Oscars: Paul Thomas Anderson named Best Director for One Battle After Another
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Paul Thomas Anderson accepts the award for Best Director for Best Director onstage during the 98th Annual Academy Awards on March 15.
PHOTO: REUTERS
LOS ANGELES - Paul Thomas Anderson won the Directing Oscar on March 15 for One Battle After Another, an offbeat action movie that is also the frontrunner for best picture.
The dark comedy about a former revolutionary racing to save his kidnapped daughter, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, tackles hot-button topics like immigration, race relations and the outsized political power of billionaires.
It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Teyana Taylor, who were all nominated for their performances.
Anderson, 55, or PTA to fans, has carved out a rare career in Hollywood, making adult-oriented films outside the commercial mainstream that still manage to become box-office hits. One Battle was his most expensive movie to date but also his highest-grossing, taking in more than US$200 million (S$256 million) worldwide.
Anderson was previously nominated for directing Licorice Pizza (2021), Phantom Thread (2017) and There Will Be Blood (2007), and his screenplays for Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999( and Inherent Vice (2014) won writing nominations.
“You make a guy work hard for one of these,” Anderson said in his acceptance speech. “I really appreciate it.” REUTERS
