The Master

What's it about?

After returning from the Second World War, having witnessed many horrors, a charismatic intellectual creates a faith-based organisation in an attempt to provide meaning to his life. He becomes known as "The Master".

His right-hand man, a former drifter, begins to question both the belief system and The Master as the organisation grows and gains a fervent following.

What the critics said:

"Where There Will Be Blood transmuted sullen earth into flame and launched it violently skyward, The Master is, as its opening shot advertises, a more fluid undertaking, a story of ebb and flow.
- Christopher Orr, The Atlantic


"It's a film bristling with vivid moments and unbeatable acting, but its interest is not in tidy narrative satisfactions but rather the excesses and extremes of human behaviour, the interplay of troubled souls desperate to find their footing."
- Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times


"I believe in the church of Paul Thomas Anderson. Fierce and ferociously funny, The Master is a great movie, the best of the year so far, and a new American classic."
- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone