Claim: Paul Thomas Anderson was the director of the film Boogie Nights.

Paul Thomas Anderson -LRB- born June 26 , 1970 -RRB- also known as P.T. Anderson , is an American filmmaker . Interested in film-making since a young age , Anderson was encouraged by his father to become a filmmaker .   In 1993 , he wrote and directed a short film titled Cigarettes & Coffee on a budget of $ 20,000 . After he attended the Sundance Institute , Anderson had a deal with Rysher Entertainment to direct his first feature film , a neo-noir crime thriller titled Hard Eight , in 1996 . Anderson received critical and commercial success for his film Boogie Nights -LRB- 1997 -RRB- , set during the Golden Age of Porn in the 1970s and 1980s . His third feature , Magnolia -LRB- 1999 -RRB- , takes place over a single day in the San Fernando Valley , following the interconnected lives of several characters in search of happiness and resolution . It received strongly positive reviews despite struggling at the box office . In 2002 , the romantic comedy-drama Punch-Drunk Love , Anderson 's fourth feature , was released to generally favorable reviews .   The epic drama There Will Be Blood -LRB- 2007 -RRB- , set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries , centers on a silver miner 's efforts to capitalize on the Southern California oil boom . Released after a five-year absence , it garnered wide acclaim from critics . Anderson 's sixth film , the drama The Master -LRB- 2012 -RRB- , was released to critical acclaim . His seventh film , the crime comedy-drama Inherent Vice , based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon , was released in 2014 , to general acclaim . His eighth film , Junun , is a documentary about the making of an album of the same name . His ninth film , Phantom Thread , which will reunite him with actor Daniel Day-Lewis , will be released on December 25 , 2017 .   Anderson has been nominated for six Academy Awards over the course of his career , while his works have earned a further fourteen Academy Award nominations and two wins for cast and crew . There Will Be Blood has been named by several critics as the best film of the 2000s . It later ranked , along with The Master and Inherent Vice , in the BBC 's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century .