Magnolia

(Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999, USA, 188 minutes) After the 1997 release of Boogie Nights announced Paul Thomas Anderson as a major director in the making (and this assuming Hard Eight’s release earlier in ’97 hadn’t already done so), then-28-year-old PTA secured a $37 million budget, Tom Cruise in a showy role, and final cut (!) on his third feature, Magnolia. Taking clear clues from Robert Altman’s 1993 film Short Cuts—both films share Julianne Moore, to name just one of many things—Magnolia is, in PTA’s words, “The Mother of All San Fernando Valley movies.”