Now that Paul Thomas Anderson secured his trophy for Best Director AND Best Picture for the electric thriller, One Battle After Another, you'd think he'd probably want to stick with more films within that genre. However, PTA is like no other director, and his next film could literally be anything.
That said, I think we shouldn't lose sight of his previous work, especially since films like There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia are considered some of the best films ever made.
Well, one film that I think always gets overshadowed is 2017's Phantom Thread, which stars the legendary Daniel Day-Lewis. It's a psychological period piece about a dressmaker who gets into a somewhat toxic (literally) relationship with a waitress. It's as weird as it sounds and a masterpiece. Here's why.
Oh, and some spoilers up ahead.
For A Time, This Was Daniel Day-Lewis's Final Movie, And It Is A Subtle But Effective Performance
For a time, we thought Day-Lewis was retired from acting forever, which was a huge blow. He has since returned to his craft with 2025's Anemone, but for a time, we really thought that we'd never see him again in a new movie. So, in a way, Phantom Thread really felt like something special.
This performance was, after all, following Day-Lewis's role of a lifetime playing Daniel Plainview in PTA's own There Will Be Blood, which came out ten years prior. For that role, Day-Lewis was explosive at 50 and showcased an actor who still had years in the tank. By 2017, Day-Lewis was 60, and you could tell that this was an actor who wanted to bow out gracefully.
And Phantom Thread is that role. Playing a somewhat eccentric dressmaker with the silly name Reynolds Woodcock, Phantom Thread provided a much more subtle role than his performance in There Will Be Blood, but it's just as potent in a quiet sort of way.
The Story Is Disturbing, But Also Beautiful Like Only PTA Can Do It
Have you ever watched Punch-Drunk Love, which is also by PTA? It's a beautiful love story, but also pretty disturbing at times (blame the brilliance of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman for one particularly uncomfortable scene). Phantom Thread is very much that as well - both beautiful and disturbing.
Reynolds Woodcock is a quiet, austere man who is dedicated to his craft (much like Day-Lewis himself, it seems), but things take a massive turn when he meets a waitress named Alma (Vicky Krieps) who soon becomes his lover, as well as somebody who inspires his later dresses.
All is going well until Woodcock becomes domineering, and Alma poisons him. Not to kill him; just to put him back in his place. In fact, their relationship is actually built on this push and pull. As I said, it's a disturbing love story, but a love story all the same, and one that only PTA could come up with.
Phantom Thread Is Unlike Any Other Movie In PTA's Filmography, And It's All The Better For It
My favorite PTA movie of all time is The Master, and I loved it instantly. I kind of hated Licorice Pizza the first time I saw it, but I came to really appreciate it later. I still often don't know what I feel about Phantom Thread.
I definitely think it's a masterpiece, and it's one of my favorite PTA films, but it's also so full of deliberate obfuscation that I don't know how I feel by the end, no matter how many times I watch it.
Is their marriage doomed? Can you really build a relationship on literally making each other sick to the point where you're bedridden? I just marvel at how…off this movie feels, and I adore that it's unlike any other PTA film. It's currently available on a Netflix subscription, so watch it while you still can!
