Recency bias apart, did the undisputed Master, for his tenth film, deliver his most universally loved yet? Happy to discuss…

A still from the action comedy drama One Battle After Another

As a film-buff’s filmmaker, Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) has perhaps only one real Hollywood rival, from among his ’90s, off-kilter, ‘VHS-generation’ contemporaries. And that’s Quentin Tarantino.

Both blessed with a love for music have remained equally careful/conservative with their filmmaking output, perennially teasing their bhakt-type fans, in anticipation of their latest work. Tarantino will soon be on to his tenth film, having announced it as his last. 

PTA just released his tenth; action-thriller, One Battle After Another (2025). The near-universal PDA (public display of affection) for which, suggests, it’s his most loved film yet. Is it?

Well, firstly, for a writer-director, there are actually PTAs. And I mean this purely in terms of expanding the cleverly original writing/filmmaking, with a wider world-view, hence, higher artistic ambitions. 

Inglourious Basterds (2009) was that pivot for Tarantino. As There Will Be Blood (2007) was for PTA. 

Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. Pic/Wikimedia Commons

I remember walking across Berlin, in 2007, wholly covered in billboards of There Will Be Blood — wondering if that was the only film premiering at the Berlinale (film festival) that year! 

What explained this blitzkrieg? Sure, it was PTA’s first film in five years........

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