There Will Be Blood

"There will be greed. There will be vengeance."

2007 2h 38m EN

🙌

8.1

BANGER

★8.1TMDB · 7,760

Drama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

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.

“There will be greed. There will be vengeance.”

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Cast

Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Plainview
Paul Dano
Paul Sunday / Eli Sunday
Kevin J. O'Connor
Henry
Ciarán Hinds
Fletcher Hamilton
Dillon Freasier
H.W. Plainview
Hope Elizabeth Reeves
Elizabeth
Colleen Foy
Mary Sunday
Barry Del Sherman
H. B. Ailman

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Writers: Paul Thomas Anderson
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Clocks in at 158 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 3.1× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 19 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, shot by Robert Elswit. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Jonny Greenwood. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Dylan Tichenor shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano and Kevin J. O'Connor carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "There will be greed. There will be vengeance.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Paul Thomas Anderson directs. Robert Elswit behind the camera. Jonny Greenwood scores. Dylan Tichenor cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Clocks in at 158 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.
2Made its money back 3.1× over at the box office.
3Released 19 years ago.
4Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, shot by Robert Elswit. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Jonny Greenwood. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Dylan Tichenor shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano and Kevin J. O'Connor carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "There will be greed. There will be vengeance.".
9IMDB entry: tt0469494 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 37 themes, including "california", "petrol", "sibling relationship", "based on novel or book".
11Released under 16 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Robert Elswit
Original score: Jonny Greenwood
Editing: Dylan Tichenor
Production design: Jack Fisk
Costume design: Mark Bridges
Makeup / hair: Linda Flowers
VFX supervisor: Grady Cofer
Sound: Chris Scarabosio
Stunt coordinator: Jeff Habberstad
Runtime: 158 min · 2h 38m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $25,000,000
Box office: $77,208,711
Return: 309% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: There Will Be Blood (2007)

Awards

Amanda Award for Best Foreign Feature Film
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
Academy Award for Best Actor

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Paul Thomas Anderson

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Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

j4ni2019-07-29
Great movie, not a spaghetti western. Very good story and atmosphere 10 stars.
Wuchak2019-08-15
★ 5/10
Weighty, morose period drama with complex characters and Daniel Day-Lewis In the early 20th century, an industrious prospector in Southern California, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), becomes a shrewd oil magnate, whose journey is paralleled with a dubious Pentecostal pastor of a remote church, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). “There Will Be Blood” (2007) is a one-of-a-kind period drama with Western elements. It’s arty and the furthest thing from a conventional blockbuster. You have to be in the mode for a deep, slow-moving, epic flick like this in order to appreciate it. The contemporaneous “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and “No Country for Old Men” are good comparisons. Whilst the story and main characters are simple on the surface, they go deep and there are some things to mine: What good is success if you have no one to love and enjoy it with? Is Daniel a sociopath or a quality individual who acquires sociopathic tendencies because his choices put him on the road of madness? Was Eli a “false prophet”? If so, was he always a con or did he become one? Why is Eli paralleled with Daniel? Does Daniel have the capacity for genuine love? Does he mean what he ultimately says to HW or are they words born from a sense of betrayal? Would a sane person rashly resort to murder? Is there a positive protagonist in the movie? If so, who and why? If not, why not? Unfortunately, the flick wallows in the negative side of life and is the furthest thing from inspirational. The film runs 2 hours, 38 minutes, and was shot in Southern Cal and Texas (Shafter & Marfa); and Lakewood, Washington (Thornewood Castle). GRADE: C+
CinemaSerf2023-09-12
★ 7/10
I remember reading about just how much money Rockefeller was making at the height of his prowess and the sums were eye watering. His Standard Oil company is referenced in this powerful drama with Daniel Day Lewis as “Plainview”. He’s a prospector looking for silver but who has a bit of a fall and discovers that there is something much more valuable and plentiful - if you know how to find it, He gradually buys up leases and together with his stalwart “Fletcher” (Ciarán Hinds) and young son “H.W.” (Dillon Freasier) starts to develop his business with a view to building a pipeline of over one hundred miles to reach the sea. Along the way, their lives are fraught with dangers and tough choices have to be made - especially when an accident at one of the wells renders the young boy deaf. It’s at this remote site that “Plainview”meets his nemesis. Not in a competitive, business, fashion - but in a puritanical Christian one. The son of a local homesteader is aspiring preacher “Eli” (Paul Dano) and the remainder of the film sees the one trying to humiliate and outmanoeuvre the other and disclaim each’s strongly held values. It’s a slow burn, this film, but DDL is on super form as a man striving for success but for it’s own purpose. His wealth does not bring him contentedness nor, for that matter, does it bring joy to anyone else. This also demonstrates just how poor rural parts of the USA were at the turn of the 20th century, and at how vulnerable the population were to exploitation and the venality of the oilmen. The photography is immersive and the pace works well in drawing us into the perfectly constructed characterisations that were the natural successors to the earlier pioneers. I didn’t love the conclusion. It seemed a little unnecessary, underwhelming - rushed even. The last ten minutes have an intensity of their own that though they well illustrate the skill of Dano and DDL, they just didn’t quite wrap things up as I might have liked. Still, it’s a great piece of cinema with some strong writing underpinning a series of lusts….