There Will Be Blood
Movie, 2007, Named by fans, Set in Second in the trilogy
There Will Be Blood is #35 of 48 in release order and #38 of 48 in chronological order in the Spiritual Trilogies.
The story
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 Blood recap
Daniel Plainview, a silver prospector, strikes oil in 1898 and builds a drilling business, adopting the infant son of a worker killed on his rig, H.W., as a front for his deals. In 1911 a young man named Paul Sunday tells him of oil under his family's farm in Little Boston, California. Daniel buys up the land and locks horns with Paul's twin Eli, a preacher who wants money for his church. A gas blowout leaves H.W. deaf, and Daniel sends him away. A man claiming to be Daniel's half-brother Henry joins him; when Daniel finds he is an impostor, he kills him. To get a pipeline across a holdout's land, Daniel lets Eli baptise him and publicly confess abandoning his son. He grows rich, brings H.W. back, and drinks himself into isolation in a mansion. It is the second of the 2007 Western Trilogy, its frontier a California oilfield.
There Will Be Blood ending explained
Daniel beats Eli to death with a bowling pin in his mansion. In 1927 H.W. marries Eli's sister Mary and plans to drill in Mexico; Daniel tells him he was a foundling and disowns him. Eli, broke after the crash, comes asking Daniel to drill a property; Daniel makes him say he is a false prophet, then says he has already drained the oil from beside it. He chases Eli round the bowling alley and kills him. Asked by his butler, Daniel says he is finished.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
Where to watch There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood is streaming on Prime Video, fuboTV, Paramount+, Philo, Kanopy, and MGM Plus in the US. You can rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play.
Ratings
IMDb 8.2/10, Rotten Tomatoes 91%
Where it fits
- Release order: after The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, before No Country for Old Men.
- Chronological order: after The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, before No Country for Old Men.
Cast
- Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview
- Paul Dano as Paul Sunday / Eli Sunday
- Kevin J. O'Connor as Henry
- Ciarán Hinds as Fletcher Hamilton
- Dillon Freasier as H.W. Plainview
- Hope Elizabeth Reeves as Elizabeth
- Colleen Foy as Mary Sunday
- Barry Del Sherman as H. B. Ailman
- David Willis as Abel Sunday
- Hans Howes as Mr. Bandy
- Sydney McCallister as Mary Sunday (young)
- Paul F. Tompkins as Prescott
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.