TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Drama, Period Film, Comedy Drama, Psychological Drama, Ensemble Film, Post-Noir (Modern Noir), Romance, Romantic Comedy
Key Collaborators: JoAnne Sellar (Producer), Robert Elswit (Cinematographer), Daniel Lupi (Producer), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Leading Character Actor), Jonny Greenwood (Composer), Dylan Tichenor (Editor), Leslie Jones (Editor), Philip Baker Hall (Leading Character Actor), Jon Brion (Composer), Luis Guzman (Character Actor), Joaquin Phoenix (Leading Actor), Daniel Day-Lewis (Leading Actor)

"Like most American directors of his generation, Anderson has obvious roots in the cinema of the 1970s. His first two films in particular show the imprint of Martin Scorsese, in the restless energy of the camera, the crisp pacing, the smart use of popular music and the low-life seedy settings. Similarly, the large casts and overlapping plotlines of Boogie Nights and Magnolia show a clear debt to Robert Altman. But Anderson’s thematic concerns and perspective on his characters are distinctively his. His movies have their share of violence and emotional rawness, but there is something fundamentally warm about them." - Jesse Fox Mayshark (Post-Pop Cinema: The Search for Meaning in New American Film, 2007)

"Paul Thomas Anderson emerged as one of the most exciting young directors in Hollywood, with two epics as vast and sprawling as the San Fernando Valley in which they are set - Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999). His films already show the hallmarks of a distinctive vision and are marked by a surprising maturity, delving deep into themes of family, loneliness and the ghosts of the past." - Andrew Syder (Contemporary North American Film Directors, 2002)

"No other American director working today has such sad, tender, and smart ways of looking into the depths of society, or for feeling out their poignant juxtapositions. He writes great, ragged speeches, and he is like a fond parent with his family of actors." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)

"Perhaps the most ambitious American filmmaker of his generation, Paul Thomas Anderson grew up around movies and worked as a production assistant from a young age... Influenced above all by Robert Altman, Anderson has two wildly ambitious, panoramic ensemble movies to his name (Boogie Nights, Magnolia)." - Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)

“Young, risk-taking filmmaker who took Hollywood by storm with his first major release, Boogie Nights (1997). His ability to effortlessly weave together complicated storylines with complex characters has been compared to the work of such filmmakers as Robert Altman and Francis Ford Coppola.” - The Film Encyclopedia, 2012

"I have a feeling, one of those gut feelings, that I'll make pretty good movies the rest of my life. And maybe I'll make some clunkers, maybe I'll make some winners, but I guess the way that I really feel is that Magnolia is, for better or worse, the best movie I'll ever make." - Paul Thomas Anderson (IMDb Biography)

"I try and balance it out. I mean, I don't want to be blabbermouth-young-white-director-guy, but I gotta help. You just don't want to get a disgusting sheen on yourself." - Paul Thomas Anderson