There will be blood film

 

There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood Poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
Directed by
Paul Thomas Anderson
Produced by
JoAnne Sellar
Paul Thomas Anderson
Daniel Lupi
 
Screenplay by
Paul Thomas Anderson
Based on
Oil!
 by Upton Sinclair
Starring
Daniel Day-Lewis
Paul Dano
 
Music by
Jonny Greenwood
Cinematography
Robert Elswit
Editing by
Dylan Tichenor
Distributed by
Paramount Vantage
Miramax Films
 
Release date(s)
September 27, 2007 (Fantastic Fest)
December 26, 2007 (United States)
 
Running time
158 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
American Sign Language
 
Budget
$25 million[1]
Box office
$76,181,545[1]
There Will Be Blood is a 2007 American drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is loosely based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!. It tells the story of a gold miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano.
The film received significant critical praise and numerous award nominations and victories. It premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Lion Award for Best Director and a Special Artistic Contribution Award to Johnny Greenwood's score. It appeared on many critics' "top ten" lists for the year, notably the American Film Institute,[2] the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Day-Lewis won Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, NYFCC and IFTA Best Actor awards for his performance. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, winning Best Actor for Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography for Robert Elswit.
In late 2009, it was chosen by Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and At the Movies as the best film of the first decade of the 21st century. In 2012, in the British Sight & Sound poll of Critics for the Best Films Ever Made, There Will Be Blood ranked 202 (making it the sixth film on that list which had been released since the year 2000).

Contents
  [hide] 1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Development
3.2 Filming
3.3 Music
4 Release 4.1 Critical reception 4.1.1 Top ten lists
4.1.2 "Best films of the decade" lists
4.2 Box office performance
4.3 Home media
5 Accolades
6 In popular culture 6.1 "I drink your milkshake"
6.2 Other references
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit source]
In 1902, Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis), a mineral prospector, discovers oil and establishes a small drilling company. Following the death of one of his workers in an accident, Plainview adopts the man's orphaned son. The boy, named H.W. (Freasier), becomes his nominal business "partner".
Nine years later, Plainview is approached by Paul Sunday (Dano), who tells him about the oil deposit under his family's property in Little Boston, California. Plainview attempts to buy the farm at a bargain price but Paul's twin brother Eli (also Dano), wise to Plainview's plan, holds out for $5,000, wanting the money to fund the local church, of which he is the pastor. Plainview has Eli's father agree to the bargain price instead, and goes on to acquire the available land in the area, except for one holdout, William Bandy (Howes). Oil production begins. Later, an on-site accident kills a worker, and later still, a huge explosion robs H.W. of his hearing.
One day, a visitor (O'Connor) arrives on Plainview's doorstep claiming to be his half-brother, Henry, seeking work. Plainview takes the stranger in, and though H.W. discovers flaws in his story, he keeps the news to himself; the boy then attempts to kill Henry by setting his bed linen alight. Angered at his son's behavior, Plainview sends the boy away to a school in San Francisco. A representative from Standard Oil offers to buy out Plainview's local interests, but Plainview elects to strike a deal with Union Oil and construct a pipeline to the California coast, though the Bandy ranch remains an impediment. After spending more time with Henry, Plainview also becomes suspicious; Henry confesses that he was actually a friend of the real Henry, who had died from tuberculosis. Plainview murders the imposter and buries his body.
The next morning, Plainview is awakened by Mr. Bandy, who appears to be fully aware of the previous night's events. Bandy agrees to Plainview's deal but only on the provision that the latter mend his ways and join the Church of the Third Revelation, where Eli coerces him to confess as part of his initiation. Plainview soon reunites with H.W., and Eli eventually leaves town to perform missionary work.
In 1927, a much older H.W. (Harvard) marries his childhood sweetheart, Mary Sunday (Foy). By this time his father, now an alcoholic but extremely wealthy, is living in a mansion with only a servant for company. H. W. asks his father (through an interpreter) to dissolve their partnership so he can establish his own oil company down in Mexico. Plainview mocks his son's deafness and tells him of his true origins as an orphan, and H.W. leaves, but not before telling Plainview "I thank God I have none of you in me."
Eli, now a radio host and the head of a larger church, visits Plainview. Eli, in dire financial straits, explains that Mr. Bandy has died, and offers to broker a deal on his land. Plainview agrees to the deal if Eli confesses, "I am a false prophet; God is a superstition," which he does. Plainview then reveals that he had already drained the oil from the property through surrounding wells. Eli begs for money anyway, and Plainview goes into a rage, chases Eli about the room, and then beats him to death with a bowling pin. When Plainview's butler comes down to check on him, Plainview says "I'm finished."
Cast[edit source]
Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview
Paul Dano as twins Paul Sunday and Eli Sunday
Dillon Freasier as H.W. Plainview as a child
Russell Harvard as H.W. Plainview as an adult
Kevin J. O'Connor as Henry
Ciarán Hinds as Fletcher
Sydney McCallister as Mary Sunday
Colleen Foy as older Mary
David Willis as Abel Sunday
Hans Howes as William Bandy
Paul F. Tompkins as Prescott
Jim Downey as Al Rose
David Warshofsky as H.M. Tilford
Jim Meskimen as Signal Hill Married Man
Randall Carver Mr. Bankside
Coco Leigh as Mrs. Bankside
Tom Doyle as J.J. Carter
Frank Madrigal as Mr. Big Hat
Production[edit source]
Development[edit source]

 

 Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis in New York, December 2007.
After Eric Schlosser finished writing Fast Food Nation, reporters kept asking him about Upton Sinclair, and although he had read Sinclair's The Jungle, he did not know about his other works or anything about Sinclair himself. He decided to read most of Sinclair's works, and eventually read the novel Oil!, which he loved. Schlosser, who found the book to be exciting and thought it would make a great film, sought out the Sinclair estate and purchased the film rights. He then thought that he would try to find a director that was as passionate about the book as he was, but Paul Thomas Anderson approached him first.[3]
Anderson had been working on a screenplay about two fighting families. He struggled with the script and soon realized it just was not working.[4] Homesick, he purchased a copy of Oil! in London, drawn to its cover illustration of a California oilfield.[5] As he read, Anderson became even more fascinated with the novel, and after contacting Schlosser, adapted the first 150 pages to a screenplay. He began to get a real sense of where his script was going after making many trips to museums dedicated to early oilmen in Bakersfield.[6] Anderson changed the title from Oil! to There Will Be Blood because he felt "there's not enough of the book to feel like it's a proper adaptation."[4] He said of writing the screenplay:

I can remember the way that my desk looked, with so many different scraps of paper and books about the oil industry in the early 20th century, mixed in with pieces of other scripts that I'd written. Everything was coming from so many different sources. But the book was a great stepping-stone. It was so cohesive, the way Upton Sinclair wrote about that period, and his experiences around the oil fields and these independent oilmen. That said, the book is so long that it's only the first couple hundred pages that we ended up using, because there is a certain point where he strays really far from what the original story is. We were really unfaithful to the book. That's not to say I didn't really like the book; I loved it. But there were so many other things floating around. And at a certain point, I became aware of the stuff he was basing it on. What he was writing about was the life of [oil barons] Edward Doheny and Harry Sinclair. So it was like having a really good collaborator, the book.[7]
Anderson, who had previously stated that he would like to work with Daniel Day-Lewis,[8] wrote the screenplay with Day-Lewis in mind and approached the actor when the script was nearly complete. Anderson had heard that Daniel Day-Lewis liked his earlier film Punch-Drunk Love, which gave him the confidence to hand Day-Lewis a copy of the incomplete script.[9] According to Day-Lewis, simply being asked to do the film was enough to convince him.[10] In an interview with The New York Observer, the actor elaborated on what drew him to the project. It was "the understanding that [Anderson] had already entered into that world. [He] wasn't observing it—[he'd] entered into it—and indeed [he'd] populated it with characters who [he] felt had lives of their own."[11]
Anderson has stated that the famous line in the final scene, "I drink your milkshake!", was paraphrased from a quote by former Secretary of the Interior and U.S. Senator from New Mexico Albert Fall speaking before a Congressional investigation into the 1920s oil-related Teapot Dome scandal. Anderson said he was fascinated "to see that word [milkshake] among all this official testimony and terminology" to explain the complicated process of oil drainage.[12] In 2013, an independent attempt to locate the statement in Fall's testimony proved unsuccessful—an article published in the Case Western Reserve Law Review suggested that the actual source of the paraphrased quote may instead have been remarks in 2003 by Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico during a debate over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.[13] In those remarks, Domenici stated: "[T]he oil is underground, and it is going to be drilled and come up . . . . Here is a giant reservoir underground. . . . [J]ust like a curved straw, you put it underground and maneuver it, and the 'milk shake' is way over there, and your little child wants the milk shake, and they sit over here in their bedroom where they are feeling ill, and they just gobble it up from way down in the kitchen, where you don't even have to move the Mix Master that made the ice cream for them. You don't have to take it up to the bedroom. This describes the actual drilling that is taking place."[14]
According to Joanne Sellar, one of the film's producers, it was a hard film to finance because "the studios didn't think it had the scope of a major picture."[5] It took two years to acquire financing for the film.[6]
For the role of Plainview's "son," Anderson looked at people in Los Angeles and New York City, but he realized that they needed someone from Texas who knew how to shoot shotguns and "live in that world."[4] The filmmakers asked around at a school and the principal recommended Dillon Freasier. They did not have him read any scenes and instead talked to him, realizing that he was the perfect person for the role.[4]
To build his character, Day-Lewis started with the voice. Anderson sent him recordings from the late 19th century to 1927 and a copy of the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, including documentaries on its director, John Huston, an important influence on Anderson's film.[5] According to Anderson, he was inspired by the fact that Sierra Madre is "about greed and ambition and paranoia and looking at the worst parts of yourself."[6] While writing the script, he would put the film on before he went to bed at night. To research for the role, Day-Lewis read letters from laborers and studied photographs from the time period. He also read up on oil tycoon Edward Doheny, upon whom Sinclair's book is loosely based.[15]
Filming[edit source]
Principal photography began in June 2006 on a ranch in Marfa, Texas,[6] and took three months.[5] Other location shooting took place in Los Angeles. Anderson tried to shoot the script in sequence with most of the sets on the ranch.[6] Two weeks into the 60-day shoot, Anderson replaced the actor playing Eli Sunday with Paul Dano, who had originally only been cast in the much smaller role of Paul Sunday, the brother who tipped off Plainview about the oil on the Sunday ranch. A profile of Day-Lewis in The New York Times Magazine suggested that the original actor, Kel O'Neill, had been intimidated by Day-Lewis's intensity and habit of staying in character on and off the set.[6][15] Both Anderson and Day-Lewis deny this claim,[6][15] and Day-Lewis stated, "I absolutely don't believe that it was because he was intimidated by me. I happen to believe that—and I hope I'm right."[16]
Anderson first saw Dano in The Ballad of Jack and Rose (in which he co-starred with Day-Lewis) and thought that he would be perfect to play Paul Sunday, a role he originally envisioned to be a 12 or 13-year-old boy. Dano only had four days to prepare for the much larger role of Eli Sunday,[17] but he researched the time period that the film is set in as well as evangelical preachers.[4] Three weeks of scenes with Sunday and Plainview had to be re-shot with Dano instead of O'Neill.[6] The interior mansion scenes were filmed at the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, the former real-life home of Edward Doheny Jr., a gift from his father, Edward Doheny. Scenes filmed at Greystone involved the careful renovation of the basement's two lane bowling alley.[18] Anderson said it was "a particular situation, because it was so narrow that there could only be a very limited amount of people at any given time, maybe five or six behind the camera and then the two boys."[7]
Anderson dedicated the film to Robert Altman, who died while Anderson was editing it.[4]
There Will Be Blood was shot using Panavision XL 35 mm cameras outfitted primarily with Panavision C series and high-speed anamorphic lenses.[19]
Day-Lewis broke a rib in a fall during filming.[20]
Music[edit source]
Further information: There Will Be Blood (album)
Anderson had been a fan of Radiohead's music and was impressed with Jonny Greenwood's scoring of the film Bodysong. While writing the script for There Will Be Blood, Anderson heard Greenwood's orchestral piece Popcorn Superhet Receiver, which prompted him to ask Greenwood to work with him. After initially agreeing to score the film, Greenwood had doubts and thought about backing out, but Anderson's reassurance and enthusiasm for the film convinced the musician to stick with the project.[21][22] Anderson gave Greenwood a copy of the film and three weeks later he came back with two hours of music recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London.[4] Concerning his approach to composing the soundtrack, Greenwood said to Entertainment Weekly:

I think it was about not necessarily just making period music, which very traditionally you would do. But because they were traditional orchestral sounds, I suppose that's what we hoped was a little unsettling, even though you know all the sounds you're hearing are coming from very old technology. You can just do things with the classical orchestra that do unsettle you, that are sort of slightly wrong, that have some kind of undercurrent that's slightly sinister.[23]
In December 2008, Greenwood's score was nominated for a Grammy in the category of "Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media" for the 51st Grammy Awards.[24]
Release[edit source]
Critical reception[edit source]
The film was widely acclaimed by major critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 91% based on reviews from 202 critics.[25] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 92%, based on 39 reviews.[26]
Andrew Sarris called the film "an impressive achievement in its confident expertness in rendering the simulated realities of a bygone time and place, largely with an inspired use of regional amateur actors and extras with all the right moves and sounds."[27] In Premiere magazine, Glenn Kenny praised Day-Lewis's performance: "Once his Plainview takes wing, the relentless focus of the performance makes the character unique."[28] Manohla Dargis wrote, in her review for The New York Times, "the film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic."[29] Esquire magazine also praised Day-Lewis's performance: "what's most fun, albeit in a frightening way, is watching this greedmeister become more and more unhinged as he locks horns with Eli Sunday ... both Anderson and Day-Lewis go for broke. But it's a pleasure to be reminded, if only once every four years, that subtlety can be overrated."[30] Richard Schickel in Time magazine praised There Will Be Blood as "one of the most wholly original American movies ever made."[31] Critic Tom Charity, writing about CNN's ten-best films list, calls the film the only "flat-out masterpiece" of 2007.[32]
Schickel also named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #9, calling Daniel Day-Lewis' performance "astonishing", and calling the film "a mesmerizing meditation on the American spirit in all its maddening ambiguities: mean and noble, angry and secretive, hypocritical and more than a little insane in its aspirations."[33]
The Times chief film critic, James Christopher, published a list in April 2008 of the Top 100 films of all time, placing There Will Be Blood at #2, behind Casablanca.[34]
Total Film magazine placed it at number 3 in their list of 50 best movies of Total Film's lifetime.[35]
However, some critics were more negative. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle shot out at the film's praises by saying "there should be no need to pretend There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece just because Anderson sincerely tried to make it one."[36] Several months after his initial review of the film, LaSalle reiterated that while he felt it was "clear" that There Will Be Blood was not a masterpiece, he wondered if its "style, an approach, an attitude... might become important in the future."[37] Carla Meyer, of the Sacramento Bee, gave the film three and a half out of four stars; while calling it a "masterpiece", she said that the final confrontation between Daniel and Eli marked when There Will Be Blood "stops being a masterpiece and becomes a really good movie. What was grand becomes petty, then overwrought."[38]
Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, saying that, "There Will Be Blood is the kind of film that is easily called great. I am not sure of its greatness. It was filmed in the same area of Texas used by No Country for Old Men, and that is a great film, and a perfect one. But There Will Be Blood is not perfect, and in its imperfections (its unbending characters, its lack of women or any reflection of ordinary society, its ending, its relentlessness) we may see its reach exceeding its grasp. Which is not a dishonorable thing."[39]
Since 2008, the film has been included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and every revised edition released afterwards.[40]
Top ten lists[edit source]
The film was on the American Film Institute's 10 Movies of the Year; AFI's jury said:

There Will Be Blood is bravura film-making by one of American film's modern masters. Paul Thomas Anderson's epic poem of savagery, optimism and obsession is a true meditation on America. The film drills down into the dark heart of capitalism, where domination, not gain, is the ultimate goal. In a career defined by transcendent performances, Daniel Day-Lewis creates a character so rich and so towering, that "Daniel Plainview" will haunt the history of film for generations to come.[41]
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.[42][43]
1st – Ethar Alter, Giant Magazine[43]
1st – Marjorie Baumgarten, The Austin Chronicle[42]
1st – Tom Charity, CNN[32]
1st – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times[43]
1st – David Fear, Time Out New York[44]
1st – Scott Foundas, LA Weekly[42]
1st – Stephen Holden, The New York Times[42]
1st – Tod Hill, Staten Island Advance[43]
1st – Glenn Kenny, Premiere[42]
1st – Craig Outhier, Orange County Register[43]
1st – Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club[42]
1st – Ray Pride, Salon.com[43]
1st – Mike Russell, The Oregonian[42]
1st – Hank Sartin, Chicago Reader[43]
1st – Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle[42]
1st – Mark Slutsky, Montreal Mirror[43]
1st – Nick Schager, Slant Magazine[43]
1st – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly[42]
1st – Jan Stuart, Newsday[43]
 1st – Ella Taylor, LA Weekly[42]
2nd – David Ansen, Newsweek[42]
2nd – Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club[42]
2nd – Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald[42]
2nd – Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club[42]
3rd – A.O. Scott, The New York Times (tied with Sweeney Todd)[42]
3rd – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post[42]
3rd – Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal[42]
4th – Desson Thomson, The Washington Post[42]
4th – Ty Burr, The Boston Globe[42]
5th – J. Hoberman, The Village Voice[42]
5th – Shawn Levy, The Oregonian[42]
6th – Christy Lemire, Associated Press[45]
6th – Adam Kempenaar, Filmspotting[citation needed]
6th – Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette[citation needed]
7th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone[42]
9th – Claudia Puig, USA Today[42]
9th – Richard Schickel, TIME magazine[42]
10th – Lou Lumenick, New York Post[42]
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Dana Stevens, Slate[42]
 
"Best films of the decade" lists[edit source]
Review aggregator site Metacritic, when comparing over 40 'top ten of the decade' lists from various notable publications, found There Will Be Blood to be the most mentioned, appearing on 46% of critics' lists and being ranked the decade's best film on five of them.
In December 2009, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone chose the film as the #1 film of the decade, saying:

Two years after first seeing There Will Be Blood, I am convinced that Paul Thomas Anderson's profound portrait of an American primitive—take that, Citizen Kane—deserves pride of place among the decade's finest. Daniel Day-Lewis gave the best and ballsiest performance of the past 10 years. As Daniel Plainview, a prospector who loots the land of its natural resources in silver and oil to fill his pockets and gargantuan ego, he showed us a man draining his humanity for power. And Anderson, having extended Plainview's rage from Earth to heaven in the form of a corrupt preacher (Paul Dano), managed to "drink the milkshake" of other risk-taking directors. If I had to stake the future of film in the next decade on one filmmaker, I'd go with PTA. Even more than Boogie Nights and Magnolia—his rebel cries from the 1990s—Blood let Anderson put technology at the service of character. The score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood was a sonic explosion that reinvented what film music could be. And the images captured by Robert Elswit, a genius of camera and lighting, made visual poetry out of an oil well consumed by flame. For the final word on Blood, I'll quote Plainview: "It was one goddamn hell of a show."[46]
Chicago Tribune and At the Movies critic Michael Phillips named There Will Be Blood the decade's best film. Phillips stated:

This most eccentric and haunting of modern epics is driven by oilman Daniel Plainview, who, in the hands of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, becomes a Horatio Alger story gone horribly wrong. Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's camera is as crucial to the films hypnotic pull as the performance at its center. For its evocation of the early 1900s, its relentless focus on one man's fascinating obsessions, and for its inspiring example of how to freely adapt a novel--plus, what I think is the performance of the new century--There Will Be Blood stands alone. The more I see it, the sadder, and stranger, and more visually astounding it grows--and the more it seems to say about the best and worst in the American ethos of rugged individualism. Awfully good![47]
Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum named There Will Be Blood the decade's best film as well. In her original review, Schwarzbaum stated:

Anyhow, a fierce story meshing big exterior-oriented themes of American character with an interior-oriented portrait of an impenetrable man (two men, really, including the false prophet Sunday) is only half Anderson's quest, and his exciting achievement. The other half lies in the innovation applied to the telling itself. For a huge picture, There Will Be Blood is exquisitely intimate, almost a collection of sketches. For a long, slow movie, it speeds. For a story set in the fabled bad-old-days past, it's got the terrors of modernity in its DNA. Leaps of romantic chordal grandeur from Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major announce the launch of a fortune-changing oil well down the road from Eli Sunday's church—and then, much later, announce a kind of end of the world. For bleakness, the movie can't be beat—nor for brilliance.[48]
In December 2009, the website Gawker.com determined that There Will Be Blood is film critics' consensus best film of the decade when aggregating all Best of the Decade lists, stating: "And when the votes were all in, by a nose, There Will Be Blood stood alone at the top of the decade, its straw in the whole damn cinema's milkshake."[49]
The list of critics who lauded There Will Be Blood in their assessments of films from the past decade include:
The A. V. Club[50]
The Daily Telegraph[51]
The Guardian[52]
Slant Magazine[53]
Time Out New York[54]
David Denby, The New Yorker[55]
Scott Foundas, SF Weekly[56]
David Germain and Christy Lemire, The Associated Press[57]
 Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic[58]
Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post[59]
Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe[60]
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune[61]
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly[62]
Dana Stevens, Slate Magazine[63]
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone[64]
Chris Vognar, The Dallas Morning News[65]
 
Box office performance[edit source]
The first public screening of There Will Be Blood was on September 29, 2007, at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. The film was released on December 26, 2007, in New York and Los Angeles where it grossed US$190,739 on its opening weekend. The film then opened in 885 theaters in selected markets on January 25, 2008, grossing $4.8 million on its opening weekend. The film went on to make $40.2 million in North America and $35.9 million in the rest of the world, with a worldwide total of $76.1 million, well above its $25 million budget.[1] But the prints and advertising cost for the film's United States release was about $40 million.[66]
Home media[edit source]
The film was released on DVD on April 8, 2008. It was released with one and two-disc editions, both are packaged in a cardboard case. Anderson has refused to record an audio commentary for the film.[67] A HD DVD release was confirmed, but later canceled due to the death of the format. A Blu-ray edition was released on June 3, 2008. The film has grossed $23,604,823 through DVD sales.[68]
Accolades[edit source]

Date of ceremony
Award
Category
Recipient(s)
Result
February 24, 2008 Academy Awards[69] Best Picture
Nominated
Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis Won
Best Adapted Screenplay Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
Best Art Direction Jack Fisk, Jim Erickson Nominated
Best Cinematography Robert Elswit Won
Best Film Editing Dylan Tichenor Nominated
Best Sound Editing Matthew Wood, Christopher Scarabosio Nominated
December 16, 2007 American Film Institute[70] Top 10 Films

2007 Austin Film Critics Association Awards[71] Top 10 Films
1st place
Best Film
Won
Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson Won
Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis Won
Best Cinematography Robert Elswit Won
Best Score Jonny Greenwood Won
January 22, 2008 Australian Film Critics Association Awards[72] Best Overseas Film
Won
February 10, 2008 BAFTA Awards[73] Best Film
Nominated
Best Direction Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
Best Actor in a Leading Role Daniel Day-Lewis Won
Best Actor in a Supporting Role Paul Dano Nominated
Best Film Music Jonny Greenwood Nominated
Best Production Design Jack Fisk, Jim Erickson Nominated
Best Cinematography Robert Elswit Nominated
Best Sound Matthew Wood Nominated
January 10, 2009 Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics[74] Grand Prix
Nominated
January 7, 2008 Broadcast Film Critics Association[75] Best Film
Nominated
Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis Won
Best Composer Jonny Greenwood Won
January 26, 2008 Directors Guild of America[76] Outstanding Directing – Feature Film Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
January 13, 2008 Golden Globe Awards[77] Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama Daniel Day-Lewis Won
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama
Nominated
January 4, 2009 International Online Film Critics' Poll[78] Best Film – Motion Picture
Nominated
Top Ten Films
Won
Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis Won
Best Ensemble Cast Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
Best Screenplay – Adapted Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
Best Production Design Jack Fisk, Jim Erickson Nominated
Best Cinematography Robert Elswit Nominated
January 9, 2011 International Online Film Critics' Poll[79] Top Ten Films – Decade
Won
Best Actor – Decade Daniel Day-Lewis Nominated
December 9, 2007 Los Angeles Film Critics Association[80] Best Film
Won
Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson Won
Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis Won
Best Screenplay Paul Thomas Anderson Runner-up
Best Cinematography Robert Elswit Runner-up
Best Production Design Jack Fisk Won
Best Music Jonny Greenwood Runner-up
January 5, 2008 National Society of Film Critics[81] Best Film
Won
Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson Won
Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis Won
Best Screenplay Paul Thomas Anderson Nominated
Best Cinematography Robert Elswit Won
January 27, 2008 Screen Actors Guild Awards[82] Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role Daniel Day-Lewis Won
2007 Writers Guild of America Awards[83] Best Adapted Screenplay Paul Thomas Anderson (Screenplay); Upton Sinclair (Author) Nominated
February 2, 2008 Producers Guild of America Awards[84] Best Theatrical Motion Picture
Nominated
January 26, 2008 American Society of Cinematographers Awards[85] Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases Robert Elswit Won
In popular culture[edit source]
"I drink your milkshake"[edit source]
The line "I drink your milkshake" has been used in other media repeatedly. In season 24 of Jeopardy!, "I Drink Your Milkshake" was the title of a category about milkshakes.[86] Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show and the 80th Academy Awards (for which There Will Be Blood was nominated for eight Oscars), has referenced the phrase "I drink your milkshake" several times on his show in response to news involving oil drilling, including during interviews with Ted Koppel[87] and Nancy Pelosi.[88]
In February 2008, a Saturday Night Live skit featured a Food Network show called "I Drink Your Milkshake" in which Daniel Plainview (Bill Hader) and H. W. (Amy Poehler) travel from state to state looking for the perfect milkshake.[89] They were joined later by Anton Chigurh (Fred Armisen), Javier Bardem's character from No Country for Old Men, and Juno (Tina Fey), Ellen Page's character from Juno, both nominated for Academy Awards that year.
Other references[edit source]
The South Park episode "Breast Cancer Show Ever" parodies the final scene of the film: after Wendy beats up Cartman, Mr. Mackey approaches and says, "Wendy!" to which she replies, "I'm finished," as Cartman lies facedown in blood.[90]