There Will Be Blood · reception & legacy
2007 · Paul Thomas Anderson
How There Will Be Blood has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Acclaimed on arrival in 2007 but famously edged out of the Best Picture Oscar by No Country for Old Men, it has since climbed past nearly everything from its era — topping the New York Times' 2025 poll of the century's best films and routinely leading 'greatest of the 2000s' lists.
What's debated
The eternal 2007 face-off — There Will Be Blood vs. No Country for Old Men — still gets relitigated constantly, along with whether the wild tonal swerve of the final stretch is a masterstroke or a miscalculation.
Its footprint
'I drink your milkshake!' escaped the film entirely — memed, parodied on SNL, quoted by people who've never seen it — and Daniel Plainview's 'I'm finished' and 'I've abandoned my child!' aren't far behind.
Where it stands
A near-unanimous 'greatest film of the 21st century' candidate and a Letterboxd top-tier staple — the rare modern film that's both canon and genuinely beloved.
Named by the director
Influences Paul Thomas Anderson has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) — Anderson said he watched Huston's greed parable obsessively — reportedly every night — while writing the script.
- John Huston — Anderson repeatedly cited Huston as the film's guiding spirit, and Daniel Day-Lewis's Plainview voice was famously modeled on Huston's.