2. Boogie Nights (1997)
There are some movies that you see and they influence the way you look at film for the rest of your life and give you characters that you truly care for until you die. Boogie Nights is one of those films. I still can't tell you if it's a very funny drama or a very dramatic comedy and I will probably never to be able to make that distinction which only helps the film. It's over two hours but the film just keeps you enthralled by its ensemble cast and always interesting story. The cast is the biggest highlight of the film, it's one of the best casts ever put on screen. All of the characters play off of each other perfectly and they all remain interesting and three dimensional throughout the film. This is where Paul Thomas Anderson really announced his arrival as the greatest filmmaker of his generation and as an incredibly underrated and talented writer. Boogie Nights looks like it would have been made by a filmmaker working at their absolute prime, but for PTA, it's only his second time behind the camera. Any filmmaker would have been happy to have just one film as good as Boogie Nights, but PTA just keeps topping himself.