10 Films To Watch Before You See Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Inherent Vice'

"This Friday the rambling, lolloping, uncategorizable “Inherent Vice” (and we mean that in the best way, it was our 10th favorite film of the year) from director Paul Thomas Anderson rolls into theaters in a cloud of pot smoke and lens flare. You can read our review here to get a flavor of the kind of offbeat, elliptical, blissed-out, occasionally impenetrable ride you’re in for, or you can mosey into your screening with no preconceptions and no particular expectations. Or there’s a third option: take a spin through some of the following films that, whether in style, substance, or spirit, provide a kind of primer for PTA's movie. 

Many of the following titles were featured in a terrific, 24-film-strong season at Brooklyn’s estimable BAM Cinematek called Sunshine Noir, whose centerpiece was a special screening of “Inherent Vice.” Indeed that might be the closest anyone has really come to categorizing the Thomas Pynchon adaptation—it has some of the trappings of film noir in its central gumshoe character and missing-persons mystery, but is planted firmly in a beachy, bleached-out LA, and owes a huge stylistic debt to the films of the 1970s from which many of these Sunshine Noirs are drawn.

Yet each of the following, like the film that inspires the list, is also its own thing. Whether a stone-cold classic or a neglected gem, whether a 1950s black and white or a 1980s neon-noir, these are ten films worth watching, or rewatching, be it in preparation for “Inherent Vice,” or for no particular reason other than the love of a good, weird, atmospheric, offbeat trip."

Full List/ Lista Completa: