The Master is a 2012 American psychological drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams.

It tells the story of Freddie Quell (Phoenix), a World War II Navy veteran struggling to adjust to a post-war society, who meets Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), the leader of a cult known as The Cause.

The film's inspirations were varied: it was partly inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, early drafts of Anderson's There Will Be Blood, the novel V. by Thomas Pynchon, John Huston's documentary Let There Be Light about WWII veterans with PTSD, drunken Navy stories that Jason Robards had told to Anderson while filming Magnolia, and the life story of author John Steinbeck.

It was released in theaters in the United States on September 14, 2012, to critical acclaim; its performances (particularly those from the three leads), screenplay, direction, plausibility, and realistic portrayal of post-World War II Americans were praised.

[4] Traumatized World War II Navy veteran Freddie Quell struggles to adjust to post-war society and is prone to violent and erratic behavior.

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.

[10] Unsure of the direction the script would take, Anderson began writing The Master as a collection of disparate scenes, rather than one coherent outline.

[10] 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).

[12] 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.

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.

[35] The Master was initially set up with Universal, but, like The Weinstein Company, they eventually passed on the project because of problems with the script.

[46][47] The Weinstein Company continued advance screenings of the film in 70 mm in New York City, Los Angeles, London, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Austin.

The release features "Back Beyond", a twenty-minute montage of deleted footage edited by Paul Thomas Anderson and set to Jonny Greenwood's original score.

It also includes the 1946 John Huston documentary Let There Be Light, a source which Anderson reportedly found very influential in his creation of the film.

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.

"[55] 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.

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.

[60] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter praised the score composed by Jonny Greenwood, stating: "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.

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.

"[61] 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.

"[64] 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.

[65] 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.

Reed also made mention of how Phoenix's performance and the supporting characters' lack of development further hurt the film.

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".

A similar incident was rumored to have occurred at the festival in 2008, when Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler was to be awarded both the Golden Lion and the Volpi Cup for Mickey Rourke's performance.

Film Comment noted the bonding and repelling between the two men, "two edges of the split saber, play out in public and in private, in "audits" and intimate exchanges over Freddie's alcoholic concoctions".

[84][90][91] The press noted Hoffman's physical resemblance to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986), who served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, and, after his release from the hospital, founded the belief system in 1950, the same year as the religion in the script.

The film ends in England, at roughly the same time Saint Hill Manor became Hubbard's residence and the first Scientology "org".

"[10] Several websites suggested that "important Hollywood Scientologists" objected to the project because they feared it might reveal too much about the faith, and others even speculated that the Church of Scientology had enough power to stop Universal from green-lighting the film.

[95] Officials of the Church of Scientology, who reportedly heard from Cruise, "hit the roof" when they learned of a scene which suggested that the belief system was a product of the leader's imagination.