It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.

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.