Daniel Day-Lewis’ frothing oil-baron performance in “There Will Be Blood” loomed so large that it posed a nearly impossible act for anyone to follow.

This time, the director’s target was a real person — a cult leader inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard (played by frequent Anderson collaborator Phillip Seymour Hoffman) — which called for a degree of caution.

But without outside reading and research, audiences were hard-pressed to make much of this rowdy critique, focusing instead on Joaquin Phoenix’s character, the kind of broken individual on whom false prophets prey.

A free-wheeling coming-of-age comedy, Licorice Pizza is a companion piece ofLucas’ 1973 “American Graffiti” and Linklater 1993 Dazed and Confused.”

Yet, the gloriously retro “Licorice Pizza” proves to be one of the director’s most heartfelt movies yet. Shot during the pandemic, this affectionate time capsule allows the director to carry on the creative partnership with the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman by writing a role for his son Cooper, who plays an impossibly self-confident SoCal teenager intent on wooing a woman roughly a decade his senior (Alana Heim). Coming on the heels of Bradley Cooper’s gonzo leisure-suit cameo, the delivery-truck scene is hall-of-fame material.

3. Magnolia (1999)

Photo : ©New Line Cinema/courtesy Evere

It never rains in Southern California, or so the old song goes, though a weather forecast at the outset of PTA’s magnum opus gives it a 75% chance. Chance. That’s the operative word in this emotional merry-go-round of reckonings and reconciliations, which hinges on a central paradox en route to its torrential climax: Anderson muses about the freak factors that govern our fates, even as he plays god behind the scenes. Over the course of three-plus hours, he orchestrates this symphony-like ensemble piece as a series of dramatic waves, set in motion by Jon Brion’s carnival-ride score and the soul-shredding voice of Aimee Mann. Nine Mann songs, nine major characters, interwoven with a staggering degree of complexity. Inspired by Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts,” but pitched at a kind of doomsday intensity, “Magnolia” unfurls as if a biblical judgment day were looming and these people — parents and their damaged-goods kids, mostly — had only 24 hours to sort out a lifetime of regrets and unfinished business. As a Tony Robbins-like motivational speaker, Tom Cruise is toxic masculinity personified, though it’s Julianne Moore, as his dad’s teeth-gnashing trophy wife, who reminds that, even in a movie as perceptive as this one, we can never really know someone.

2. Boogie Nights (1997)

Hollywood may be full of hangers-on and has-beens, but in the world of porn, everyone’s a star — at least, that’s the sense one gets from Anderson’s slick homage to the adult film industry of the 1970s, which turns toxic with the introduction of drugs and home video in the ’80s. Set in the San Fernando Valley, the film follows much the same arc as countless “A Star Is Born” narratives that’ve come before, but brings such heart to the equation that the usual showbiz cynicism takes a back seat to genuine interpersonal dynamics, as Mark Wahlberg’s gifted-if-not-especially-talented Dirk Diggler creates a kind of chosen family for himself.

The twin forces of commerce and Christianity go head-to-head in Anderson’s epic American showdown.

The take is set in the early 20th century, when opportunists like Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) could strike it rich overnight digging for silver — or black gold.

The movie pits the seasoned capitalist against a self-righteous (if hypocritical) man of the cloth as Daniel spars with a country preacher (Paul Dano) over a lucrative claim.

This feature is one for the ages, like watching Elmer Gantry throw down with an Ayn Rand titan.

It’s hardly a fair fight, but sets up the film’s incomparably cathartic “I drink your milkshake” finale.