Paul Thomas Anderson names his favourite Adam Sandler movies
Whether you think the award for the best director of the 21st century should go to a cinematic titan like Denis Villeneuve or an artistic innovator like Jonathan Glazer, one thing that we can all agree on is that Paul Thomas Anderson floats around the top of all of these rankings. Yet to make a critical ‘flop’, Anderson is an American movie maestro known for such modern masterpieces as 2007’s There Will Be Blood and 2012’s The Master.
Rising to fame in the late 1990s, with his directorial debut of Hard Eight in 1996, Anderson went from strength to strength, next helming arguably his magnum opus in the form of 1997’s Boogie Nights. Just 26 years old at the time of making the movie, the director wasn’t taken wholly seriously by his cast members, clashing significantly with actor Burt Reynolds who was almost 40 years his senior.
“Personality-wise, we didn’t fit,” he said of the filmmaker, adding: “Every shot we did, it was like the first time [that shot had ever been done]. I remember the first shot we did in Boogie Nights, where I drive the car to Grauman’s Theater. After he said, ‘Isn’t that amazing?’ And I named five pictures that had that same kind of shot”.
Whilst many doubted him whilst he was making Boogie Nights, few did after the film received three Oscar nominations, including ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ for a script that Anderson penned himself. He would later prove his worth further, with a glittering filmography that includes the likes of 1999’s Magnolia, 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love and 2021’s love letter to LA, Licorice Pizza.
An artistic director with a clear passion for the history of cinema, Anderson has previously voiced his fondness for such filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, Lars von Trier and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, yet has rarely exclaimed his passion for a good Adam Sandler flick.
In a 2015 conversation with British film critic Mark Kermode, Anderson admitted to his guilty pleasure, voicing his love for two unpredictable favourites. “It’s a tie between Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore“, referencing a pair of 1990s Sandler flicks that are admittedly towards the top of his mixed filmography, with the latter being perhaps his most beloved movie, telling the story of a rejected hockey player who takes up golf.
Anderson was so enthralled by Sandler in these ‘90s comedies that he saw him as the perfect collaborator for his complex 2002 comedy Punch-Drunk Love, where the actor played a social outcast whose call to a phone-sex line destroys his life. Also starring the likes of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Emily Watson and Luis Guzmán, many call the 2002 film the very best in his filmography.
The filmmaker has never been afraid of voicing his opinion on cinema, no matter the title, previously voicing the Will Smith movie that made him cry his “eyes out”.
Take a look at the trailer for Happy Gilmore below, one of Anderson’s two choices for his favourite Adam Sandler flick.
