There Will Be Blood
Classic
Drama
Period Drama
Dark
Slow Burn
PrestigeThe review
There Will Be Blood is a sprawling, elemental epic of the California oil boom, anchored by Daniel Day-Lewis's towering performance as Daniel Plainview, a silver miner turned oilman whose folksy drawl curdles into something monstrous. The film's style is as divisive as its craft is admired: Jonny Greenwood's atonal, dissonant score is essential to the dread but strikes some as aggressive noise, the pacing is relentlessly slow-burn, the tone unremittingly bleak, and the extended confrontations between Day-Lewis and Paul Dano's theatrical young preacher have been called operatic or, by some, tippng into burlesque. The ending is the most contested element, with some finding it a perfect, damning crescendo and others an overreach. At its core, the film is a savage meditation on American capitalism and the unholy collision of commerce and religion, set against a frontier where everything, including faith, has a price. The critical schism is mostly about the ending and the film's unrelenting coldness, not about whether the craft delivers; even the strongest dissenters grant that large stretches are magnificent, and nearly two decades on, the film's reputation has only hardened.
Who it's for
Serious cinephiles, admirers of auteur filmmaking and character-driven epics, and anyone who prizes a towering, transformative lead performance will find this essential. It rewards viewers who enjoy slow-burn storytelling, stories about greed, capitalism, religion, and corruption, and films that trust the audience to sit with an intentionally uncomfortable, unredeemed protagonist. It is also a strong fit for fans of period craft, with oil-field production design and Western landscapes rendered with extraordinary fidelity.
Who it's not for
Viewers wanting plot propulsion, action, or conventional dramatic warmth will likely bounce off hard. The 158-minute runtime moves at a deliberately glacial pace, the protagonist is repulsive rather than sympathetic, the tone is bleak and remorseless, and the dissonant score actively works against comfort. Those who need a redemption arc, a grounding female presence, or a tidy, unambiguous ending should look elsewhere. — Graphic violence · Disturbing imagery · Heavy/bleak themes · Alcohol use
Birds of a feather...
- BookBlood Meridian (1985)
Both are mythic, unsparing portraits of a man's moral destruction, set in a harsh American landscape that mirrors his emptiness. The film's bleak tone, philosophical pessimism, and refusal of catharsis echo Blood Meridian's vision of violence as the underlying truth of civilization.
95% - FilmNightcrawler (2014)
Both are unflinching indictments of capitalism and ruthless ambition, with protagonists who treat human relationships as transactions. The bleak tone, moral ambiguity, and refusal to offer redemption create a similarly cold, unsettling experience.
90% - FilmCitizen Kane (1941)
A formalist portrait of a self-made man whose ambition isolates and corrodes him. The fragmented investigation, deep-focus compositions, and cold, aloof tone parallel Anderson's long takes and vast frames, rewarding patient viewers with similar thematic weight and ambiguity.
88% - TVSuccession (2018)
There Will Be Blood and Succession both stare unblinkingly at the psychopathology of ambition within a family structure. Daniel Plainview is a solo Logan Roy: a man whose need to win destroys every intimate bond. Both works use capitalism as a theater for ego, deploy Shakespearean echoes, and end with hollow victories rather than catharsis. Their tonal kinship is unmistakable — stately, dread-soaked, and allergic to sentimentality.
85% - FilmThe Godfather Part II (1974)
A slow-burn American epic about an industrial patriarch self-isolated by his appetite for wealth; shares Part II's bleak, low-lit visual palette and its meditation on how capitalist ambition hollows out human connection.
82% - FilmThe Revenant (2015)
Both share a bleak, slow-burn tone, with long takes and harsh landscapes that externalize inner corrosion. Each film follows a man driven by an obsessive goal, and both refuse to romanticize the struggle, ending in hollow, dehumanizing victory.
80% - FilmLawrence of Arabia (1962)
A vast, slow-burn epic about ambition, mythmaking, and self-dissolution, where the landscape dwarfs human figures and the protagonist's arc becomes a disillusioning descent. The patience, ambiguity, and visual grandeur strongly echo There Will Be Blood.
80% - FilmScarface (1983)
A monumental portrait of unchecked ambition and self-destruction, matching Scarface's themes of greed, isolation, and hollow victory, with a similarly baroque, charged tone.
78% - FilmYojimbo (1961)
Both view greed and corruption as zero-sum games where idealism is a liability. The detached, manipulating protagonist and the mordant tone echo Plainview's ruthless pragmatism, while the precise widescreen compositions and moral void reinforce the bleak comparison.
76% - FilmThe Godfather (1972)
Like the Corleone saga, it charts a man's rise to dominance at the expense of every human connection, treating American ambition as a corrosive force. Slow-burn, morally ambiguous, with a grandeur that feels operatic.
76% - FilmMichael Clayton (2007)
Both examine how ambition and greed corrode the soul, set against a bleak, oppressive atmosphere and a protagonist stripped of idealism.
75% - FilmThe Godfather Part III (1990)
A slow-burn character study about ambition, moral compromise, and the emptiness of success; its dissonant score and vast landscapes mirror Part III's melancholy and final hollow victories.
72%