Movie · 2014 · Drama, Mystery, Comedy · 2h 29m · R · English
Curator score: 6.0/10 (365.5K ratings)
Love usually leads to trouble.
Overview
In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.0/10
IMDb: 6.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.61/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 73%
Metacritic: 81
TMDB: 6.5/10
Director
Paul Thomas Anderson
Production
Warner Bros. Pictures, IAC Films, JoAnne Sellar Productions, Ghoulardi Film Company, RatPac Entertainment
Cast
Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, Jena Malone, Joanna Newsom, Jordan Christian Hearn, Hong Chau, Jeannie Berlin, Maya Rudolph, Michael Kenneth Williams, Martin Short, Sasha Pieterse, Martin Donovan, Eric Roberts, Serena Scott Thomas, Christopher Allen Nelson, Sam Jaeger
Curator Review
Verdict
A shaggy, stoned neo-noir that trades clean plotting for atmosphere, jokes, and melancholy. It’s messy by design, but the mood, performances, and period texture make it a rewarding watch for viewers who like their mysteries hazy and their comedies deadpan.
Best for
Paul Thomas Anderson fans
neo-noir and detective-story viewers who enjoy ambiguity
people who like ensemble comedies with a paranoid edge
viewers interested in late-1960s/early-1970s counterculture
Skip if
you want a tightly engineered mystery with clear answers
you dislike rambling, digressive storytelling
you need fast pacing and constant plot momentum
you’re not into druggy, off-kilter humor or tonal drift
Overview
Paul Thomas Anderson turns Thomas Pynchon’s labyrinth into a sun-bleached hangout noir, where the pleasure is less in solving the case than in drifting through the wreckage of a culture on the turn. The movie is funny, mournful, and deliberately untidy, with Joaquin Phoenix giving Doc Sportello a beautifully dazed physical comedy that keeps the film buoyant even when the conspiracy fog thickens.
Worth noting
What makes it stick is the feeling of a world slipping away: the end of the 1960s, the collapse of idealism, and the way private confusion mirrors public rot. Anderson doesn’t simplify the material; he lets the movie stay slippery, which can be frustrating if you want a conventional detective payoff, but exhilarating if you’re tuned to mood, texture, and implication.
Bottom line
It’s one of those films that can feel like a joke on first pass and a lament on the second. The ensemble is rich, the soundtrack is hypnotic, and the whole thing plays like a cracked postcard from a country that has already started lying to itself.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Matt Singer (3.5★) · 6181 likes
Every ticket to INHERENT VICE should come with the choice of a joint or a second ticket to INHERENT VICE. You will need one or the other.
Chris 🍉 (4.5★) · 2952 likes
paul thomas anderson: *points his camera at absolute nonsense for 148 minutes*
me: OOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
maria (3.5★) · 2389 likes
as rick dalton in once upon a time in hollywood so eloquently and masterfully said "dirty fucking hippies"
Roy Wonderboy (4★) · 2075 likes
A detective film that doesn't give two shits about the mystery. I love it.
SilentDawn (5★) · 1780 likes
"It's not groovy to be insane."
Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice is a force to be reckoned with. It's a shimmering and paranoiac masterwork that bubbles with a sustained sense of wistful loss and slowly-fading hopefulness. Masquerading as a neo-noir of convoluted and increasingly tense situations, PTA's film instead uses the complex story-line as a framework for a time and place that is both lost but constantly remembered. Combined with a delightful ensemble cast, typical PTA visual/aural nirvana, and a… more