10 Best Performances In Movies Directed By Paul Thomas Anderson Ranked

10 Best Performances In Movies Directed By Paul Thomas Anderson, Ranked

From Tom Cruise in Magnolia to Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, here are the 10 best movie performances directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

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Paul Thomas Anderson is a filmmaking powerhouse. With each movie that he puts out, his profile as a giant of the medium has only grown and accrued in awards and critical praise. One of the strengths Anderson has consistently shown is his uncanny ability to pull some of the best performances of all time from his semi-regular troupe of players. Legends of the screen have cemented their status in the work they’ve turned in on a P.T.A. movie.

Each new movie the director makes is an experience unlike any other, and getting an amazing performance from an actor is now part of the natural expectation of anything new he produces. Here are the ten best performances from P.T.A.’s amazing filmography thus far.

10 Tom Cruise – Magnolia

Magnolia is one of the writer/director’s most underrated movies. The sprawling three-hour opus is a collage of characters and philosophical discourses on large themes such as grief and happiness. The movie is stacked with brilliant performances, but the standout of the movie is Tom Cruise as a motivational speaker with a terrible relationship with his father.

Cruise was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance, a brilliant detour for the mainstream movie star. A bedside scene between Cruise’s character and his ailing father is one of the movie’s most beautiful moments.

9 Joaquin Phoenix – Inherent Vice

Inherent Vice is likely the most divisive movie Anderson has made, due to its borderline incoherent plot and an off-kilter blend of humor and noir. While the movie is not the director’s strongest effort, it is still an admirable and entertaining ride that is elevated ten-fold by a lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix a stoner private eye who gets in too deep with a case.

Phoenix’s comic timing in the movie is incomparable, constantly straddling the line between genius and buffoon. There is no question Phoenix is the movie’s anchor and one of the main reasons why it succeeds.

8 Burt Reynolds – Boogie Nights

Part of the fun of watching a P.T.A. movie is that he is always putting actors in roles that play against their usual typecast. In his breakout movie Boogie Nights, he managed to make a star out of Mark Wahlberg and give machismo icon Burt Reynolds the best role of his entire career as a pornographic movie director that discovers Wahlberg’s character.

Reynolds uses his typical cocktail of charm and sleaze mixed with a nuance that can only come with Anderson’s script to create the most memorable character in the movie.

7 Emily Watson – Punch-Drunk Love

Ever since her astonishing breakout performance in Breaking the Waves, Emily Watson has long been one of the most underrated actresses working. In Anderson’s take on the romance genre, Punch-Drunk Love, Watson plays opposite Adam Sandler’s neurotic lead as a kindhearted woman who falls in love with Sandler’s character.

Watson manages to play the part with such warmth and authenticity that the generic romantic girl character is transformed into a complex human being that seems to exist beyond the parameter of the movie’s runtime. Truly amazing.

6 Daniel Day-Lewis – Phantom Thread

Daniel Day-Lewis is widely regarded as the best actor still living. The retired master managed to win three Academy Awards during his prestigious career. His final movie appearance to date is in this 2017 romantic drama, for which he received an additional Best Actor nomination.

Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a prickly dressmaker, who begins a tumultuous relationship with a young woman who becomes his muse. Day-Lewis entirely vanishes into Woodcock’s skin, a man torn between his intellect and emotions. The movie is incredible on a technical level, but it is Day-Lewis who brings the most gravitas to the proceedings.

5 Adam Sandler – Punch-Drunk Love

Anderson allowed the world our first opportunity to see Adam Sandler act his ass off. Before Uncut Gems and his current run of acclaimed stand-up, Punch-Drunk Love was the go-to movie when someone needed to defend the “Sandman’s” talent.

Sandler is absolutely mindblowing in the movie as a depressed man who is a slave to his loneliness and many erratic neuroses. The role is both perfect for the comedian and a challenging step outside of his juvenile comfort zone resulting in a performance that seems to seep off the screen with quiet rage.

4 Joaquin Phoenix – The Master

The Master is a movie that unsettles the viewer from the very beginning and doesn’t let up throughout the entirety of its intentionally slow, almost plodding, runtime. This movie perhaps out of all of Anderson’s work is the most disturbing and intellectually rigorous.

Phoenix once again shines in the movie as a, frankly, creepy sailor who joins a Scientology-esque cult. Phoenix radiates angst and psychological turmoil throughout as he grows more and more ingrained in the organization. Tremendously weird work from one of our best leading men.

3 Vicky Krieps – Phantom Thread

When you can hold your own against an icon like Daniel Day-Lewis, and in some respects outshine him, you know you have serious acting chops. Luxembourger newcomer Vicky Krieps shines in the movie as a woman named Alma who becomes entwined with the famous dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock.

Krieps manages to be vulnerable and strong simultaneously, her performance is a matured and layered one that never seems forced or phoned in at all. Krieps is particularly a revelation in the final third of the movie, an odd and truly disturbing climax that owes much of its success to how Krieps plays it.

2 Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master

Philip Seymour Hoffman was pretty much a regular player in Anderson’s work, popping up in supporting roles all the way back to Boogie Nights. However, his greatest contribution to the repertoire, as well as the entire movie canvas itself, is his antagonistic role in The Master.

Playing opposite Joaquin Phoenix and an excellent Amy Adams, Hoffman steals the entire movie with his uneasy mix of sleazy malice and unmatched charisma. The late actor is able to own every moment he is on the screen, a definitive performance that will only continue to gain reverence.

1 Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood

Unquestionably one of the screen’s most fiery and straight-up best male performances is Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. No movie quite hits the viewer as this one does, it is the cinematic equivalent of a car crash in slow motion. Unapologetically dark and intelligent, There Will Be Blood is one of the best movies ever made.

As a truly evil oilman who spins a web of sins and misdeeds over several decades, Day-Lewis triumphs in a way that is jaw-dropping and has to be seen to be believed. It really is that good.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/best-performances-movies-directed-paul-thomas-anderson-ranked/

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