Is Paul Thomas Anderson Still The Current ‘Master’ of Cinema?

Last May, at Cannes, I had an interesting lunch conversation with a few journalists from Paris. The topic was who is the current master of cinema. This very discussion came back to mind recently with the release of Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.”

Here’s the deal, every generation has a cinematic “master:” a director who stands above the rest in terms of artistry and groundbreaking works. This director tends to be the one who everyone else tries to catch up to. With every generation, there usually are only a few that can have the title of ‘master.’

The following is as clear a timeline as I could come up with of the designated titular masters. This starts as the conception of auteur-driven cinema was being invented, or starting to take shape, in 1950s France by the Cahiers du Cinema editorial board.

Akira Kurosawa: 1950-1958 (Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress)

Alfred Hitchcock: 1958 to 1960 (Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Vertigo)

Michelangelo Antonioni: 1960-1966(L’Avventura, L’Eclisse, La Notte, Blow-Up)

Jean-Luc Godard: 1960-1964 (Breathless, A Woman is a Woman, My Life to Live, Contempt, Band of Outsiders)

Stanley Kubrick: 1963 to 1975 (Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon)

Francis Ford Coppola: 1972-1979 (The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now)

Martin Scorsese: 1976-1990 (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, Goodfellas)

At some point in the aughts, Paul Thomas Anderson took the throne with his staggering output. Hot on his trail were the likes of Cuaron, Lynch and Coen.

However, Anderson’s streak of films, since 1997’s “Boogie Nights,” has been unparalleled — his style, an indelible mix of Influences ranging from Altman, Kubrick and Demme set a new precedent. Did “Licorice Pizza” keep him atop the throne? I think so, for now.

This is how I see the current state of cinema. It’s obviously very much my opinion and thoroughly up for debate. Counter-opinions should be made about this list and, because cinema is such an evolving medium, with some films aging better than others, it is almost a certainty that the reputation of these filmmakers will either blossom or stumble in the years to come.

The current 10 best, and most influential directors working within the U.S. studio system:

Paul Thomas Anderson
Alfonso Cuarón
Joel and Ethan Coen
Martin Scorsese
David Lynch
Quentin Tarantino
David Fincher
Wes Anderson
Steve McQueen
Christopher Nolan
Steven Spielberg

After “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master,” PTA had the crown all to himself, but by the time “Inherent Vice” was released in 2014, it divided critics and sowed enough doubt as to whether PTA was still the best working director alive.

However, with 2017’s “Phantom Thread,” he reestablished himself as the current “great one” — ‘Phantom’ ended up being named the 8th best film of the last decade in my Critics Poll of the 2010s (“The Master” finished 6th, “Inherent Vice” 36th). “There Will Be Blood” finished at #2 in our Critics Poll of the 2000s. “Magnolia” was #7 and “Boogie Nights” #8 in our Critics Poll of the 1990s.

PTA’s last film was “Licorice Pizza” and that one again sealed his dominance with critics worldwide. It appeared on a slew on top 10 lists in many countries, even finishing #2 on the Cahiers du Cinema list, to name just one.

Here’s who I’d have as the runners-up (unranked):

Kelly Reichardt
James Gray
Guillermo del Toro
Yorgos Lanthimos
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Darren Aronofsky
Noah Baumbach
Richard Linklater
The Safdie Brothers
Damien Chazelle
Sean Baker
Ari Aster
Jordan Peele
Robert Eggers
Greta Gerwig

As for foreign filmmakers ..

After much thought and deliberation, chatting with some fellow film journalists at Cannes over this very topic, I’ve come to the conclusion that Michael Haneke is still the current living master of foreign-language cinema. And yet, he hasn’t released a film in six years.

Haneke’s style can be seen everywhere in today’s modern-day moviemaking. His provocative films, filled with the utmost of cynicism, come to us in the form of an almost staged realism. Despite the morbid subject matters he tackles, there’s always a witty irony behind the darkness — a sort of wink and a nod to the audience that what they are watching is very much the constructions of a prankster director.

Michael Haneke
Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Pedro Almodovar
Asghar Farhadi
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Mike Leigh
Lucrecia Martel
Claire Denis
Celine Sciamma
Bong Joon-ho

It was very hard to stop at 10. The state of foreign-language film is so bright that I had a shortlist of 50 names. I narrowed it down to the above 10, but painstakingly, and I’m already kicking myself for not including Lars von Trier, Lee Chang-dong, Lynne Ramsay, Jia Zhang-ke, Olivier Assayas, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Pawel Pawlikowski, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Jafar Panahi, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Christian Petzold, Mia Hansen-Løve, Andrea Arnold, Hou-Hsiao-Hsien, Kleber Mendonca Filho, Jacques Audiard, Ruben Ostlund, Cristian Mungiu, Jian Zhang-ke and Maren Ade.

The criteria for choosing this list: Reputation, quality of films, recent output, festival presence and, most importantly, influence. World cinema would be a very different place without paradigm shifters such as Haneke, Dardenne, and Farhadi (among others). Their styles have been copied to death by hundreds upon hundreds of directors all around the world.