I don't get a sense of American pride. I just get a sense that everyone is here, battling the same thing - that around the world everybody's after the same thing, just some minor piece of happiness each day.

He began writing in adolescence and at 17 years old he began experimenting with a Bolex sixteen millimetre camera. "
The film he made was Cigarettes & Coffee (1993) a short film made for $20000 connecting multiple story lines with a twenty-dollar bill.

In 2007 Total Film named him the twentieth greatest director of all time while the American Film Institute regards him as "one of American film's modern masters. " In 2011 Entertainment Weekly named him the tenth-greatest working director calling him "one of the most dynamic directors to emerge in the last twenty years. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards — There Will Be Blood for Best Achievement in Directing Best Motion Picture of the Year and Best Adapted Screenplay; Magnolia for Best Original Screenplay; and Boogie Nights for Best Original Screenplay.