Paul Thomas Anderson’s eighth film, 2014’s Inherent Vice, was his first true adaptation. While There Will Be Blood was very loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil, this film is a very faithful telling of Thomas Pynchon’s novel. Inherent Vice is actually the first film ever made from one of Pynchon’s notoriously hard-to-crack books.

The modern film noir, set in 1970 and soaked in pot and paranoia, follows private detective Larry “Doc” Sportello through a byzantine plot involving kidnapping, murder, gentrification, police informants, and an international heroine syndicate. It’s also a love story.

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