There aren’t that many American auteurs, mostly because the movie industry doesn’t want them. And yet, Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t just exist — he keeps turning out brilliant, sprawling, strange features he’s able to convince studios to fund despite their rarely coming close to turning a profit. Ever since he got his start in 1993 with a short he paid for with college-tuition money and his girlfriend’s credit card, PTA’s been making the kind of movies that Hollywood keeps insisting it’s not interested in anymore, though it can’t seem to help itself in terms of staying away. (There’s a maybe-apocryphal story about one executive wondering to another about how he ended up getting stuck producing the latest Anderson affair, and being told that it was simply his turn.)

Talent like Anderson’

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