There Will Be Blood – Why Daniel Day-Lewis’ Oil Epic Is Still Considered a Masterpiece

What Is There Will Be Blood About?

At its simplest, There Will Be Blood is the story of Daniel Plainview, a prospector who discovers that oil offers him a path toward enormous wealth. The film begins around the turn of the 20th century and follows Daniel as he transforms himself from an isolated laborer into a formidable independent oilman. His ability to identify opportunities is matched by an extraordinary willingness to endure hardship, manipulate people, and outwork anyone standing between him and what he wants.

Daniel eventually learns about valuable oil deposits around the fictional California community of Little Boston. He arrives presenting himself not simply as a businessman but as a family man who can bring roads, schools, jobs, and prosperity to an undeveloped community. His young son H.W. is central to that image, giving potential landowners the impression that they are dealing with a respectable father building something for the next generation.

Little Boston also introduces Daniel to Eli Sunday, an ambitious young preacher who believes the oil beneath his family’s land can help expand his church and religious influence. Their relationship becomes the film’s central conflict. Daniel represents ruthless economic power, while Eli represents institutional religious power, yet Anderson gradually reveals uncomfortable similarities between them.

The plot involves oil, land rights, pipelines, business negotiations, family relationships, and religious authority, but those elements primarily provide the framework for a much deeper character study. There Will Be Blood ultimately asks what remains of a person after the pursuit of victory becomes more important than money, family, community, or happiness.

Is There Will Be Blood Worth Watching?

Absolutely, although it is important to know what kind of film you are entering.

There Will Be Blood is not a fast historical thriller filled with constant plot twists. It is slow, deliberate, atmospheric, and intensely focused on character. There are extended passages with little dialogue, uncomfortable stretches where Anderson allows tension to develop naturally, and moments where the physical environment tells us as much about Daniel as his conversations do.

For viewers who appreciate character-driven cinema, the payoff is enormous. Almost every major creative element works toward the same purpose: Day-Lewis’ performance, Elswit’s cinematography, Greenwood’s music, Jack Fisk’s production design, Anderson’s pacing, and the barren landscapes all contribute to the feeling that we are watching something mythic develop from dirt and violence.

The film’s 158-minute runtime can be demanding, particularly for viewers accustomed to quicker pacing. Yet surprisingly little of that length feels unnecessary once you understand what Anderson is doing. The long silences, physical labor, landscapes, negotiations, and uncomfortable confrontations gradually reveal Daniel without needing conventional exposition.

If you enjoy films such as No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Master, The Godfather, or Citizen Kane, there is an excellent chance that There Will Be Blood will reward your patience.

Why Should You Watch There Will Be Blood?

The easiest answer is Daniel Day-Lewis, but stopping there would undersell the film.

There Will Be Blood represents filmmaking in which performance, direction, cinematography, sound, music, and production design reinforce one another instead of competing for attention. Anderson takes the familiar American story of the self-made businessman and gradually strips away its heroic assumptions. Daniel possesses many traits that would normally define an inspirational protagonist: determination, intelligence, courage, resilience, independence, and extraordinary work ethic. The problem is that those traits exist alongside resentment, manipulation, suspicion, pride, and an almost pathological desire to defeat others.

That contradiction makes the film far richer than a straightforward warning about greed. Daniel does not simply want money. Money is useful because it gives him independence, leverage, and proof that he has beaten the people around him.

Eli Sunday creates another reason to watch. Rather than giving Daniel an uncomplicated moral opposite, Anderson places another ambitious man across from him who operates through a completely different institution. Their conflict turns business and religion into rival forms of performance, persuasion, authority, and control.

The result is a film that becomes more interesting when revisited. The first viewing may be dominated by Daniel’s personality and the plot surrounding the oil business. Later viewings make the film’s ideas about loneliness, fatherhood, performance, masculinity, faith, class, and competition much easier to see.

Daniel Plainview Is One of Cinema’s Great Antiheroes

Daniel Plainview could easily have become a caricature. In the hands of Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson, he instead becomes a frighteningly complete person.

When we first meet Daniel, his defining characteristic is not cruelty but endurance. He works in brutal conditions, takes enormous physical risks, and demonstrates an almost superhuman refusal to surrender. Anderson therefore allows us to understand why this man succeeds before showing us what success ultimately does to him.

Daniel is also extraordinarily perceptive. He knows what landowners want to hear, understands how to sell himself as a respectable businessman, and quickly identifies weaknesses in other people. His public persona is calculated, but it is not entirely fabricated. There are moments suggesting genuine attachment beneath his hostility, particularly through his relationship with H.W.

The contradiction is what makes him compelling. Daniel wants human connection while behaving in ways that make lasting connection increasingly impossible. He wants family but struggles with vulnerability. He wants success but cannot enjoy success unless somebody else loses.

His tragedy is therefore not that he fails to achieve his ambitions.

It is that achieving them cannot satisfy him.

Daniel Day-Lewis Gives a Career-Defining Performance

Daniel Day-Lewis had already established himself as one of his generation’s greatest actors before There Will Be Blood, but Daniel Plainview became one of the performances most closely associated with his career.

The voice is immediately distinctive. Day-Lewis gives Daniel an old-fashioned cadence that can sound charming during business negotiations, threatening during confrontation, and almost theatrical when he is attempting to control a room. The performance could have collapsed under that intensity, but Day-Lewis anchors it through physical behavior and remarkable control.

His preparation was extensive. The supplied production history notes that Anderson sent him period recordings and material connected to John Huston, while Day-Lewis studied photographs, workers’ letters, the early oil industry, and oil magnate Edward Doheny, whose life influenced Sinclair’s original novel.

What makes the performance especially effective is that Day-Lewis does not ask viewers to like Daniel. He instead makes us want to understand him. Small gestures, pauses, changes in posture, and shifts in his voice frequently communicate more than the dialogue itself.

The Academy ultimately awarded Day-Lewis Best Actor, one of the film’s two Oscar victories. It remains one of the defining performances of 21st-century American cinema.

Paul Dano as Eli Sunday

Standing opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in this film would have been difficult for any actor. Paul Dano does not disappear beneath him.

Eli Sunday is a young preacher who believes deeply in the power of his church, but Anderson deliberately makes his motivations complicated. Eli wants spiritual authority, social recognition, money, and influence, and those desires frequently become impossible to separate.

Dano understands that Eli needs a different type of intensity from Daniel. Plainview usually controls people through physical presence, intimidation, money, and negotiation. Eli operates through ceremony, religious language, public performance, and his congregation.

That difference creates one of the movie’s most compelling relationships.

Their confrontations are not simply arguments between an atheist businessman and a religious preacher. They are battles between two men who desperately want authority and cannot tolerate being humiliated by the other.

Remarkably, Dano originally had a much smaller role as Paul Sunday. After filming had begun, he replaced Kel O’Neill as Eli and had only a few days to prepare for the substantially larger part; previously filmed material then had to be reshot. Knowing that makes the confidence of his finished performance even more impressive.

Daniel Plainview vs. Eli Sunday

The rivalry between Daniel and Eli is the engine that drives much of There Will Be Blood.

On the surface, they appear to represent opposites. Daniel is capitalism, industry, materialism, and individualism. Eli is religion, spirituality, community, and faith.

Anderson gradually complicates that distinction.

Both men understand performance. Daniel performs respectability when negotiating with families. Eli performs spiritual authority before his congregation. Daniel promises economic prosperity. Eli promises salvation. Both understand that controlling a community requires convincing people that you possess something they need.

The film therefore does not simply place capitalism against religion and declare one side victorious. It examines what happens when institutions become extensions of personal ambition.

That is why Daniel and Eli seem to recognize something in one another almost immediately.

They are rivals partly because they are different.

They are dangerous to one another because, in several important ways, they are remarkably similar.

H.W. Plainview and the Film’s Emotional Core

H.W. is essential to understanding Daniel.

Daniel presents the boy as his son while conducting business, and having a child beside him makes the Plainview operation appear trustworthy and family-oriented. Yet reducing H.W. to a business prop misses the emotional complexity Anderson develops between them.

There are signs of genuine affection and partnership. Daniel teaches H.W. about the business, keeps him close during negotiations, and appears to imagine some kind of shared future. At the same time, Daniel’s inability to separate affection from possession creates a fundamental problem.

H.W. also provides one of the film’s clearest tests of Daniel’s humanity. Business relationships can be explained through competition, but family requires vulnerability, patience, and the acceptance that another person has needs independent of your own.

Dillon Freasier gives H.W. a quiet presence that works particularly well against Day-Lewis’ overwhelming personality. The role rarely demands theatricality, and that restraint helps prevent the emotional side of the movie from becoming sentimental.

Through H.W., There Will Be Blood quietly asks whether Daniel is capable of loving another person without needing to control them.

Capitalism and Greed

The most common interpretation of There Will Be Blood treats it as a critique of American capitalism, and there is substantial evidence supporting that reading. Contemporary criticism repeatedly connected Daniel’s story to capitalism, greed, competition, and the transformation of the American frontier.

Daniel begins with almost nothing and builds an empire through labor, intelligence, opportunity, negotiation, and ruthless determination. In another film, that could form the basis of an inspirational American success story.

Anderson deliberately makes that success disturbing.

Daniel’s problem is not simply that he wants wealth. He wants independence so complete that other people become unnecessary. Competition excites him because victory confirms his superiority. Accumulating wealth therefore does not calm his hostility; it gives that hostility more room to grow.

The movie’s critique is consequently more psychologically interesting than “money is bad.” It asks what happens when a culture celebrates ambition without asking what the ambitious person actually wants power for.

Daniel eventually obtains the material freedom he pursued.

Whether that makes him free in any meaningful sense is another question entirely.

Religion and Faith

Religion is the other great institution under examination.

Eli’s Church of the Third Revelation provides community, ceremony, belief, and authority, but Anderson remains suspicious of the relationship between spiritual leadership and personal power. Eli’s religious performances can be sincere and self-serving at the same time, which makes him much more interesting than a straightforward fraudulent preacher.

The conflict between Daniel and Eli allows Anderson to examine two different kinds of American power developing alongside one another. Oil transforms land into economic capital. Religion transforms belief into social authority.

Neither man enjoys being dependent on the other.

That dependence is crucial because Daniel needs access to land and community cooperation, while Eli understands that oil money could strengthen his church. Their relationship therefore becomes a continuous negotiation over who is using whom.

The supplied critical history notes that commentators have repeatedly interpreted the film through faith, family, religion, and the tension between religious authority and greed.

The movie never reduces those themes to a simple statement about whether faith itself is good or bad. Its real interest lies in what human beings do when faith becomes intertwined with ego and power.

Family Is More Important Than It First Appears

For a film remembered primarily for oil, capitalism, and religious conflict, There Will Be Blood is surprisingly preoccupied with family.

Daniel repeatedly uses the idea of family when presenting himself to others. A family makes him trustworthy. It suggests stability, continuity, and responsibility. Yet his private behavior reveals how difficult genuine intimacy is for him.

The film repeatedly introduces relationships that offer Daniel alternatives to isolation. H.W. provides fatherhood. Business associates provide partnership. Other personal relationships create the possibility of kinship and trust.

Daniel’s reaction to those possibilities tells us more about him than his business victories do.

This is one reason the film becomes sadder on repeat viewings. Beneath its enormous landscapes and larger-than-life performances is a story about a man whose desire to protect himself from dependence gradually eliminates the relationships that could have given his success meaning.

The Meaning of “I Have a Competition in Me”

One of Daniel’s most revealing characteristics is his need to compete.

Competition initially appears productive. It drives him to work harder, negotiate aggressively, and refuse deals that would make him subordinate to larger companies. His refusal to accept limits is part of what makes him successful.

But Daniel does not merely enjoy winning.

He resents the existence of other people who might rival him.

That distinction explains why wealth alone cannot satisfy him. If Daniel’s objective were simply financial security, there would eventually be a point where he had enough. But competition has no natural endpoint because another person can always possess something Daniel lacks: money, respect, family, faith, influence, or happiness.

The movie therefore turns ambition into something closer to addiction.

Daniel is not climbing toward a destination.

He is climbing because he cannot tolerate anyone standing above him.

Masculinity and Isolation

There Will Be Blood is populated largely by men attempting to establish authority in an unforgiving environment.

Physical toughness is rewarded. Emotional vulnerability is dangerous. Business negotiations become tests of dominance. Public humiliation carries enormous weight. Even affection frequently exists beneath layers of pride and control.

Daniel represents an extreme version of that masculinity.

His ability to survive pain is extraordinary, but the same psychological armor that makes him formidable also prevents him from maintaining healthy relationships. He can endure physical suffering more easily than emotional dependence.

Anderson never needs to announce this theme directly. It emerges through Daniel’s behavior and through the increasingly empty spaces surrounding him as his material success grows.

That visual contradiction is one of the film’s strongest ideas: the more Daniel possesses, the less human connection appears around him.

Why the Opening Scene Is So Important

The beginning of There Will Be Blood tells viewers almost everything they need to know about Daniel without relying on conventional exposition.

Anderson introduces him through labor, danger, injury, persistence, and silence. Before Daniel becomes a businessman capable of dominating rooms through language, we see the physical determination that made his later success possible.

That choice matters.

If viewers encountered only the wealthy oilman, Daniel could appear like someone whose success emerged purely from manipulation. By showing his beginnings, Anderson establishes that he genuinely possesses extraordinary resilience and discipline.

This makes the character more uncomfortable rather than more sympathetic.

Daniel’s strengths are real.

His intelligence is real.

His work ethic is real.

His courage is real.

The tragedy is what those strengths become when combined with resentment and an inability to connect with others.

There Will Be Blood and Upton Sinclair’s Oil!

The movie is loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil! rather than functioning as a straightforward adaptation.

Paul Thomas Anderson became interested in the novel while struggling with another screenplay. After reading Oil!, he began using the early portion of Sinclair’s book as a foundation while combining it with his own research and ideas. The finished film diverged enough that Anderson changed the title rather than presenting it simply as a direct screen version of Oil!.

That creative freedom explains why the film feels so distinctly like Anderson’s work.

Sinclair provides historical and thematic foundations, particularly the world of early Californian oil development and the relationship between wealth and power. Anderson takes those materials and builds an intensely personal character study around Daniel Plainview.

The movie is therefore best approached as an adaptation in spirit and inspiration rather than an attempt to reproduce the novel scene by scene.

Daniel Plainview and Edward Doheny

Historical oil magnate Edward Doheny was an important influence behind the material that eventually became Daniel Plainview.

Sinclair’s Oil! drew inspiration from early oil barons including Doheny, and Day-Lewis researched Doheny while developing Daniel. The connection even extends into the movie’s locations: interior mansion material was filmed at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, the historic home built for Edward Doheny Jr.

Daniel should not therefore be interpreted as a direct cinematic biography of Doheny.

He is a fictional construction combining historical influences, Sinclair’s writing, Anderson’s screenplay, and Day-Lewis’ performance choices.

That mixture is partly why Daniel feels authentic without the film becoming constrained by the responsibilities of a traditional biopic.

Production and Development

The path to There Will Be Blood was not straightforward.

Writer Eric Schlosser acquired the film rights to Oil! after becoming interested in Upton Sinclair’s work, and Anderson eventually approached him about adapting the material. Anderson was already developing another screenplay involving rival families but found himself unable to make it work. Reading Oil! gave him a new foundation.

Financing was another challenge. Producer JoAnne Sellar recalled that studios struggled to see the project as a major commercial picture, and securing the necessary financing reportedly took around two years.

Anderson wrote with Daniel Day-Lewis in mind, while the supporting cast eventually included Paul Dano, Kevin J. O’Connor, Ciarán Hinds, and Dillon Freasier.

Principal photography began in June 2006 and continued for approximately three months, with major filming taking place around Marfa, Texas. Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit shot the movie on 35mm using Panavision equipment, helping create the enormous, textured landscapes that became one of its visual signatures.

The Cinematography

Robert Elswit’s cinematography is essential to the movie’s power.

The landscapes frequently dwarf the characters, emphasizing both the enormous opportunity offered by the land and the insignificance of the people fighting over it. Oil derricks rise from empty spaces like monuments to industrial expansion, while fire, smoke, dust, and darkness repeatedly transform practical locations into almost apocalyptic imagery.

Anderson and Elswit also understand when not to move the camera.

Many scenes allow actors to occupy carefully constructed frames rather than relying on constant editing. That restraint makes sudden movement or violence feel much more significant.

The visual storytelling also evolves with Daniel’s success. Early environments emphasize labor and exposure, while later spaces increasingly communicate wealth, control, and isolation.

Elswit’s work ultimately won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, one of the film’s two Oscar victories.

It is difficult to imagine There Will Be Blood having the same mythic quality without him.

Jonny Greenwood’s Unforgettable Score

Jonny Greenwood’s music does not behave like a conventional historical-film score.

Rather than simply making early-20th-century California sound grand or nostalgic, Greenwood frequently makes it unsettling. Strings bend, repeat, collide, and create anxiety even when nothing explicitly dangerous is happening onscreen.

Anderson approached Greenwood after hearing his orchestral work and gave him the film to score. Greenwood returned several weeks later with a substantial amount of music recorded at Abbey Road Studios.

The score works because it often refuses to tell viewers exactly what emotion they should feel. Instead of neatly signaling sadness, danger, or triumph, it creates psychological instability.

That makes the music feel closely connected to Daniel himself.

There is momentum without comfort.

There is grandeur without uncomplicated heroism.

There is progress without reassurance that anything good is being created.

Greenwood’s contribution became one of the movie’s defining elements and helped establish a creative partnership with Anderson that would continue across later films.

The Oil Derrick Sequence

One sequence involving the oil operation has become one of the most visually recognizable passages in Anderson’s career.

Without spoiling its narrative consequences, it demonstrates how effectively the film combines practical filmmaking, sound, music, cinematography, and performance. What begins as industrial activity transforms into something simultaneously horrifying and magnificent.

That contradiction captures the entire movie.

Oil represents wealth, technological progress, employment, transportation, and opportunity. It also brings danger, exploitation, environmental destruction, violence, and obsessive competition.

Anderson refuses to separate those meanings.

The spectacle is beautiful.

The consequences are terrible.

Daniel can look at the same event and see opportunity.

That difference between what the audience feels and what Daniel sees tells us everything.

The Cast and Characters

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, the ambitious prospector and oilman at the center of the film. His performance dominates the movie without reducing the supporting characters to background decoration.

Paul Dano plays Paul and Eli Sunday, with Eli becoming Daniel’s primary ideological and personal rival. Dano’s theatrical energy provides an effective counterweight to Day-Lewis’ controlled menace.

Dillon Freasier plays young H.W. Plainview, Daniel’s son and one of the story’s most important emotional relationships. Russell Harvard portrays the older H.W.

Kevin J. O’Connor appears as Henry, whose arrival gives Anderson an opportunity to explore Daniel’s complicated relationship with trust and family.

Ciarán Hinds plays Fletcher Hamilton, one of Daniel’s business associates, while Colleen Foy and Sydney McCallister portray Mary Sunday at different ages.

The ensemble is deliberately restrained. This is overwhelmingly Daniel’s story, but each major supporting character reveals something different about the man occupying its center.

Runtime and Release

There Will Be Blood runs for 158 minutes, making it a substantial commitment compared with a conventional two-hour drama.

The film first screened publicly at Fantastic Fest in Austin in September 2007 before beginning its U.S. theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles on December 26. Its release expanded in January 2008.

The length serves the material because Anderson wants viewers to experience Daniel’s transformation over decades rather than simply receive a collection of important plot points.

There are certainly audiences who will find it slow.

For viewers who connect with its atmosphere, however, the deliberate pacing becomes hypnotic rather than tedious.

Box Office

There Will Be Blood was produced for approximately $25 million and ultimately grossed around $76.2 million worldwide. Its total consisted of roughly $40.2 million from North America and another $36 million internationally.
Those figures are respectable for a long, challenging period drama built around morally difficult characters rather than conventional blockbuster appeal.

The movie’s financial performance also tells only part of the story. Its cultural value grew enormously through awards attention, home viewing, critical reassessment, academic discussion, memes, quotations, and repeated inclusion on lists of the century’s greatest films.

Some movies achieve their largest impact during opening weekend.

There Will Be Blood became more important after audiences had years to live with it.

Critical Reception

The film received extraordinary reviews in 2007 and 2008, and that acclaim has endured.

Rotten Tomatoes currently lists it at 91% from 242 critic reviews, alongside an 86% audience score from more than 250,000 ratings. Metacritic records a 93/100 Metascore from 42 critics, with 39 positive reviews, three mixed reviews, and no negative reviews in its current breakdown.

Critics particularly praised Day-Lewis, Anderson’s direction, Robert Elswit’s cinematography, Greenwood’s music, and the film’s uncompromising examination of American ambition. The supplied historical material also records substantial contemporary praise while noting that some reviewers were less convinced by the movie’s final stretch and deliberately heightened tone.

That disagreement is worth remembering because the movie’s reputation can make it sound as though everyone immediately agreed on every creative choice.

They did not.

What is remarkable is how strongly the overall reputation has endured despite those debates.

Academy Awards and Major Recognition

There Will Be Blood received eight nominations at the 80th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, and Best Sound Editing.

It won two Oscars.

Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor.

Robert Elswit won Best Cinematography.

The Academy’s official record confirms both victories as well as all eight nominations.

The film competed during an exceptionally strong awards year that also included No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Juno, and Michael Clayton. No Country for Old Men ultimately won Best Picture and Best Director, while There Will Be Blood emerged as its most formidable historical companion from that awards season.

Rather than fading after losing Best Picture, Anderson’s film continued gaining stature.

That long-term trajectory is arguably more meaningful than any single awards-night result.

There Will Be Blood vs. No Country for Old Men

Few pairs of major American films are linked as closely as There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men.

Both arrived in 2007. Both are dark examinations of American identity. Both use Western landscapes in ways that feel simultaneously historical and mythic. Both center on men whose relationships with violence, money, morality, and power reveal something deeply unsettling about the world around them.

They even shared some geographical DNA, with production taking place in the same broader Texas region.

Yet they are remarkably different films.

The Coen brothers build No Country for Old Men around fate, violence, mortality, and the erosion of an older moral order. Anderson’s movie is more directly obsessed with ambition, capitalism, religion, family, and the psychological cost of relentless competition.

The Academy chose No Country for Old Men for Best Picture.

Film lovers have been debating which 2007 masterpiece is greater ever since.

There is no particularly useful reason to choose.

Having both arrive in the same year is one of the reasons 2007 remains such a remarkable period for American cinema.

Why the Movie Can Be Surprisingly Funny

Calling There Will Be Blood funny sounds strange if you have only seen images of Daniel staring menacingly across an oil field.

Yet Anderson’s film contains a strong current of black comedy.

Some humor comes from Daniel’s absolute contempt for social conventions. Some comes from the escalating theatricality of his rivalry with Eli. Other moments become funny precisely because the characters are behaving with such enormous seriousness.

The humor becomes more obvious on repeat viewings because the tension of discovering the story is reduced.

This does not make the film less disturbing.

It makes its tone stranger.

Anderson understands that grotesque ambition can become absurd when taken far enough. Daniel and Eli are frightening men, but their pride can also make them ridiculous.

That mixture of menace and absurdity helps explain why so many moments from an otherwise severe historical drama eventually entered popular culture.

Why There Will Be Blood Is Not Really About Oil

Oil is everywhere in the movie, but oil is ultimately a vehicle for something more fundamental.

Daniel wants power.

Oil gives him access to it.

If another industry had offered him the same combination of independence, competition, wealth, land, and domination, it is easy to imagine Daniel pursuing that instead.

That is why the movie remains relevant even when removed from its historical setting.

Its subject is the psychological transformation that occurs when achievement becomes inseparable from identity. Daniel cannot simply conduct business because business is the arena in which he proves his worth.

Every negotiation becomes personal.

Every rival becomes an enemy.

Every humiliation requires an answer.

Every relationship risks becoming another contest.

Oil makes Daniel rich.

Competition makes him Daniel Plainview.

Why the Title There Will Be Blood Matters

The title immediately promises violence, but Anderson uses it more broadly than a conventional thriller would.

Blood can mean physical violence, but it also evokes family, inheritance, sacrifice, kinship, and the human cost beneath industrial expansion.

That makes the title particularly appropriate for a film where business and family repeatedly overlap.

The phrase also creates a sense of inevitability. From the beginning, Anderson presents Daniel’s world as physically dangerous and psychologically combustible. Wealth is being extracted from the earth through enormous pressure, machinery, fire, labor, and risk.

The people involved are under similar pressure.

The title therefore feels less like a spoiler than a warning.

Something this obsessive cannot remain peaceful forever.

Is There Will Be Blood Based on a True Story?

Not directly.

Daniel Plainview is a fictional character, and There Will Be Blood is not a biographical account of one historical oilman. The movie is loosely adapted from Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, which itself drew inspiration from the world of early California petroleum magnates.

Edward Doheny was one of the major historical influences behind that material, and Day-Lewis researched him while preparing to play Daniel.

Anderson also conducted extensive research into the early oil industry and visited museums connected with California’s petroleum history while developing his screenplay.

The film therefore uses real historical conditions and influences without claiming that Daniel Plainview’s life happened exactly as shown.

Why the Movie Has Aged So Well

The simplest reason is that There Will Be Blood does not depend heavily on the filmmaking trends of 2007.

Its visual language draws from classical American cinema while remaining distinctly Anderson’s. Greenwood’s score still sounds unconventional. Day-Lewis’ performance is too specific to feel like a product of a temporary acting trend. The practical locations and physical production design give the world weight that ages extremely well.

Its themes have also remained relevant.

Economic inequality, charismatic authority, corporate power, resource extraction, religious influence, masculine isolation, public performance, and obsessive competition have hardly disappeared from contemporary society.

The film never reduces those ideas to topical commentary, which protects it from becoming dated.

Daniel Plainview belongs to a specific historical moment.

The impulses driving him do not.

Legacy and Impact

The long-term reputation of There Will Be Blood has become extraordinary.

The supplied historical material records its inclusion in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, major decade-end rankings, and later lists identifying it among the greatest films of the 21st century. Metacritic’s analysis of decade-end lists found it appearing on an unusually large share of critics’ selections for the best films of the 2000s.

That reputation remains visible in more recent rankings. Rotten Tomatoes’ critics survey of the best movies from a 25-year period placed it at No. 12, while its fan survey placed it at No. 22.

Its influence also extends beyond rankings.

Daniel Plainview became one of modern cinema’s defining antiheroes. Greenwood’s unconventional score helped reinforce the possibilities of experimental orchestral music in mainstream prestige filmmaking. Anderson’s collaboration with Day-Lewis became legendary, and the film helped establish a darker, more monumental phase of the director’s career.

Most importantly, people continue arguing about it.

Great films survive because they remain watchable.

The most enduring ones survive because they remain interpretable.

There Will Be Blood does both.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is There Will Be Blood about?

There Will Be Blood follows Daniel Plainview, a prospector who becomes a powerful oilman during the early California oil boom. His pursuit of wealth and independence brings him into conflict with preacher Eli Sunday while gradually exposing Daniel’s increasingly destructive relationship with competition, family, power, and other people.

Who directed There Will Be Blood?

Paul Thomas Anderson wrote and directed the film. It became one of the most acclaimed works of his career and earned him Academy Award nominations for both directing and adapted screenplay.

Who plays Daniel Plainview?

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview. His performance won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Who plays Eli Sunday?

Paul Dano plays Eli Sunday and also appears as Paul Sunday. Dano was initially hired for the smaller Paul role before taking over the much larger role of Eli during production.

Is There Will Be Blood based on a book?

Yes. The film is loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!, although Anderson departed substantially from the book while developing his screenplay.

Is There Will Be Blood based on a true story?

Not exactly. Daniel Plainview is fictional, although the story draws from the historical California oil industry and material influenced by real oil magnates such as Edward Doheny.

How long is There Will Be Blood?

The film runs for approximately 158 minutes, or two hours and 38 minutes.

When was There Will Be Blood released?

The film first screened in 2007 and began its U.S. theatrical release on December 26, 2007, before expanding more widely in January 2008.

How much did There Will Be Blood make at the box office?

It grossed approximately $76.2 million worldwide against a reported production budget of around $25 million.

How many Oscars did There Will Be Blood win?

The film received eight Academy Award nominations and won two Oscars: Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography for Robert Elswit.

Did There Will Be Blood win Best Picture?

No. It was nominated for Best Picture, but No Country for Old Men won the award at the 80th Academy Awards.

What is There Will Be Blood really about?

The film can be interpreted through capitalism, competition, religion, family, masculinity, isolation, greed, and the pursuit of power. Rather than providing one fixed message, Anderson uses Daniel and Eli to explore how ambition can transform both economic and religious authority into tools of personal domination.

Is Daniel Plainview a villain?

Daniel is best described as an antihero who becomes increasingly antagonistic. Anderson gives viewers enough access to his determination, intelligence, loneliness, and relationships to understand him without requiring us to approve of his behavior.

Is There Will Be Blood slow?

Yes, deliberately. The movie uses long scenes, silence, landscape, physical action, and gradual character development rather than maintaining a conventional thriller pace. Viewers who enjoy atmospheric character studies are much more likely to appreciate that approach.

Is There Will Be Blood violent?

There are moments of significant violence and disturbing imagery, but the movie is not constantly violent. Much of its intensity comes from psychological conflict, industrial danger, intimidation, and the expectation that confrontations could escalate.

Why is There Will Be Blood so highly rated?

Its reputation comes from the combination of Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction and screenplay, Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance, Paul Dano’s supporting work, Robert Elswit’s cinematography, Jonny Greenwood’s score, production design, thematic depth, and an unusual willingness to make its central character deeply uncomfortable rather than conventionally likable.

What is the Rotten Tomatoes score for There Will Be Blood?

Rotten Tomatoes currently lists the film at 91% from 242 critic reviews, with an 86% audience score.

What is its Metacritic score?

Metacritic currently gives There Will Be Blood a 93/100, based on 42 critic reviews, which the site classifies as universal acclaim.

Is There Will Be Blood worth watching today?

Yes. Its deliberate pacing will not appeal to everyone, but viewers interested in ambitious filmmaking, complex antiheroes, historical drama, psychological character studies, or Daniel Day-Lewis should consider it essential viewing.

Conclusion

There Will Be Blood could have been a conventional historical drama about the birth of the American oil industry. Paul Thomas Anderson instead transformed that setting into something much stranger, darker, and more enduring.

Daniel Plainview is the reason the film initially commands attention, but he is not the only reason it lasts. Daniel Day-Lewis gives one of the defining performances of his career, yet Robert Elswit’s cinematography, Jonny Greenwood’s unsettling music, Paul Dano’s performance as Eli Sunday, Jack Fisk’s production design, and Anderson’s refusal to simplify his themes are equally important to the finished film.

Its ideas are also more complicated than the familiar description of a movie about greed. Daniel’s tragedy is not simply that he wants too much money. He wants to win. Wealth becomes evidence that he has defeated somebody else, and that distinction turns ambition from a means of improving his life into something capable of consuming it.

Eli Sunday provides the perfect opponent because he approaches power differently. Where Daniel has industry and capital, Eli has religion and performance. Their conflict allows Anderson to examine two institutions that helped shape American history without turning either character into a simple symbol.

Then there is the film itself: 158 minutes of enormous landscapes, uncomfortable silences, explosive confrontations, industrial spectacle, black comedy, family tragedy, and one extraordinary central performance. It asks for patience and gives very little consideration to viewers looking for a conventional hero or easy emotional resolution.

That uncompromising quality may be exactly why its reputation has continued to grow.

There Will Be Blood received eight Academy Award nominations and won two, including Best Actor for Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography for Elswit. Nearly two decades later, it still carries a 93 Metascore and continues appearing prominently in retrospective rankings of modern cinema.

Plenty of acclaimed films eventually become historical artifacts: respected, remembered, and rarely discussed outside film circles.

There Will Be Blood has experienced almost the opposite fate.

Daniel Plainview remains fascinating. The conflict between capitalism and religion remains provocative. Greenwood’s music remains unnerving. Elswit’s images remain astonishing. Anderson’s direction remains unmistakable.

Most importantly, the movie still feels dangerous.

That is why There Will Be Blood is no longer merely regarded as one of the best films of 2007. It has earned a much more difficult distinction: one of the defining American films of the 21st century.

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