Film

Inherent Vice

Name: Inherent Vice
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Comedy
Released: 2014
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon

Paul Thomas Anderson adapts Pynchon's supposedly unfilmable novel into a woozy detective comedy set at the exact moment 1960s idealism curdles into 1970s paranoia. Stoner PI Doc Sportello chases a missing ex-girlfriend through hippies, cops, dentists and land developers, and the plot matters less than the drift. Gorgeous, funny, deliberately hard to follow — for anyone who wants a mystery that dissolves instead of resolving.

TMDb rating

6.5

If you liked this

The Big Lebowski1998

Same hazy SoCal detective energy, same shaggy-dog plot that barely resolves, same joy in watching a stoned narrator get pulled through events too big for him to grasp.

But If Doc's fog frustrated you, The Dude's will frustrate you twice as much — less mystery, more pure vibes.

The Long Goodbye1973

Altman's loose, sun-bleached Philip Marlowe wandering a 1970s LA that no longer makes sense to him — basically Pynchon's whole model for Doc.

But Elliott Gould's drift can read as inertia if you want your detective story to actually detect something.

Chinatown1974

The other great LA noir about water, land and rot under the sunshine — tighter and meaner, and the film Inherent Vice is quietly answering back to.

But Ice-cold and cynical where Doc's world is warm and stoned; don't expect any of the comedy.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Big Sleep1946

Pynchon wrote Doc as a direct descendant of Philip Marlowe, and this is the Marlowe film so tangled that even Faulkner, adapting it, couldn't say who committed one of the murders — the confusion is the point, decades before Doc inherited it.

Bogart at his most effortlessly cool, a plot that dissolves into pure atmosphere and banter, and the missing link between hardboiled noir and Doc's stoned unraveling.

But Black-and-white studio-era pacing and a plot that's genuinely, famously impossible to follow — no drugs required for the confusion this time.

Boogie Nights1997

Same director, same LA sprawl, same tenderness for people a decade is about to chew up — Anderson without the narcotic haze.

But Porn-industry setting and a much more linear rise-and-fall structure; the loose paranoia isn't here.

The Nice Guys2016

Same 1970s LA, same shaggy buddy-detective plot tangled in a conspiracy nobody can fully explain, but played fast, mean and very funny.

But Broader, punchier comedy with none of Doc's melancholy — more buddy-cop than dream logic.

Under the Silver Lake2018no page yet

A modern LA paranoia spiral about a directionless man chasing a woman through a conspiracy that keeps swallowing its own tail — Inherent Vice's spiritual cousin.

But Colder and more self-consciously cryptic; some find its smugness a turnoff where Doc stays lovable.

Licorice Pizza2021no page yet

Anderson back in the San Fernando Valley a few years later, same wandering hangout rhythm and fondness for a California already vanishing.

But No crime, no dope haze — just two kids drifting through 1973, a much gentler film altogether.

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood2019

The end of the same LA dream, Manson-era dread hanging over sunny surfaces, told with the same loving eye for period detail and music.

But Tarantino's rhythms are punchier and more violent; the shaggy mystery structure isn't the point here.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang2005

A funnier, faster noir pastiche that mocks its own detective-story furniture while still delivering real twists.

But Snappier and more Hollywood-slick — none of the woozy, unhurried atmosphere that makes Inherent Vice what it is.

Wild Wild Country2018

Swap the Golden Fang for a real 1980s Oregon commune and you get the same story Pynchon was telling as satire: countercultural utopia curdling into surveillance and land grabs — except this one actually happened.

A sprawling true story about a guru's commune spiraling into wiretaps, poisonings and a small-town takeover — stranger and more paranoid than anything Doc stumbles into.

But Six hours of documentary, no jokes to cushion it, and the queasy feeling Pynchon's satire wasn't exaggerating much at all.

A Scanner Darkly2006

Same drug-haze unreliable narrator caught between the counterculture and the cops meant to be fighting it, but Philip K. Dick pushes it into paranoid sci-fi and rotoscope animation strips the world down to pure hallucination.

Keanu Reeves adrift in a rotoscoped fever dream about surveillance and addiction, built from the same fog of who's watching whom that Doc never quite escapes.

But The animation style is genuinely disorienting and the tone is bleaker — Inherent Vice's paranoia with the comedy switched off.