Given the recent news of Daniel Day-Lewis' retirement from acting, it's only justice to his career to add one of his best performances to this series of films that I highly recommend people must see before the inevitable outcome of death: Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.
There Will Be Blood shows the greed that fuels us humans, how those with a little more money than most will attempt to extort everything that holds some type of value from those less fortunate; in this case, it's lands rich in underground oil, just waiting to be extracted and sold.
Daniel Plainview is a man of significant wealth that searches for lands filled with oil, lying to those nearby about his works in the area to keep the word of oil from spreading, he plays up the role of an intelligent, yet slimy businessman as he evidently rips off the owners of the lands by offering them very small amounts of money.
Eli Sunday -- played by one of my favourite actors, Paul Dano -- sees Daniel's manipulative ways, and becomes a bit of a problem for him during his difficult plans to build the necessary machines to extract the oil. Although, Eli isn't entirely good himself: he uses the church to shy Daniel into donating an extensive amount of money to support the area, but it's clear that even Eli has a thirst for wealth and power, and the church is not where his heart truly is.
The cinematography in this film is beautiful, artistic tracking shots and a heavy focus on the thick, dark black oil and the burning orange of fire makes them seem almost otherworldly in a seemingly never ending land of dry dirt, void of all other colours. Connecting the opening of the Earth as it reveals its hellish natures with the negative events that begin to plague the expedition is amazing filmmaking. If you can't enjoy the story, at least sit back and enjoy the the visuals.
There Will Be Blood is very character driven, so it can feel like a drag in parts, but ultimately its incredible performances and portrayals of greedy men in a more unlawful time has you questioning whether they'll get what they deserve or not.