Production notes

It was first reported in December 2009 that Paul Thomas Anderson had been working on a script about the founder of a new religious organization (described as being similar to Scientology) played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. An associate of Anderson stated that the idea for the film had been in Anderson's head for about twelve years. The idea for the film came to him after reading a quote stating that periods after wars are productive times for spiritual movements to start. Unsure of the direction the script would take, Anderson began writing The Master as a collection of disparate scenes, rather than one coherent outline. He combined unused scenes from early drafts of There Will Be Blood, elements from the life stories of John Steinbeck and L. Ron Hubbard and from the novel V. by Thomas Pynchon, and stories Jason Robards had told him on the set of Magnolia about his drinking days in the U.S. Navy during World War II (including the draining of ethanol from a torpedo). Anderson conducted research about Dianetics and its early followers. While writing, Anderson sought Hoffman's feedback on the script, with Hoffman suggesting the film focus more on Freddie's story than Lancaster's. After the film was dropped by Universal and failed to pick up a distributor, Anderson did several months of rewrites.

Anderson has stated that he wanted Hoffman to play Lancaster Dodd from the film's inception, and that he also had Joaquin Phoenix in mind for the part of Freddie Quell. Jeremy Renner and James Franco were each rumored to play Freddie before Phoenix was officially attached. This was Phoenix's first screen appearance since the 2010 film I'm Still Here, a multi-year performance art mockumentary project that Phoenix attributed as a factor in limiting the roles he was subsequently offered. Reese Witherspoon was reportedly offered the role of Peggy Dodd, but Amy Adams was later cast. For the role of Dodd's daughter, Amanda Seyfried, Emma Stone, and Deborah Ann Woll were all considered, with the role eventually going to Ambyr Childers.

Filming was to begin in August 2010, with Renner starring opposite Hoffman, but was postponed indefinitely in September 2010. In May 2011, after securing financing, the film was given the green light and filming began in early June 2011 in Vallejo and Sacramento. Shooting took place on Mare Island for a month using the wing of an old hospital and an empty admiral's mansion for some scenes. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidential yacht, the USS Potomac, was used for shooting shipboard scenes. In late June 2011, filming took place at Hillside Elementary School in Berkeley. The film was shot on 65 mm film using the Panavision System 65 camera. It was the first fiction film to be shot in 65 mm since Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet in 1996. Mihai Mălaimare Jr. served as cinematographer, making The Master Anderson's first film without cinematographer Robert Elswit. The film crew used three 65 mm Panavision cameras throughout filming, and at times had an assistant from Panavision on set to help with the cameras' technical issues. Originally, Anderson and Mălaimare planned to shoot mainly portraits in 65 mm, which constituted 20 percent of the film, but ultimately 85 percent of the film was shot in 65 mm. The remainder of the film was shot on 35mm using Panavision Millennium XL2s cameras, often used for scenes that required a "dirtier" look. In order to maintain a consistent aspect ratio, the 65 mm footage was cropped from 2.20:1 to 1.85:1 to match the 35 mm footage, at the sacrifice of some image area. Most of the film stocks used were Kodak Vision3 50D Color Negative Film 5203 and Kodak Vision3 200T Color Negative Film 5213 with a few scenes also done with Kodak Vision3 250D Color Negative Film 5207 and Kodak Vision3 500T 5219. Because Anderson prefers working with film, he bypassed the use of a digital intermediate, instead color grading with the use of a photochemical timer. During filming, Phoenix was allowed to improvise on set. Phoenix lost significant weight for the role and came up with Freddie's awkward gait. Anderson compared Phoenix's commitment to that of Daniel Day-Lewis for his level of concentration, saying that Phoenix got into character and stayed there for three months. Anderson considered the dynamic between Hoffman and Phoenix to be central to the film, likening it to the rivalry and differences in style and temperament between tennis players John McEnroe and Björn Borg or Ivan Lendl, with Hoffman playing the more controlled and driven approach of Borg or Lendl. Adams stated that Anderson would have her appear on set for scenes she was not scheduled to appear in to make her presence felt, and at times she didn't know whether the camera was on her.

Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead composed the score for the film. This was the second time Greenwood scored an Anderson film, the first being 2007's There Will Be Blood. The official soundtrack was released through Nonesuch Records, and comprises eleven compositions by Greenwood along with four recordings from the film's era. Performers include the London Contemporary Orchestra and Ella Fitzgerald, among others. The track "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me)" is presented as performed in the film by actress Madisen Beaty. The Weinstein Company also released a more comprehensive score on their website as part of the film's promotion, featuring alternate versions of the tracks.

The Master grossed $242,127 at five theaters during its opening day on September 14, 2012, setting a single-day record for an art house film. Overall the film made $736,311 from five theaters for a per-theater average of $147,262, setting a record for the highest average for a live-action film. During its first week nationwide, the film grossed $4.4 million in 788 theaters.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, The Master has an approval rating of 85% based on 257 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Smart and solidly engrossing, The Master extends Paul Thomas Anderson's winning streak of challenging films for serious audiences." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, in praising Anderson's directing and Phoenix's performance, wrote: "Phoenix, known for immersing himself in Oscar-nominated roles in Gladiator and Walk the Line, makes Quell frighteningly believable." About the film itself, he stated: "The Master takes some getting used to. This is a superbly crafted film that's at times intentionally opaque, as if its creator didn't want us to see all the way into its heart of darkness." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a perfect "A" grade, stating: "It's also one of the great movies of the year - an ambitious, challenging, and creatively hot-blooded, but cool-toned, project that picks seriously at knotty ideas about American personality, success, rootlessness, master-disciple dynamics, and father-son mutually assured destruction."

Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor wrote that "the performances by Phoenix and Hoffman are studies in contrast. Phoenix carries himself with a jagged, lurching, simian-like grace, while Hoffman gives Dodd a calm deliberateness. Both actors have rarely been better in the movies. The real Master class here is about acting – and that includes just about everybody else in the film, especially Adams, whose twinkly girl-next-door quality is used here to fine subversive effect." A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "It is a movie about the lure and folly of greatness that comes as close as anything I've seen recently to being a great movie. There will be skeptics, but the cult is already forming. Count me in." Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club, giving the film an "A" grade, wrote: "It's a feisty, contentious, deliberately misshapen film, designed to challenge and frustrate audiences looking for a clean resolution. Just because it's over doesn't mean it's settled." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film four stars out of four, praising Anderson's directing: "The Master, the sixth film from the 42-year-old writer-director, affirms his position as the foremost filmmaking talent of his generation. Anderson is a rock star, the artist who knows no limits." About the film itself, he wrote: "Written, directed, acted, shot, edited, and scored with a bracing vibrancy that restores your faith in film as an art form, The Master is nirvana for movie lovers. Anderson mixes sounds and images into a dark, dazzling music that is all his own." He would later call the film the Best Film of 2012. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "In a film overflowing with qualities, but also brimming with puzzlements, two things stand out: the extraordinary command of cinematic technique, which alone is nearly enough to keep a connoisseur on the edge of his seat the entire time, and the tremendous portrayals by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman of two entirely antithetical men, one an unlettered drifter without a clue, the other an intellectual charlatan who claims to have all the answers. They become greatly important to each other and yet, in the end, have an oddly negligible mutual effect. The magisterial style, eerie mood and forbidding central characters echo Anderson's previous film, There Will Be Blood, a kinship furthered by another bold and discordant score by Jonny Greenwood." Justin Chang of Variety magazine wrote: "The writer-director's typically eccentric sixth feature is a sustained immersion in a series of hypnotic moods and longueurs, an imposing picture that thrillingly and sometimes maddeningly refuses to conform to expectations." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three stars out of four and praised Phoenix's performance, stating: "Gaunt, sick-looking, with stooped shoulders and a shambling gait, Phoenix buries himself in Freddie's persona and there's never a moment when we disbelieve him." He added: "Yet, for all of The Master's laudable elements, it falls short of greatness for one simple reason: the storytelling is unspectacular." Even less enthusiastic was Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of a possible four. He wrote that it was "fabulously well-acted and crafted, but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air. It has rich material and isn't clear what it thinks about it. It has two performances of Oscar caliber, but do they connect?" However, Ebert later included The Master as an honorable mention on his list of the best films of 2012, naming it alongside nine other titles he granted his Grand Jury Prize that year. Calum Marsh of Slant Magazine gave the film two stars out of four, stating: "The Master is Paul Thomas Anderson with the edges sanded off, the best bits shorn down to nubs." Rex Reed of the New York Observer gave the film a negative review, writing: "Call The Master whatever you want, but lobotomized catatonia from what I call the New Hacks can never take the place of well-made narrative films about real people that tell profound stories for a broader and more sophisticated audience. Fads come and go, but, as Walter Kerr used to say, 'I'll yell tripe whenever tripe is served.'" Reed also made mention of how Phoenix's performance and the supporting characters' lack of development further hurt the film. On Phoenix's performance, Kent Jones of Film Comment noted, "Freddie is not so much played as nuzzled, and jerked into being by Joaquin Phoenix. I'm Still Here aside, Phoenix's Freddie seems like genuinely damaged goods. He and his director feel their way into this man-in-a-bind from the inside out, and they establish his estrangement from others in those opening scenes through awkward smiles and out-of-sync body language alone". "As always with Anderson," Jones continued, "the character opposition borders on the schematic, and the structure threatens to come apart at the seams. But the courting of danger is exactly what makes his films so exciting, this new film most of all. I don't think he has ever done a better job of resolving his story, perhaps because he has come to terms with the irresolution within and between his characters." Scott, of The New York Times, pointed out that Phoenix used "sly, manic ferocity" to portray Freddie as "an alcoholic wreck". Emma Dibdin of Total Film gave The Master 5 stars out of 5, concluding that it "is a breath-taking, singular, technically audacious film, white-hot with emotion, and boasting a few scenes so individually powerful that they'll stay with you like a physical presence for days". The Master was placed #1 in both the critics poll of the best films of 2012 by Sight and Sound, and by The Village Voice on its annual film poll. The film also ranked second by both Film Comment and Indiewire on their year-end film critics polls, following Holy Motors. The Master was later placed #1 on The A.V. Club's list of the best films of the 2010s up until April 2015, and was named as one of the top 50 films of the decade so far by The Guardian. Anderson considers it his favorite of the films he has made; in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said:

For sure. I think that won't change. The amount of emotion I put into it and they put into it—they being Phil [Seymour Hoffman], Joaquin [Phoenix], and Amy [Adams]. I'm not sure it's entirely successful. But that's fine with me. It feels right. It feels unique to me. I really hope it will be something people can revisit and enjoy in a way that equals my pride in it. And pride can be a dangerous thing, and I'm not being very quiet about my pride in saying all this. But I just feel really proud of it. And of course, there's a particular sentimentality attached to it for a number of personal reasons. It's all wrapped up. In May 2025, ScreenCrush ranked the film at number 20 on its list of "The 20 Best Movies of the Last 20 Years," with Matt Singer writing "On a recent rewatch, I felt like The Master is as much a twisted love story as Anderson’s Phantom Thread, and was mostly struck with the poignance of its story about a man who claims he can erase trauma suffered in past lives, who cannot even help his most fervent follower deal with the trauma he has experienced in this life." In June 2025, the film ranked number 42 on The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" and number 87 on the "Readers' Choice" edition of the list. In July 2025, it ranked number 44 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century."

The Master was listed on many critics' top ten lists.