Paul Thomas Anderson is currently running a tally of 0-11 for Best Picture, Best Director, or even Best Screenplay (whether original or adapted). This little factoid comes across as shocking, almost idiotic, considering the absolute masterpieces he has gone on to deliver over the years.
Boogie Nights at 27, Magnolia when he was just 29? To write and direct such seminal films at such a young age not only speaks to his brilliance but proves he is a savant. The Oscar snub for There Will Be Blood almost felt personal, and as of 2025, fans have tried and failed to understand how the Academy has so blatantly continued to ignore P.T. Anderson’s contribution to the industry.
But, then again, this is the same Academy that snubbed Saving Private Ryan for Shakespeare in Love and Brokeback Mountain for Crash (although some manipulation on the part of Harvey Weinstein was involved in getting Shakespeare an advantage over Steven Spielberg‘s epic, but that’s a story for another day).
Below are every major Paul Thomas Anderson movie ranked according to the Oscars categories it should have dominated.
1. There Will Be Blood (2007)
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography
Adapted from Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, the epic period drama continues to be one of the best films ever made. It has the best acting ever delivered on screen and the best execution of a director’s vision in film. The vivid, jarring, and striking visuals remain imprinted in memory to this day, making the film a phenomenal and unforgettable experience.
In the slow movie year of 2007, the only major contender against There Will Be Blood was the Coen Brothers‘ masterpiece, No Country for Old Men. Both films earned an equal tally of 8 Oscar nominations each.
2008 Oscar winner for Best Picture, Best Director & Best Adapted Screenplay: No Country for Old Men
2008 Oscar winner for Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
2008 Oscar winner for Best Cinematography: There Will Be Blood
Verdict: No Country was definitely worthy of sweeping the Oscars floor at the 80th Academy Awards. However, There Will Be Blood won where it counted most: Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis.
2. Phantom Thread (2017)
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design
Yet another iconic masterpiece from the collaborative oeuvre of P.T. Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis, haunting, jarring, eerie, unnerving, and all other similar synonyms in the dictionary are not enough to describe the unsettling impact of this film.
While the movie did win 6 nominations, including in all the categories mentioned above, other than screenplay, it only won 1 Oscar for Best Costume Design.
In Anderson’s defense, it was a tough year at the 90th Academy Awards with so many incredible films staking their claim on Best Picture: The Shape of Water, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Post, Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, and Ladybird.
2018 Oscar winner for Best Picture & Best Director: The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro
2018 Oscar winner for Best Actor: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
2018 Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay: Get Out (Jordan Peele)
Verdict: Guillermo del Toro deserved the Best Picture and Best Director wins. Oldman beating fellow veterans such as Denzel Washington and Daniel Day-Lewis to take the win for Best Actor was also not surprising, given his extraordinary performance as Winston Churchill in the World War II epic.
3. Magnolia (1999)
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor
Magnolia is a masterpiece that can only be conceived by a fever dream or the imagination of a mad genius. It is an impossibly vast, sprawling, tragic, and interconnected series of stories that is difficult to realize on paper. To adapt it to film is another thing entirely and requires a quality of coherence, brevity, patience, and understanding that is beyond anyone’s natural capabilities.
But Paul Thomas Anderson is the godfather of sprawling ensemble storylines. Not only did he deliver a film that folds in on itself in layers, but one that also keeps eluding, inspiring, and confounding the audience to this day.
Meanwhile, the Academy snubbing Tom Cruise for Best Supporting Actor is an insult that stings even 25 years down the line. No one could have brought such pathos and unsettling energy to a single character’s arc other than Cruise, and Frank T.J. Mackey remains his most transcendental role in film to date.
2000 Oscar winner for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay: American Beauty, Sam Mendes (writer: Alan Ball)
Verdict: No one doubts Sam Mendes’s skills or the merit of his film, but the fact that Anderson lost after the Best Original Screenplay nomination for Magnolia should be reported as a case of criminal insanity. As far as the screenplay is concerned, Magnolia deserved to win against American Beauty.
2000 Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor: Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules)
Verdict: Michael Caine absolutely did not deserve a win with this one, when he has so many other strong performances in his filmography to choose from. Factions have long argued that Caine’s Oscar for Cider House was a prestige win. At least, if Haley Joel Osment had won for The Sixth Sense, Cruise’s snub would have stung less.
4. Licorice Pizza (2021)
Best Director, Best Original Screenplay
Just when you thought Paul Thomas Anderson had run out of tricks, yet another original creative masterpiece arrived from the filmmaker. Licorice Pizza is a wonderful film in many ways, filled with ’70s nostalgia, exploring the highs and lows of young love, teen angst, dysfunctional families, and themes of alienation and emotional turmoil.
Anderson absolutely deserves a tip of the hat for being able to capture each of these themes with a perfect grasp and understanding of these adolescent emotions. Licorice Pizza goes on to prove that the filmmaker is not just adept at delivering sprawling human drama but goes above and beyond to break new ground. The film went on to earn 3 Oscar nominations.
However, when it came to winning, it faced off against Coda, King Richard, Dune, The Power of the Dog, West Side Story, Belfast, Don’t Look Up, and Nightmare Alley.
2022 Oscar winner for Best Director: Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)
2012 Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay: Kenneth Branagh (Belfast)
Verdict: Campion and Branagh are each veterans of their respective fields, but P.T. Anderson should have easily won in both categories with this film. Let’s chalk up the all-around snubs to the pandemic and take solace instead in the fact that Denis Villeuve‘s Dune (a novel deemed unadaptable) won 6 Oscars.
5. The Master (2012)
Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor
One of the most underrated and underestimated films from P.T. Anderson’s library, The Master showcases a rare dynamic duo on screen with Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Both went on to earn an Oscar nomination for their respective roles, but a boldness of vision is hardly ever recognized in time.
The film also launched amid a tough year that was filled with Oscar darlings: Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Misérables, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, Lincoln, Life of Pi, and Amour. Skyfall and Anna Karenina also deserve a special mention.
2012 Oscar winner for Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Verdict: A very deserved win for Day-Lewis in this 12-Oscar-nominated, Steven Spielberg-directed biographical, historical war drama.
2012 Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Verdict: It’s Christoph Waltz, after all. No one stands up to that.
6. Boogie Nights (1997)
Best Original/Adapted Screenplay
Here is where it gets confusing for Boogie Nights. Should the film be considered under the adapted screenplay category if Anderson adapts it from another work that is his own? Boogie Nights is an obvious choice in the screenplay category, given his conception of the Dirk Diggler story and his bold choice to frame his sophomore film as a tribute to the adult industry.
Although the film got nominated in 3 categories, including Best Original Screenplay, it won none.
1998 Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay: Good Will Hunting (Ben Affleck, Matt Damon)
Verdict: Good Will Hunting deserved the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
7. Inherent Vice (2014)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s novel of the same name, Anderson’s Inherent Vice has many qualities: neo noir, mystery, black comedy, and crime being some of the tropes that the film weaves in and out of. Though it is not the standout film of 2014, in the hands of P.T. Anderson, even his lowest-rated film (according to IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes) is generally a good one.
But to be completely transparent, 2014 was a formidable movie year with contenders like Birdman, Whiplash, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Boyhood, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, and Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper. It was almost predetermined that Inherent Vice would not win in any category.
2015 Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay: The Imitation Game (Graham Moore)
Verdict: Inherent Vice did not need the win as deservedly as Whiplash, which was also a contender in the same category. The Imitation Game, winning over Damien Chazelle‘s terrific masterpiece, proves Hollywood’s favoritism toward glorified war dramas.
One Battle After Another: Paul Thomas Anderson’s 10th Milestone Film
One Battle After Another marks a return to sprawling ensemble epics for P.T. Anderson and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, and Sean Penn. The film should be in the 2026 Oscars race for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Perhaps, this time, DiCaprio can be the solution to Anderson’s long-term Oscar problem.
Meanwhile, Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Bugonia, Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners, Kathryn Bigelow‘s A House of Dynamite, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein will all prove to be major competitors at the 98th Academy Awards. It also marks Bigelow’s return to the Oscars race after The Hurt Locker (2008).
Below is a table listing the critical and commercial receptions of all 10 PTA films:
Which among the above is your favorite, and which Oscar snub seems the most foul to you as a fan? Let us know in the comments below.
One Battle After Another will premiere theatrically on 26 September 2025.
