There Will Be Blood (2007)

Nobody in There Will Be Blood is someone you’d lend a dollar to, and the movie never once asks you to like them. That’s the hard part. It’s 158 minutes of a man digging for oil and burying every human feeling he has, and the middle stretches out like a dry riverbed. Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t care, and honestly, he shouldn’t. Daniel Day-Lewis talks like a carnival barker who swallowed a bank, and every time Plainview smiles you check your wallet. Paul Dano’s preacher Eli is the perfect pest, a squeaky little showman who keeps poking the bear, and their scene in the church is one of the most uncomfortable things ever put on film. The music sounds like violins arguing with a dentist’s drill. The burning derrick at night is pure dread. The movie.guru score sits at 9.5 and for once the whole internet agrees. A 9.5 here too, because it’s a cold, mean, giant American movie that hasn’t aged a day. $2,072 says you finish it and side-eye anybody who asks to borrow your straw.

What works: Daniel Day-Lewis at full volume, Paul Dano matching him punch for punch, and a burning derrick sequence you won’t forget.

What doesn’t: The middle stretch drifts, and with zero likable characters it can feel like a long, cold sit for anyone not already hooked.

Who it’s for: People who like their movies slow, heavy and mean, and anybody who has ever watched a businessman smile and counted their fingers afterward.