Daniel Day-Lewis wears a J.W. Benson

Near the end of Phantom Thread's first act, Reynolds Woodcock brings Alma, a waitress he has just met, up to his top-floor workroom and begins taking her measurements, and a thin gold watch slips from his cuff-linked sleeve as Jonny Greenwood's score swells. Woodcock is a fastidious couturier in 1950s London who lives with his sister and runs the household to an exacting routine, until Alma unsettles it. Daniel Day-Lewis plays him, and announced his retirement from acting in 2017, the year of the film's release. Phantom Thread was his last performance.

The watch is a J.W. Benson, a gold dress piece from a long-running London maker, and by Hodinkee's account it belongs to Day-Lewis rather than the wardrobe department. He has worn other watches over the years, including a 36mm Rolex Explorer, but this is the one with history: it has been on his wrist since at least 1990, when he collected his first Academy Award for My Left Foot. Day-Lewis is left-handed and wore it on his right wrist to hold that Oscar. Woodcock is right-handed, so for the film the same watch crossed to the left.

Up close it is a plain thing, with teardrop lugs, a very thin case, gold Arabic numerals, and a small-seconds subdial. The dial carries no model name or reference, only the maker and the word London, which is also where Woodcock keeps his couture house. For his final role Day-Lewis wore the watch he had worn to accept his first Oscar twenty-seven years earlier, on the same strap.