Paul Thomas Anderson’s favourite movies of the 1990s
Over the years, Paul Thomas Anderson has established himself as one of the leading directors in Hollywood. The 21st century has been especially good for cinema because of Anderson, with him delivering true masterpieces in the form of There Will Be Blood, The Master and Phantom Thread.
Anderson has also given his fair share to the late 20th century with a string of early films, including his debut feature Hard Eight, the comedy-drama Boogie Nights about the Golden Age of pornography, and the tragically epic psychological drama Magnolia, which boasts one of the best casts of the decade.
While Anderson has given so much to cinema throughout his career in filmmaking, he is also something of a cinephile himself and once provided a mammoth list of his favourite films of all time. Considering his contributions to 1990s cinema, we’re picking out his favourite films of the decade.
He selects Jonathan Demme’s 1991 psychological horror The Silence of the Lambs, an adaptation of Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel of the same name. Jodie Foster plays a young FBI trainee who goes on a hunt for a serial killer called Buffalo Bill with the advice of a captive psychologist serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter, played brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins.
Cinema would be nothing without the works of Stanley Kubrick, and Anderson admires his final film, Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Cruise plays a doctor who infiltrates a secret society that engages in nefarious sexual orgies in the film based on a 1926 novella by Arthur Schnitzler.
There’s room for comedy in Anderson’s 1990s selections, too, with the Coen brothers’ brilliant The Big Lebowski making an appearance on his list, widely considered one of the funniest movies of all time. Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Steve Buscemi make some of their most iconic appearances.
Elsewhere, the likes of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Jan de Bont’s Speed and Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas prove Anderson’s penchant for crime, while movies such as David Mamet’s Homicide and Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown round off the list.
Check out the complete list of Anderson’s favourite 1990s movies below.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s favourite 1990s movies:
- Baraka (Ron Fricke, 1993)
- Homicide (David Mamet, 1991)
- The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
- Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
- Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
- The Big Lebowski (The Coen Brothers, 1998)
- Sweet and Lowdown (Woody Allen, 1999)
- Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994)
- GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
