Paul Thomas Anderson was just 28 when he wrote and directed this epic meditation on masculinity, mortality and morals. A sprawling portrait of a lonely city, it remains one of the most singular, moving and accomplished works of American cinema in the last 20 years.

On one clement day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male nurse, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, and one extraordinary story. Through a collusion of coincidence, chance, human action, past history and divine intervention they weave and warp through each other´s lives seeking love, forgiveness and a mending of the bonds that bind them, building to a climax of biblical proportions.

A magnificent and highly emotional exploration of the hidden elements of existential crisis, Paul Thomas Anderson’s stunning third film was ultimately a story about putting things right again. Operatic in its ambition, with its tangled web of slowly unfolding themes, Magnolia still feels unique, achingly melancholic and endlessly fascinating.

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