Magnolia

Paul Thomas Anderson's sprawling, intense and multi-layered study of a collection of characters going through varying levels of crisis.

This psychological drama leads you in several different directions, weaving and intersecting various subplots and characters, from a brilliant Tom Cruise (who was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe), as a self-proclaimed pied-piper, to a child forced to go on a TV game show and the pressures he faces from a ruthless father.

Anderson's highly ambitious third feature is indebted to Robert Altman in its multifaceted approach to storytelling, but would in turn inspire a new wave of multilinear films - sometimes referred to as 'hyperlink cinema' - at the beginning of the 2000s.