A critical assessment of thermal models for laser sputtering at high fluences is presented. It is argued that the model explaining such sputtering by involving a subsurface superheating effect misinterprets the meaning of ‘‘vaporization’’ and ‘‘boiling’’. As a result inappropriate boundary conditions are used, including those for both the surface temperature and for the surface temperature gradient. On the contrary, it is shown that explosive boiling (also termed phase explosion) in the sense pioneered by Martynyuk and by Fucke and Seydel remains the only thermal mechanism able to explain laser sputtering at high fluences. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.