A towering American epic about greed, faith, family, and self-invention, driven by one of cinema’s great lead performances and an austere, unforgettable visual style. It’s demanding, cold, and often punishing, but the craftsmanship and psychological force make it essential viewing.
98% ★★★★★ (1,891,455)
There Will Be Blood
Where to watch: Paramount
Movie · Drama · R
2007 · 2h 38m · ★ 98% (2M)
There will be greed. There will be vengeance.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor
Overview
Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday suspects Plainview's motives and intentions, starting a slow-burning feud that threatens both their lives.
Director
Paul Thomas Anderson
Production
Paramount Vantage, Miramax, JoAnne Sellar Productions, Ghoulardi Film Company
Cast
Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Dillon Freasier, Hope Elizabeth Reeves, Colleen Foy, Barry Del Sherman, David Willis, Hans Howes, Sydney McCallister, Paul F. Tompkins, Kevin Breznahan, Jim Meskimen, Erica Sullivan, Randall Carver, Coco Leigh, Jim Downey, David Warshofsky, Charles Thomas Doyle
Where to watch
fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Kanopy
Curator Review
Verdict
A towering American epic about greed, faith, family, and self-invention, driven by one of cinema’s great lead performances and an austere, unforgettable visual style. It’s demanding, cold, and often punishing, but the craftsmanship and psychological force make it essential viewing.
Best for
Viewers who like slow-burn character studies
Fans of prestige historical dramas
People drawn to stories about capitalism, power, and moral corrosion
Audiences who appreciate intense, actor-driven filmmaking
Skip if
You want a warm or emotionally reassuring drama
You prefer fast pacing or plot-heavy storytelling
You dislike bleak, confrontational characters
You need a film with clear moral resolution
Overview
There Will Be Blood is less a period drama than a study of appetite: for land, for power, for dominance, for silence. It tracks Daniel Plainview as he turns extraction into a way of life, and every relationship around him becomes another transaction or battlefield. The film’s scale is enormous, but its real subject is a man hollowing himself out in public while insisting he is building something permanent.
Worth noting
Paul Thomas Anderson stages the story with severe confidence, letting the landscapes feel ancient and indifferent while the performances crackle with menace. Daniel Day-Lewis gives the film its volcanic center, and Paul Dano provides a perfect counterforce as a preacher whose zeal is just as corrosive. Their conflict gives the movie its spiritual charge, but the deeper tension is between commerce and belief, family and performance, civilization and raw extraction.
Bottom line
What makes it endure is how complete its vision feels: the music, the framing, the pacing, and the final descent all work toward the same bleak revelation. It is a masterpiece of American cinema, but not a comfortable one. The film doesn’t ask whether Plainview will win; it asks what winning has already cost him.
Top Letterboxd reviews
siobhan (5★) · 20595 likes
cancelling plans is ok. adopting your dead co-worker's baby to look like a family man so your oil business is successful is ok. buying out an entire town to drill for their oil is ok. sending your adopted son away after he becomes deaf from a gas blowout is ok. killing a man who pretended to be your brother because you're rich is ok. berating your son because he became your competitor is ok. killing the local pastor/your brother-by-marriage in your private bowling alley because you've had beef for 16 years is ok. do what u need to do to cope <3
jourdain searles (4★) · 11732 likes
why didn’t daniel and eli kiss
Josh Lewis (5★) · 11591 likes
PTA’s filmography has a number of strands running throughout but perhaps one of the deepest and most consistent is the tumultuous generational history of fathers and sons in California, and no other film before or after has brought this particular obsession of his into such elemental focus. Taking Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel about corruption during the oil boom at the changeover from the 19th to 20th century–inspired by the life American oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny and the subsequent Teapot
Sammie (5★) · 9870 likes
That awkward moment when you abandon your child
amaya (5★) · 7782 likes
I'VE ABANDONED MY CHIIILDBASTARD FROM A BASKEEEETDRAINAAAAAGEI DRINK YOUR MILKSHAAAAAKE AAAAAÁAAAH