Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson • 2007 • United States
Starring Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O’Connor

An electrifying performance from Daniel Day-Lewis animates this sprawling epic of family, faith, power, and oil—the rare twenty-first-century film to have already ascended to the level of modern myth. He commands the screen as Daniel Plainview, a down-and-out silver miner who, along with his son, H. W. (Dillon Freasier), heads West to the dust-worn town of Little Boston seeking to make his fortune in the oil boom. In this hardscrabble town, where the main excitement centers around the holy-roller church of charismatic preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), Plainview and H.W. make their lucky strike. But even as the well raises all of their fortunes, nothing will remain the same as conflicts escalate and every human value—love, hope, community, belief, ambition, and even the bond between father and son—is imperiled by corruption, deception, and the flow of oil.