A major portion of "Cigarettes and Coffee" was later adapted, expanded and basically re-made into p.t. Anderson's first feature film, "Hard Eight". The most interesting part of "Cigarettes" was later used as the first scene for "Hard Eight"--in both Phillip Baker Hall's character interrogates a young drifter in a roadside diner and explains a few things about life and the art of conversation to him. In "Hard Eight" the two then go on to have a father-son type relationship in a fairly straightforward narrative (the most straightforward of any of p.t.'s later films). Here in the seminal "Cigarettes and Coffee", however, Baker Hall's conversation with the young man is only one of three happening simultaneously in the diner. P.T. cuts between the three, and we soon learn that the lives of the three seemingly-unrelated sets of characters do actually intersect in unexpectd ways. In this way, the short film is much more like the director's recent Altman-inspired "Magnolia" than it it either "Hard Eight" or "Boogie Nights." "Cigarettes and Coffee" has played on The Sundance Channel (or was it The Independent Film Channel?) quite frequently.

在海滩打了一天艰苦的排球后，一位父母不在的青少年决定和她的女朋友们开一个睡衣派对。不出所料，他们的男朋友会出现来吓唬他们，但也可以看到一个从海滩来的陌生人潜伏在房子周围。很快，这个团队开始经历自然减员的问题。

Private investigator and former police detective Jack Ramsey is enjoying an affair with the local district attorney's wife, but when she is strangled not long after he has departed following a session of amorous activity.

In this earnest, unflinching drama, sisters unite in the face of their father's constant abuse.

An FBI agent investigating the kidnap then apparent murder of a wealthy businessman, has his suspicions. The authorities believe Ben to be dead, but the body could not be identified. Ben's wife is the prime suspect with her accomplice, the victim's brother. Brian has to go undercover(s) to get to the truth.