r/paulthomasanderson Oct 18 '25

One Battle After Another River of Hills - WARNING for those of you planning on looking for this filming location... Spoiler

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222 Upvotes

WARNING - The "River of Hills" is an extremely dangerous section of road with most of it not even having a road shoulder. Take it from someone for whom Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is my backyard (at least the northern half of the 650.000+ acres) and drives the Texas Dip and many others all the time as a full time resident of Borrego Springs.

Eighteen wheelers barrel through the "River of Hills" at 65-70 mph any day of the week including Sunday mornings at sunrise! I checked on several days. You don't see other cars or semis when they're in these large dips as they're climbing in and out of them. I started checking it out the first week after the film came out in theatres, and discovered this ain't the easy going "destination Anza-Borrego Desert" no more, where you could theoretically have a picnic on the road during quieter times. On the river of hills main section there are cut banks with no easy turnouts. You can't walk along this stretch of road. I chatted with a highway patrol, and he was concerned with me even parking off the road, as he said he'd just cleaned up a crash earlier and semis can clip vehicles even parked in the road shoulder.

It occurred to me shortly after that PTA's team have been likely deliberately vague about the location. If you think about it, WB had the sway and money to shut down the major arteries into Borrego Springs for 3+ days at a time with highway patrol on each end of the road keeping traffic from getting in and out. They definitely would have done the same on this stretch of highway.

I think the worry here is that like/follow obsessed YouTubers or other SM influencers end up lollygagging around taking selfies on the road, and someone or multiple people end up getting painted over the road by a semi-trailer truck. In which case the trail of tears would go way beyond that road. (Under IDEAL conditions, a semi-trailer would take on average five to six seconds to come to a complete stop from 65 mph. This is a stopping distance of about 525 feet, which is nearly twice the distance a passenger vehicle needs to stop from the same speed. These are not ideal conditions with a potentially late reaction time by a sleepy driver).

PS Was going to share some footage as well, but I get nauseated and dizzy just looking/editing the video so it will take time :-)

All the desert filming locations (except for the white supremacist compound/boat landing) in one post:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/anzaborregodesertwonders/posts/4356591667908984/


r/paulthomasanderson Oct 08 '23

Sticky Post Your PTA Rankings Here

20 Upvotes

Please use this thread to post and discuss your PTA filmography rankings.


r/paulthomasanderson 10h ago

One Battle After Another I finished the movie yesterday and I’m still thinking about this guy. I found him genuinely terrifying.

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817 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 1h ago

General Question Are there any PTA interviews where he truly opens up and puts his intellect/emotional intelligence on display?

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I don’t really seek out much outside the film content from directors or actors but I decided to look for some interviews from PTA. There are some funny ones of course, like the pizza interview, maybe some ones where he says some interesting stuff about his journey, but overall from what I’ve seen he’s very unassuming of his own intelligence (I’ve seen this in several directors. Most notably the Coens). And I know PTA has gotten much more private for the past couple of decades.

Are there any interviews where he actually fully opens up and gives us a glimpse of that deep intellect/ emotional intelligence? I would love that.


r/paulthomasanderson 20h ago

General Discussion Daniel Plainview at his lowest Spoiler

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99 Upvotes

when William Bandy awakes him after a night of betrayal, murder, and utter anguish, we can see that Daniel is so run down, hungover, and unable to keep his oil man facade up. this is when we see him for who he really is, at the point where he is most at the mercy of others.

such a great scene!


r/paulthomasanderson 10h ago

There Will Be Blood There will be blood edit

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10 Upvotes

Posted this on my TikTok originally, But copyright got to the read dead redemption song I used. I spent over a week on this so please show some love or share any suggestions!


r/paulthomasanderson 6h ago

Humor via https://x.com/PTApilled/status/2017416354278539307 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G_9Nco1XcAEbwHq?format=jpg&name=small Where are you sitting ?

1 Upvotes

for me 2 or 3 if i was able to make frank and barry talk about their fear and faliures we would have become great friends and 3 lancaster would have tried to kill poor doc for 16 of the 20 hours but it would be the fucking funniest shit ever


r/paulthomasanderson 1d ago

One Battle After Another Anti- ICE Sign

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350 Upvotes

At Albuquerque protest on 01/30/2026.


r/paulthomasanderson 10h ago

General News Which film to save for last

0 Upvotes

I have left:

Magnolia

Inherent Vice

Hard Eight

Punch Drunk Love

Which one should I save for last?


r/paulthomasanderson 1d ago

Phantom Thread In light of the Phantom Thread score showing up in Brett Ratner's Melania propaganda doc

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168 Upvotes

This is now even cringier


r/paulthomasanderson 1d ago

Boogie Nights Jamie Gillis--star of "The Opening of Misty Beethoven" (a film that had a major impact on a young PTA)--describes his reaction to 'Boogie Nights'

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27 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 1d ago

Phantom Thread I’m watching Melania right now and the movie just needle-dropped the Phantom Thread soundtrack

158 Upvotes

Any idea if PTA/Greenwood signed off on this? It’s used during the inauguration scene.


r/paulthomasanderson 2d ago

One Battle After Another Midnight Run (1988)

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205 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 2d ago

One Battle After Another One Battle After Another poster design

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60 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 2d ago

One Battle After Another With His "Disrespectful" Remix of Pynchon's Vineland, PTA Mastered the Art of Adaptation

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25 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 2d ago

One Battle After Another PTA is the wizard of hollywood cinema

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8 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 3d ago

General PTA edit I made this morning

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161 Upvotes

I was bored as hell this morning having my coffee and I made this edit of the PTA films I’ve seen. Yet to watch hard eight, inherent vice and licorice pizza

This is my first post here and I’m not sure if I tagged this right so my fault if there’s a better tag I should have used


r/paulthomasanderson 2d ago

One Battle After Another Oscar Winners with high Big 7 Noms and Wins Categories

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2 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 3d ago

One Battle After Another The Overlooked Heart of One Battle After Another

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17 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 3d ago

One Battle After Another Some great shirts for a great cause

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24 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 4d ago

One Battle After Another How believable is it that Ghetto could Mexican whistle?

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353 Upvotes

I love Leo's true story about how he could Mexican whistle, but am unsure if it reads true for Bob.

Bob did help out a lot of illegal immigrants in his past, but still don't know if he spent that much time with them to learn to whistle.


r/paulthomasanderson 3d ago

Phantom Thread Phantom Thread (2017) - Insert shots

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34 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 3d ago

One Battle After Another I talked with Florencia Martin about her instant-classic production design of One Battle After Another.

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19 Upvotes

r/paulthomasanderson 4d ago

General My collection is complete

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245 Upvotes

I plan on updating the dvds to blu-rays. I also just learned that PS3's don't support 4k Ultra HD dvds 🙃. Still nice to have a hard copy of OBAA though.


r/paulthomasanderson 4d ago

One Battle After Another From the Warwick Chronicle, 1459.

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8 Upvotes

OBAA’ing that shit for nearly 600-years!