There Will Be Blood
Academy Award × 2
Rent/Purchase
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.
What critics thought
Broadly treated as one of the finest American films of the century, it drew near-universal admiration for Daniel Day-Lewis's ferocious central performance and Paul Thomas Anderson's command of scale and atmosphere — but a vocal minority pushed back hard on the ending, arguing the final confrontation between Plainview and Eli Sunday collapses from grandeur into burlesque. The gap between 'masterpiece' and 'impressive but flawed' is exactly where critical debate settled.
“the film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic.”
Manohla Dargis·The New York Times
“a mesmerizing meditation on the American spirit in all its maddening ambiguities: mean and noble, angry and secretive, hypocritical and more than a little insane in its aspirations.”
Richard Schickel·Time
“There Will Be Blood is the kind of film that is easily called great. I am not sure of its greatness.”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
“there should be no need to pretend There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece just because Anderson sincerely tried to make it one”
Mick LaSalle·San Francisco Chronicle
“stops being a masterpiece and becomes a really good movie. What was grand becomes petty, then overwrought.”
Carla Meyer·Sacramento Bee
Genres
Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorPaul Thomas Anderson
StarringDaniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Dillon Freasier
ComposerJonny Greenwood
There Will Be Blood
Academy Award × 2
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.
What critics thought
Broadly treated as one of the finest American films of the century, it drew near-universal admiration for Daniel Day-Lewis's ferocious central performance and Paul Thomas Anderson's command of scale and atmosphere — but a vocal minority pushed back hard on the ending, arguing the final confrontation between Plainview and Eli Sunday collapses from grandeur into burlesque. The gap between 'masterpiece' and 'impressive but flawed' is exactly where critical debate settled.
“the film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic.”
Manohla Dargis·The New York Times
“a mesmerizing meditation on the American spirit in all its maddening ambiguities: mean and noble, angry and secretive, hypocritical and more than a little insane in its aspirations.”
Richard Schickel·Time
“There Will Be Blood is the kind of film that is easily called great. I am not sure of its greatness.”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
“there should be no need to pretend There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece just because Anderson sincerely tried to make it one”
Mick LaSalle·San Francisco Chronicle
“stops being a masterpiece and becomes a really good movie. What was grand becomes petty, then overwrought.”
Carla Meyer·Sacramento Bee
Genres
Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorPaul Thomas Anderson
StarringDaniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Dillon Freasier
ComposerJonny Greenwood
Rent/Purchase