Licorice Pizza is a 2021 American romantic comedy drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

In 1973 San Fernando Valley, 15-year-old actor Gary Valentine meets Alana Kane, a 25-year-old photographer's assistant, at his school picture day.

An inebriated Alana makes Gary jealous, and Holden's friend, film director Rex Blau, convinces him to recreate one of his motorcycle stunts on a nearby golf course, bringing the entire restaurant along.

Alana maneuvers their truck backward down a long hill to a gas station, impressing Gary, but causing her to question her recent decisions.

Inspired by a campaign poster, Alana reaches out to her old classmate Brian, who brings her on as volunteer staffer for Joel Wachs, a city councilman running for mayor.

Gary briefly joins her but overhears that pinball will soon be legalized in the Valley and decides to open an arcade, leading to an argument with Alana about their difference in age and their fraught relationship.

Thinking it is a date, she is dejected to discover Wachs wants her to pose as the girlfriend of his secret boyfriend, Matthew, to save him from political embarrassment.

The screenplay of Licorice Pizza evolved from this experience and additional stories told to Anderson by his friend Gary Goetzman, who was a child actor who had starred in the film Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, and eventually started a waterbed company and pinball arcade.

[13][14] Anderson considered Fast Times at Ridgemont High and American Graffiti as major influences in the making of Licorice Pizza.

[16] Anderson explained: "If there's two words that make me kind of have a Pavlovian response and memory of being a child and running around, it's 'licorice' and 'pizza' [...] It instantly takes me back to that time."

[19][20] Described as a "family-and-friends project" by the Los Angeles Times, the film also features Anderson's longtime partner Maya Rudolph, their four children, and many of their neighborhood friends in various roles.

[14] Principal photography began in Encino, California, in August 2020,[21] under the working title Soggy Bottom[22] which, in the film, is the initial name of Gary's waterbed business.

[23] A Tudor Revival manor previously owned by actor Lyle Waggoner was used for scenes at Jon Peters's house.

[4][5] Deadline Hollywood reported the film lost money for the studio, though did note it "brought a pulse to arthouses during a downbeat time.

[34][35] Its fifth weekend, the film expanded to 786 theaters and entered the box office top ten for the first time with $1.9 million, finishing eighth.

[43] After earning its three Academy Award nominations, the film was expanded to 1,977 total theaters and made $959,788 over its twelfth weekend, finishing ninth at the box office.

The website's consensus reads: "Licorice Pizza finds Paul Thomas Anderson shifting into a surprisingly comfortable gear – and getting potentially star-making performances out of his fresh-faced leads.

[51] The group Media Action Network for Asian Americans, however, called for an awards boycott of the movie due to the decision to include these two scenes without any pushback from the characters.