It’s Paul Thomas Anderson season.
The acclaimed writer/director is back with yet another masterpiece — this time, the epic action-comedy “One Battle After Another.” Like many of PTA’s films, “One Battle After Another” boasts a sprawling cast delivering pitch-perfect performances. Characters that only appear in a few scenes leave a lasting impact, while lead actors’ work stands among the best in their careers.
For this reason, ranking a list of the best performances in a PTA movie feels like something of a fool’s errand. If this ranking were twice as long, it would still not fit all of the phenomenal turns and characters found in the director’s 10-film lineup. Comparing these performances against each other is equally challenging.
While this PTA performance ranking is far from complete, these 15 performances stand out from the crowd as some of the strongest found in the director’s robust filmography. Every role on this list is, in a word, phenomenal.
Here are the 15 best Paul Thomas Anderson-directed performances.
Note: This article contains actors and characters from “One Battle After Another” with no major spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film, feel free to read ahead (but treat yourself as soon as possible).
15. Don Cheadle as Buck Swope (“Boogie Nights”)
It’s hard to narrow most PTA films down to its one or two best performances. This is especially true of “Boogie Nights,” a sprawling showcase of character actors making meals of roles both big and small. Don Cheadle probably isn’t the first actor that comes to mind when people think of “Boogie Nights,” but his performance is quietly one of the best.
Buck Swope is a simple man. While other characters set their sights on becoming massive pornstars or true artistic filmmakers, Buck’s ambitions are smaller in comparison. Buck, a former porn actor himself, wants to open a stereo store. He wants to dress as a cowboy. He wants to be a father. This comic turn adds a bit of warmth to balance some of the film’s harsher elements — but when that harshness crashes into Buck, Cheadle sells the moment with just as much emotion as the film’s stars.
14. Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters (“Licorice Pizza”)
If you broke every PTA performance into a laughs-per-minute average, Bradley Cooper’s turn as hairdresser and future producer Jon Peters would have a good chance of coming out on top. The character is absent for most of the film, occupying only one segment in the picaresque narrative of growing up in the 1970s San Fernando Valley. The impression he leaves in this short stretch quickly becomes a highlight of an already strong piece.
In just a handful of scenes, Cooper delivers hit after hit in a highly manic performance as Barbra Streisand’s (stry-sand, like sands, like the ocean) lover. Whether acknowledging to a 15-year-old boy that “We’re both from the streets,” telling a young woman “I don’t want you to have the bear the burden” of hitting his car or threatening a driver to give him a gas station nozzle by threatening to light them both on fire. Cooper is always hilarious, and deeply engaging. His portrayal of Peters feels exactly like a guy who would one day tell Kevin Smith he needs to add a giant spider to a “Superman” movie.
13. John C. Reilly as Reed Rothchild (“Boogie Nights”)
Though he hasn’t featured in a PTA film since (aside from a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in “Licorice Pizza”), John C. Reilly starred in the first three features of his friend’s filmography: “Hard Eight,” “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia.” Though “Boogie Nights” is surely be the smallest part of the trio, it’s also some of Reilly’s best work as an actor to date.
Reed Rothchild is a fascinating character. A pornography actor who quickly gets eclipsed by the star power of Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), it would be easy for Reilly to play Reed as a jealous and vengeful second banana. Instead, he and PTA crafted a much more interesting man, a willing sidekick who immediately cedes the spotlight and becomes the supportive best friend of the rising talent. Reilly and Wahlberg bounce off of each other well, developing a hilarious relationship not wholly unlike the eventual “Step Brothers” duo of Reilly and Will Ferrell.
Like Don Cheadle’s Buck Swope, Reed Rothchild doesn’t get the same flashy material as the phenomenal leading trio of Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds and Julianne Moore (all of whom would be at home on a “Best of PTA” ranking). Yet Reilly excels at playing a type of character seen across Anderson’s films: a utility player who makes the movie that much more interesting by knowing when to step back. In this way, Reilly (once the center of PTA’s cinematic universe) is Reed Rothchild — and “Boogie Nights” is all the better for it.
12. Leonardo DiCaprio as “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun / Bob Ferguson (“One Battle After Another”)
I tried not to let any one movie overpower this list — particularly when it came to PTA’s latest masterpiece. In truth, there were numerous performances that I mulled over from “One Battle After Another,” and I still wonder if the two I’ve selected are indeed my two favorites. They’re certainly the two that I took the most away from on my first watch.
Bob Ferguson both is and isn’t a familiar turn from Leonardo DiCaprio. While he lacks a lot of the suaveness and charisma of the actor’s early career, he is filled with the mania and loserish behavior that defines current-stage Leo. In many ways, he evokes “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s” Rick Dalton, a version that lives with his heart outside of his body. He drinks and he smokes to forget that his best days are behind him (and that danger hides around every corner), yet he also knows that the single greatest thing in his life stands right before his eyes. He wishes he was better at communicating, but he always tries to connect.
Leo, once a seemingly eternally youthful star, transitions into playing the role of girl dad, someone who recognizes that the future is now in the hands of the next generation. The next generation in “One Battle After Another” is well cared for — but DiCaprio still gives one of the most touching, enjoyable turns in his storied career alongside her.
11. Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell (“The Master”)
There’s a scene in “The Master” where Joaquin Phoenix’s Freddie Quell finds himself locked in a jail cell next to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s enigmatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd. As Freddie stands with his hands cuffed behind his back, he begins thrashing violently around the room, banging a bed with the back of his neck and destroying a toilet with his feet. It’s not the subtlest thing Phoenix has ever done, nor is it the extent of his performance in the film, but it’s entirely entrancing to watch him become a caged animal whipped into frenzy.
Freddie and Lancaster’s relationship lies at the center of “The Master” — a directionless, broken war veteran who falls into the orbit of a compelling, phony cult leader. There is not a moment with Phoenix on-camera where he is anything short of mesmerizing, selling the complex dynamic between these two men that is far from a mere master/apprentice dichotomy. Phoenix shows shades of future performances in this role (one clownish Oscar winner, in particular), but he’s perhaps never been better than he is here.
10. Chase Infiniti as Charlene Calhoun / Willa Ferguson (“One Battle After Another”)
PTA tosses a lot of established actors career-best roles, but he and casting director Cassandra Kulukundis also make a lot of compelling discoveries. Fresh off of her appearance in “Presumed Innocent,” Chase Infiniti makes her big-screen debut in “One Battle After Another,” acting against the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Regina Hall. Her performance yields one major takeaway.
Chase Infiniti is a movie star.
While her screen time likely doesn’t quite amount to DiCaprio’s or Penn’s, much of the story of “One Battle After Another” rides on Infiniti’s shoulders. Willa Ferguson is forced to become an overnight revolutionary of a war her parents drafted her into, evading capture from the deranged Col. Lockjaw while trying to survive long enough to reunite with her father, Bob. Every scene of hers is utterly compelling, selling the confidence, uncertainty and fear that this teenage warrior needs to convey. You never feel the absence of more established names when Infiniti appears alone on-screen. Her performance, especially as the film enters its final act, is a knockout.
9. Vicky Krieps as Alma Elson (“Phantom Thread”)
In “Phantom Thread,” Vicky Krieps stars alongside Daniel Day-Lewis in his second PTA role, following what is often regarded as one of the best performances of all time. Krieps, in what is now considered her breakout role, entirely holds her own, playing one of the most interesting characters in Anderson’s filmography.
Krieps is tasked with carrying much of the twisted romance at the center of “Phantom Thread.” As Reynolds pushes Alma further and further to the side, she must find new ways to assert her power in the House of Woodcock. In lesser hands, it would be easy for this performance to feel disastrous. Yet Krieps sells the role with a quiet complexity that helps make it into one of the most compelling love stories in modern film. “Phantom Thread” has gained even more esteem over the years as one of Anderson’s best, a quiet contender among an already astounding filmography. Watching Krieps, Day-Lewis and Leslie Manville work in tandem, it’s not hard to imagine why.
8. Melora Walters as Claudia Wilson Gator (“Magnolia”)
From a storytelling perspective, “Magnolia” remains one of PTA’s most ambitious works. It’s a sprawling story with a vast ensemble — something that can be said of many of him films, but never again quite to this degree. As such, it becomes incredibly difficult to narrow down the movie’s best performances. Any list, however, would feel incomplete without Melora Walters.
Walters has one of the trickier characters in “Magnolia,” playing the tortured and troubled Claudia Wilson Gator. Claudia has had an incredibly difficult life, one involving an abusive relationship with her father (played by Philip Baker Hall) that paved the way for addiction.
Walters plays this part with immense compassion, knowing when to be showy and, more importantly, when to not. She creates some of the most memorable moments in the film with a highly emotive and lasting performance. “Magnolia” throws a lot at the wall, and it’s likely that not all of it will stick for everyone. Walters’ performances continues to stick for me.
7. Philip Baker Hall as Sydney Brown (“Hard Eight”)
“Hard Eight” often ranks near the bottom of most evaluations of PTA’s filmography. It was the director’s first feature-length cinematic effort, a movie about a mysterious gambler who takes a struggling young man under his wing in an act of seemingly random charity. There’s a lot to love in the film, though the screenplay doesn’t quite live up to the standards of the director’s later efforts.
Yet Philip Baker Hall’s central performance is an astounding piece of work. Playing the role of Sydney Brown (the film was initially set to be called “Sydney”), Hall enters every scene with mystique and swagger. He’s electric in every frame, playing a man who carries a heavy burden yet radiates a steely kindness. “Hard Eight” may not be PTA’s best, yet it still carries one of his finest performances. This is far from a minor debut.
6. Alana Haim as Alana Kane (“Licorice Pizza”)
Alana Kane is a mess.
She’s a 20-something-year-old (I wouldn’t trust her answer of 25) looking for direction. After a day of taking high school pictures, she takes up a 15-year-old’s offer for a date — though she wouldn’t it call that — for reasons she probably couldn’t name. As she continues to develop an ambiguous relationship with Gary Valentine (played by a fantastic Cooper Hoffman), she wonders why the only person she can really, deeply connect with is a 15-year-old “idiot.”
It’s an incredibly difficult role that Alana Haim plays with precision. Questions about the weirdness of Alana and Gary’s relationship abound, and they’re fair questions to raise. But Haim sinks deeply into this part (far from “playing herself”), displaying the complexity, uncertainty and resistance that comes with “growing up” as a young adult. She’s a force to be reckoned with throughout the film, and a character that invites constant interrogation.
5. Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd (“The Master”)
Philip Seymour Hoffman appears in half of PTA’s filmography, and you could make a fair argument for just about any of those performances belonging on this list. “The Master” is certainly where Anderson gives him the most to do. In a film with a lot on its mind, Hoffman gives a centerpiece performance as a charismatic cult leader that takes Joaquin Phoenix’s troubled Freddie Quell under his wing.
Hoffman, often a king of background acting, commands the foreground in a calculated performance, bringing all the nuance and intricacy of his always stellar supporting work. Almost every word out of Lancaster Dodd’s mouth feels entirely measured, making those few moments where he lets the mask slip all the more interesting. Without Hoffman’s unparalleled ability to turn in hypnotic character work, this entire film would fall apart. For as massive, probing and distant as “The Master” can seem, Hoffman makes Dodd’s final moments with Quell one of the most emotional pieces in Anderson’s filmography.
4. Lesley Manville as Cyril Woodcock (“Phantom Thread”)
Power dynamics have always been a preoccupation of PTA’s. Especially as the filmmaker settles into his later career, many of his films revolve around the idea of who controls a relationship, romantic or otherwise. “Phantom Thread” has some of the most overt portrayals of this theme — and some of the strongest.
Daniel Day-Lewis’ Reynolds may be the frontman of the House of Woodcock, but his sister Cyril demonstrates that it truly is a family affair. Lesley Manville plays the character with an expert calm and assuredness, one of the only people in Reynolds’ life who can best him, who wields any sort of power over him at all. It’s a role they’re both aware of, even if Reynolds sometimes threatens to forget it.
“Don’t pick a fight with me, you certainly won’t come out alive. I’ll go right through you and it’ll be you who ends up on the floor. Understood?” Cyril says in one of the film’s best moments. It’s one of the only times in the film anyone is able to quiet Reynolds in a moment of his wrath.
Much of “Phantom Thread” goes unsaid between sister, brother and lover. It’s one of Anderson’s quietest and most ethereal works. Yet Manville perfectly conveys every element of Cyril and Reynolds’ complex, often unremarked upon relationship. She needn’t a word, but it’s a treat when she speaks.
3. Adam Sandler as Barry Egan (“Punch-Drunk Love”)
It’s hard for me to write about this one without getting emotional. In “Punch-Drunk Love,” Adam Sandler’s performance reminds me of someone very important to me, in a way no other movie really has. This character gives me hope for things that I sometimes stay up at night worrying about. He connects with me in ways that I don’t really know how to put into words. I find this performance meaningful, and incredibly personal — a testament to Sandler’s strength in the role.
Barry Egan is, above all, an outsider. He’s a self-starting entrepreneur cursed with debilitating social anxiety. He calls phone sex lines merely to find someone willing to engage in conversation. He spends significant sums of money on pudding cups so he can accrue airline miles — never mind the fact that he is afraid of leaving even his office, and doesn’t seem to have any strong feelings towards pudding. He’s internalized years of “teasing” and abuse, yielding emotional, often violent outbursts. This all leads him to wonder: Is something actually wrong with me? Am I broken?
Barry goes through the wringer in “Punch-Drunk Love,” getting accosted by cruel sisters, brutish brothers and a vengeful mattress store salesman. Yet he also meets Lena Leonard (played wonderfully by Emily Watson), a woman who loves Barry for who he is and forgives him for who he’s not. Lena isn’t doing Barry’s sisters a favor, or showing him pity by giving him the time of day. She doesn’t like him “in spite of” anything, or hunt for wounded birds. There are no qualifiers for her affection towards Barry — nor do Sandler and PTA have any qualifiers for theirs. Barry grows in some ways, and primarily gains a bit of confidence. But he doesn’t have to change himself to have value.
Sandler hits every note perfectly, showing the full range of this tortured character and giving him the affection he deserves. Even when Barry trashes a bathroom or beats men with a tire iron, Sandler delivers the warmest, most compassionate performance of his career. He does not play this character as someone who’s broken. The movie simply does not work without Sandler — for some, the often surreal love story/waking nightmare may still be a bit opaque. To me, this performance helps make the film one of PTA’s best.
2. Tom Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackie (“Magnolia”)
It’s hard to imagine Tom Cruise turning in a performance like this today.
This isn’t a dig. I would be hard-pressed to name a movie franchise I love more than the “Mission: Impossible” series, and I think Cruise’s current era of action icon is fascinating. But “Magnolia” shows the actor drop his movie star persona for a moment in a way that no other film has, allowing him to slip into a grungy, complex, often ugly character. There’s nothing for him to hide behind here.
The result is arguably the finest performance of Cruise’s career. In Frank T.J. Mackie, the actor fully embodies a broken man who uses toxic masculinity to mask his pain and make it everyone else’s problem. His opening scene, disgusting, darkly comic and brilliant, immediately lets you know this is Cruise like you haven’t seen him before or since.
And then he starts sharing the screen with Jason Robards, another in a long list of “Magnolia” performances that belong in this lineup. It’s amazing the depths Cruise achieves in these scenes, a rawness the movie star arguably hasn’t fully reached since. As the actor settles into being a certified brand, a bastion of Hollywood and one of the lost true symbols of movie stardom, it feels as if his “Magnolia” turn is a relic of the past. There’s a truth here absent in even his greatest of modern performances (and many of them are great).
1. Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview (“There Will Be Blood”)
“There Will Be Blood” remains the most significant achievement of Anderson’s career, a massive American epic that is intellectual, probing and always exciting (it reminds me of a certain movie in theaters now). Present for nearly every scene is Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a self-made oil man whose capacity for greed outstrips his capacity for anything else.
Day-Lewis plays Plainview as a mythological figure. There is no logic or feeling to most of his actions outside his desire for more. He accrues wealth beyond imagination for no purpose other than the satisfaction of greater riches. He is scarcely seen enjoying his money throughout the film, living most of his life in tents and makeshift shelters until he settles into an empty home with a bowling alley (though it’s hard to imagine him bowling a frame). In his quietest moments, he shares that a competition lies deep within himself, an insatiable need to beat all others by any means necessary. In this sense, he is the true protagonist of American cinema — an avatar of greed and accruement who paves over existing community merely so he can sit atop the hill.
It’s hard to tell what degree of love Plainview truly has for his son, alternating between an item of affection and a business prop. I believe that Day-Lewis, and Plainview himself, would be likewise hard-pressed to find a true answer. This relationship is one of the most intriguing aspects of “There Will Be Blood,” and one of the most heartbreaking. Many will remember Plainview for his biggest scenes — cries of “Bastard in a basket!” and exclamations of a stolen milkshake — but a moment where father abandons his injured son to see to an overnight oil emergency leads to some of the most lasting images in both Day-Lewis and Anderson’s storied careers. Equally impactful is later in the film when Plainview proclaims to a church that he’s abandoned his child. How much of this is an act and how much is genuine guilt can’t be said, perhaps even by Daniel himself.
Every element of Plainview (his voice, his gait, his stance) feels both highly calculated and entirely thoughtless from Day-Lewis. It’s hard to pinpoint any actor who has so fully embodies their characters as much as him, seemingly throwing away line readings and expressions that rattle in the heads of audiences for years. While Plainview could easily descend into a broad mockery of consumption, Day-Lewis crafts him into an endlessly interesting character who is ceaselessly engaging in his simplicity. Plainview gets nearly two and a half hours of screen time to himself, and you still leave the movie wanting to watch more.