Licorice Pizza 2021

PTA back in the San Fernando Valley, 1973: a 15-year-old hustler (Cooper Hoffman, son of Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a drifting 25-year-old (Alana Haim), both first-time actors. Sean and Amanda read it as a hangout movie in the Altman/Hal Ashby line rather than another argument about American capitalism, and hold the review until it opens wide. Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Benny Safdie and a scene-stealing Harriet Sansom Harris in support; a Wings needle-drop lands as the big cue.

The Paul Thomas Anderson Rankingsall nine features, best first

There Will Be Blood poster
No. 1

There Will Be Blood 2007

No. 1, no debate for Sean. The sum of his powers arriving at the right moment, a 20th-century story about wanting more and more without knowing why.

The Master poster
No. 2

The Master 2012

No. 2. The one Sean still can't fully solve, and he ranks it above Boogie Nights for exactly that reason: nobody else could have made it. A film about what happens between men.

Boogie Nights poster
No. 3

Boogie Nights 1997

No. 3. The movie that made Sean a movie person, but he reads it as PTA working with Scorsese's tools before he found his own.

Phantom Thread poster
No. 4

Phantom Thread 2017

No. 4. The turn toward romance and the Vicky Krieps two-hander; the diner-order scene as the most yearning thing in his filmography.

Magnolia poster
No. 5

Magnolia 1999

No. 5. 189 minutes of everything at once: reach exceeding grasp, but Tom Cruise's performance still stops them cold.

Licorice Pizza poster
No. 6

Licorice Pizza 2021

No. 6, with recency bias acknowledged: a filmmaker who finally knows how to make movies. Sean takes it over Punch-Drunk Love on the strength of the Alana character.

Punch-Drunk Love poster
No. 7

Punch-Drunk Love 2002

No. 7. The hard left off Magnolia and a genuine experiment; the Adam Sandler performance nobody else could have pulled out of him.

Inherent Vice poster
No. 8

Inherent Vice 2014

No. 8. The Pynchon detour: funny, sprawling, closest in shape to Licorice Pizza, but the big feelings never quite land. Sean wonders about the Robert Downey Jr. version that almost was.

Hard Eight poster
No. 9

Hard Eight 1996

No. 9 by necessity: the least ambitious and the first, but the writing's already there, with Philip Baker Hall and a young John C. Reilly.

Also mentioned raised along the way

Comps & touchstones Once Upon a Time in HollywoodFrances HaAmerican GraffitiHarold and MaudeShampooComing HomeBeing ThereAnchorman: The Legend of Ron BurgundyInside Llewyn DavisPulp Fiction

PTA's other work AnimaJununCigarettes & Coffee

In passing SpencerLittle WomenOn the RocksKing RichardParasiteGet OutThe Many Saints of NewarkShang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten RingsVenom: Let There Be Carnage

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV SuccessionThe SopranosThe Wheel of TimeThe Beatles: Get Back

Ads DMX: Don't Try to UnderstandBoar's HeadFIFA World Cup Launch Edition (Netflix)