The Master · reception & legacy

2012 · Paul Thomas Anderson

How The Master has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

In 2012 it split audiences down the middle — rapturous Venice premiere (it took the Silver Lion), then baffled shrugs from moviegoers expecting a Scientology exposé and a shutout in the top Oscar categories. A decade on it routinely tops best-of-the-2010s polls and is many cinephiles' pick for PTA's masterpiece.

What's debated

The eternal fight: is its opacity profound or empty — 'nothing happens' vs. 'everything happens between Freddie and Dodd' — plus the never-settled question of how much it's actually 'about' Scientology.

Its footprint

The processing scene ('Say your name... say it again') and Hoffman erupting with 'PIG F—!' in the jail cell are endlessly clipped and memed, and the window-to-wall exercise has become shorthand for cult indoctrination on film. Phoenix's hunched, hands-on-hips posture is one of the most imitated physical performances of the century.

Where it stands

A canon climber turned consensus pick — a Letterboxd darling and a fixture near the top of 2010s decade lists, the 'you must sit with it' PTA film.

★ Did you know? It was the first fiction feature shot in 65mm since Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet in 1996 — and at Venice, Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman jointly shared the Volpi Cup for Best Actor.

Named by the director

Influences Paul Thomas Anderson has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Let There Be Light (1946) — Anderson repeatedly cited John Huston's suppressed documentary about traumatized WWII veterans as a key source for Freddie and the film's postwar psychology.