The Big Picture - The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 2 - 'There Will Be Blood’

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Sean and Amanda return to continue their yearlong project of listing the 25 best movies of the 21st century so far. Today, they discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘There Will Be Blood,’ one of greatest portraits of greed and ambition ever made. They discuss why this was the official “PTA” selection for their list, why Daniel Day-Lewis delivers the greatest performance of the century, then they reflect on the film's defeat across the board to ‘No Country For Old Men’ at the 2008 Academy Awards. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producers: Jack Sanders and Chris Thomas Shopping. Streaming. Celebrating. It’s on Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbin. And this is 25 for 25, a big picture special conversation show about there will be blood, and I have abandoned my child. We're going to talk about why this masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Daniel DeLewis, Paul Dano, Kieran Hines, a great number of other wonderful actors, is going to be on our list right after this. This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. You know how in every great holiday movie,

there's that last minute scramble to make it all come together? From gifts to hosting essentials, Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. So if you need fast-free delivery that saves the day, it's on Prime. Head to Amazon.com slash Prime to shop now. Okay. Well,

here it is. It's the Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Yeah. We've been waiting a long time. It's not number one. Listen. It's not. It's not.

It was never going to be. Are we sure about that? Are we sure about that? I'm sure about that. Okay. And I think that most people who have engaged in the sport of guessing what the final movies on this list would be and the order in which they would be arranged. Yes.

They've been saying number two, there will be blood, number one, boss baby. Yes. They have figured out that there is a different number one. And I guess close observers of the show will understand that this is a list between us. And so this is, you know, this got bumped up from three to two. In a different world, it could be number one, maybe on your list. It would be number one. as a collective list.

It is. I do also want to reiterate, as we have said for the past 10 to 15 to 25 episodes, we have, we have like past the point of numbers, you know? Sure. We are beyond rankings. Post math. Yes. We are just here swimming in pure cinema.

This is vibes. These are only vibes. There's no greater vibe than there will be blood to me. If this were my list alone, this would be my number one. This is to me the absolute pinnacle of 21st century filmmaking. Great many reasons for that. And we can talk about them here today. This film is shot as many of the PTA movies from this period were by Robert Ellswit.

Music is by Johnny Greenwood. It was a modest financial success. It made $76 million on the $25 million budget. It came after a long period off for PTA. He took a five-year gap between Punch Drunk Love and this film. And you can see it as a kind of evolution, a change in tone and style that I think kind of carries through today to the film that he released this year. A couple of data points on this movie. It is sort of based on oil by Upton Sinclair,

a novel about the rise of the oil barren and oil proliferation in this country. Paul Dano originally only supposed to have a small part in this movie, which I think is very notable for a variety of reasons we will talk about in this episode. But he was just supposed to play Paul Sunday, the character we see early in the film. And the two brothers were not meant to be twins.

And after the actor Kel O'Neill was fired from the movie, Dano slid into both roles. Pretty critical twist of fate there, I would say. I'm not saying the movie would have been unsuccessful if that had not happened, but I do think we see it a little bit differently. Yeah. Dano had four days to prepare for the role of Eli. That sounds hard because he's playing an evangelical preacher opposite Daniel Day-Lewis.

They are different characters. There are a lot of words in those speeches. Yes. Dylan Frazier, the young boy who plays H.W. Plainview, Daniel Plainview, the Oil Barron's young son, not a professional actor, plucked out of a Texas school, never acted again. This is the only time he's ever been on screen, which is fascinating. The movie itself, I think most people listening know the story, but I'll share the shape of it, just in case you have, if you haven't seen, there will be blood. I cannot believe you listen to this show, candidly. Ruthless Silverminer turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California, using his adopted son, HW. project a trustworthy family man image, Plainview Khan's local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday

suspects Plainview's motives and intentions starts a slow burning feud that threatens both their lives. So there's the obvious stuff about why this movie is considered a masterpiece and a thematic well full of black gold. Like there is a lot of... Unintended.

Yes, there is a lot of... of seepage on the surface, right? There is these two twin powers of the idea of America. There's money and industry, and then there's God and religion and the clash. Yes. And I like those things about the movie. I think they're well drawn. I think they're properly overdramatic, you know, big, grand, at times silly and preposterous. It's not my favorite thing about the movie. And I think, I don't think it's the thing that distinguishes the movie. But you need something this big, I think, to leaven it with all of the other things that make the movie so enjoyable, in my opinion. Yes. It is, it's taking on, I mean, this is Paul Thomas Anerton's capital I, like, important movie, and it is taking on the themes of, you know, America and capitalism and ambition and fathers and sons that, um, and, and, you know, California.

And, like, everything that is potent in his work, but also in, quote, unquote, important film history, the legends loomed large in, like, in this setting and in this movie. And it's a direct, not even response, but, like, it is, it is Paul Thomas Anderson, like, cannibalizing all of all that came before him and making his own version of it. And so it needs to not just wear the clothes of everything that came before it, but, like, hit all the notes. of great cinema before for it then to be able to tweak it in all of the ways that Paul Thomas Anderson does. And to make this movie not just, you know, a grand treatise on, you know, ambition in America and money, but also just like really discomforting, like, fucked up, gets under your skin movie about like a person. and maybe a person who lurks in all of us, but also, like, maybe a person who doesn't. And there is, you know, whether you respond, like, there's an alienation to it

that I think is a very powerful part of the film as well. But, like, it has to be weird for, and it is weird despite being, you know, in the grand Western tradition. That's right. I think it has a lot of hallmarks of those kind of settler town westerns And those big, important period films about the evolution of something critical to the country. But it also is basically a gothic horror film and a comedy. And him very comfortably mashing those things up.

I think you're right. I think he's ingesting John Ford and D.W. Griffith and John Houston and Terrence Malick and Michael Semino. Like all those directors and the kind of the vision of America that they had, the way that they saw the West is a part of this. But I don't feel their, like, tone or their, you know, sense of characterization in the same way. I think it's very different. I think there is something like simultaneously very funny and very malevolent in this movie. There's like a real darkness. One thing that struck me last night, though, if we're just staying on some of the heavy theme stuff,

I'm not sure if I personally ever read this movie as a post-9-11 movie, but I think it makes a lot of sense in that context. By making an oil movie while we're entrenched. in all of these foreign wars in the aftermath of 9-11. And I'm not sure how much of that was Anderson's intention when he was putting the movie together. But, you know, his previous four films before this are all, you know, either relatively recent history

or contemporarily set California, L.A. family stories. And this movie is much bigger, much more politicized, much more like potently politicized about systems. You know, like Boogie Nights kind of is a system movie, but it's all, it's like this much, much more of like a clubhouse family movie. And so it's interesting because he's like, in the first, through those first four films, he was so garrulous in interviews. And he would talk so much about his movies and his intentions of what he was thinking.

Right. And he kind of just stopped explaining himself when this movie came around. And so I think it lends itself to a lot of interpretation. And I do think there's something about oil. being this like the ultimate corrupting force in the history of the country that in terms of its modernization and in terms of like the rise of a specific kind of capitalism, you know, like throughout U.S. history, there is like a long history of like a socialism in certain segments of the population.

And like once this starts to happen at the turn of the 20th century, a lot of that stuff starts to get scrubbed out of our society. And so I don't think that that is necessarily the overarching point of the movie. But I do see it in a slightly different way than when I saw. saw it in 2007 where I was just so swept up in the in the grandeur in the majesty and like great movies can withstand this kind of thing you know where you're like look at it from a slightly different person even when I when we did the rewatchables episode about it a couple years ago I wasn't really thinking about it that way and maybe I see it a little bit differently in the light of day

I don't I mean do you think that it has anything to do with the fact that the last movie on our list was 25th hour and is you know the the 9-11 movie in question and we are thinking about without spoiling the last movie though if you've been paying attention you can guess it um you know we've been thinking about them as a trilogy about about our country and about america and this again this is a very american list we are children of of hollywood in the 80s and 90s like we're sorry um we're sorry both for that i'm not sorry i'm sorry for america let me just put that out there right now yeah you know um i think it was so i would say that we had like half intentionality sure but also just half kind of assumed intent around this trilogy of movies.

And this is the movie about the past, right? This is a movie about, like, the original sins and how we kind of got to where we got. And we saw 25th hours the kind of like the contemporary version of it when we were coming of age in New York at a certain time in our lives. And then the next film will be about the future. Right. But, and it's Blade Runner 2049. Didn't he mix the cuts?

Congratulations to him. it's a really fun movie to kind of pick over because the story of America's unsettled. A movie that wants to be this big can handle it, but... I mean, it is a movie about America's past, but it is, you know, forever applicable. Well, you said something interesting when you said that this man who's in the movie, Daniel Plainview, but by Daniel Day Lewis, who is this incredibly shrewd, evil. highly ambitious and accomplished oil magnate that they're like we maybe he's inside of us or maybe maybe he's like to me he's more like he is the American character you know that's the

thing of like you're kind of you're preached this you know unrelenting drive to succeed to grow right do more to encroach upon literally more and more space yeah well you you are the American man is which I do think you know there is it there is it there is it This is a very, very male movie. What about the she-eos? What about the girl bosses? Are they not encouraged to do the same? Yeah, with like 40 years too late, you know?

And then as soon as anyone read their slack messages, we got told to go away again. Yes. Not a lot of women in this film. No. It's not something that, but you know what? Probably accurate to the setting. I'm not saying it's a very male movie as a critique, but I do experience it as a, Like, you know, I don't, I don't watch this embodiment of the American ideal and think, like, yeah, that's what I, like, was taught to be.

And maybe some of that is, you know, sociopolitical of, you know, my gender and time. And some of that is just me being like, that's, that's a little much, like, calm down, sir. Yeah. But, but I mean, he's a rageful murderous cycle path. Not at the beginning. Well, we don't know. That's part of what that's true. I guess that's true.

That's part of the ingenious design of the movie, and we've been having conversations over the last five years about horror movies in particular, and the way in which they feel the need to explain the events that will take us to this point. And one thing that I find so rich about Daniel Plainview is we don't get a flashback where he gets bullied at nine years old, or we see that he's a closeted gay kid, and he can't express himself, so he has to take it out on the world. There are all these different ways you could be like, well, this is why Plainview is the way that he is. is the movie is not interested in that. That would be a little bit too simple for a movie that I think has this kind of ambition in terms of what it's trying to communicate about its characters in the world of large.

I really like that about it. I do as well. I really like that it doesn't... In Paul Thomas Anderson's head, he may know everything. Or in Daniel DeLuess's head when he was preparing the character, he may have his idea of what it was.

And the movie even gives us moments where characters talk about the past. You know, when he says, like, I was working at geological research in keeping, Kansas, and I had to get out of there, and I don't like to explain myself. And then he stops talking. And it's one of the only times we really hear about his past in the movie. I like the idea of, you know, Lucifer just kind of landed on this country.

Yeah. So, I mean, I do as well, and I really, really appreciate the lack of explanation or really, I mean, that's just a responsive critique, right, to find. I have 10 years, not just in horror movies, of us having to watch, like, the flashback original trauma scene. And we're like, mm-hmm, yes, it's very sad. Your dad was, like, mean to you. And I'm pretty sure that Daniel Plainview's dad was mean to him based on everything I've seen in the film. But I don't need that shown to me. One assumes.

I don't need to literal. What if his dad was really cool? Just like, and he just wanted to be Daniel's friend. Yeah. You know, and he was just like, do you want to go surfing? Right. You know? But so when I was rewatching last night, I did that.

Well, can we, we'll come back to surfing. in a second um i i was watching the scene of him on the train with the with the baby in the basket and the baby is just grabbing at his facial hair and there is a i was like is he evil right now there there is something very tender about that moment yes um and very and to me is meant to lay the foundation of that this character feels something for this child and there are a few other moments like that, to me, suggest that it's not, you know, deus X or, like, Lucifer X. Machina. That, well, but I don't, but, you know, that's my interpretation based on watching it last night and wondering about it.

I think there's no doubt that Daniel Plainview has love for H.W. His adopted son. That he shows him affection in a way he shows no other person. That the only time he shows affection to another person is Mary because H.W shows affection for Mary. And so the only person that he really has time for emotionally is his son. So it's not that he is Satan himself. I shouldn't say that. But I think what that's meant to show us is just how corrupting this level of power and wealth is, that he ultimately rejects his son and loses his son. And that even though that love that he feels for him is not enough to sustain this just deeply disturbed and angry person. And I think that's pretty powerful because one HW adorable, you know.

I mean, just a heartbreaking. Yeah, it's funny that you find this a funny movie because I find all of the HW stuff so upsetting that I just like I can't laugh throughout any of it. Like I'm not, not once. Yeah, yeah, no, I burst into tears last night. The scene when HW is on the derrick and it explodes with the gas and then it leads to the fire,

which is just truly one of the most extraordinary set pieces in movie history. I do not understand how they made that work. They built that from the ground up. There's tremendous effects work in that scene. But when you see that it's HW, who's the one who's blown off, and then the sound cuts out of the film, and we know pretty quickly that HW has lost his hearing. And eventually his father retrieves him and carries him back to the mess hall,

and he lays him down, and he's trying to communicate with him, and he can't hear, and he says, I can't hear my voice. And then when he gets up to leave, to go look at the derrick, and he says, don't leave, don't go. that's crushing. But I think that's the, that is the sign ultimately that what's most important to him is outside. That it's what, H.W. is not most important to him.

Yeah. Or he, like, makes the choice in that moment. Yes. And to me, that's like great thematic storytelling, that that is, without explaining, like, I need to go see my well, you know, like, it's much more about what the characters are doing without discussing it. Right. And showing us where their priorities ultimately lie. I find PTA to be extremely good at this in his movies of using character action.

to explore and explain how they're feeling and what they're motivated by. Yeah. So I do think that the movie is very emotional and you're right. Plain view is not pure evil, but he's like a vessel for what can happen. Right.

And like that is, that's the moment of him turning and he keeps turning. I, you know, you wrote that you're also very affected, as am I, by the scene of Daniel leaving H.W. on the train when he, like, goes off to school. And it's like, and it's,

and it mirrors the shot of them arriving in Little Boston where you are on the train and watching them drive through the town and then this time you're on the train and you suddenly are with Daniel in the car watching the train go by. I mean, it's really, really upsetting.

But then I basically lost it at a, like a couple scenes later when the Kieran Heinz character comes back from dropping him off. And Daniel's like, how big is his room? How big is his room? How big is his room? Which is incredible writing that communicates that there's like still,

he's still concerned about something, but what he is concerned about is like an expression of what he values at the same time. So he can't quite let go. And it's just a person losing their grip on, like on their value system in real time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the idea that he feels that his son deserves accommodations, but he can only really understand it by way of, Dimensionality, you know, like there's not really

It's very powerful. When Paul came on the show, on Bill Simmons' show, and I talked with him then with Bill, he explained that he had a newborn child when he was making this movie. And I find that a lot of the relationship between Daniel and HW is informed by that crazy-making feeling

when a baby just drops into the middle of your life, and that's how this story is explained. Yeah. You know, H.W. is the son of a man who's killed working alongside Daniel, and Daniel just adopts him. And that is kind of what it's like when you have a baby. I don't, especially for somebody who didn't carry a baby. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah. It's very different. But yes. First, you were, you know, there was no you and then you're here. Yeah. And it is the most important thing in the world to you. And, like, these are ideas I find that are not explored about this movie as much. Like, I opened this conversation with the America and oil and God. But. I think I'm most moved by it and continue, it persists for me beyond that feeling I had where I was like, oh my God, I love this so much the first time that I saw it because it just gets deeper and deeper. Like you get a little bit older and some of the things still feel more powerful. Like Q2 parents talking about, you know, parenthood in movies. But no, it is true that rewatching this a couple of times after having kids, what's funny, what's important, the points of emphasis, like, do shift and that's completely natural.

It's interesting, though, this to me, you're right, that there is a literal, like, baby dropped into your life. You know, it is, like, you know, baby boom, but for oil. And... Also, a film about industry and commerce. Sure, I was going to say. And ambition and success. Great double feature. And I think that you're right that this is a pretty apt experience of what it's like to become a father.

And this person just shows up. But at the same time, this film to me is still, I still feel like it's written by a son rather than a father, if that makes any sense. Or at least someone who's still, who's most of his experience with that relationship is being the son instead of the father. And there are like three different son figures who are in there trying to figure out what's going on with Daniel and they can't quite. And obviously Magnolia is, you know, the father-son relationship from the son. Same with Boogie Nights. Yeah, exactly. And this is the flex point.

Yeah. And really the master is the flex point. And then, but it was interesting to think about that because certainly one battle after another, but his most recent movies are like from the other side. They're father movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's interesting to like to watch it shift. Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's also because the movie is so biblical.

There's literally an able who is the father of. two boys, you know, like there is this, there's a lot of these threads of this, the difficult relationships that grown men and their young children have and the ways in which they disagree and thrash in the way that that has like tremendous consequences on everyone around them. The movie is very clever about that. And it's also clever about like kind of the duality in all people, the idea of Eli and Paul being twins and what's split between them. And some of that is happenstance. You know, the movie wasn't written to be that way. But then when you watch the movie, you're like, oh, this actually deepens my understanding of some of this stuff.

So even if you just put aside all this big, heavy thematic stuff that's coursing throughout the movie, from a purely movie-making perspective, I... It's quite good. Two thumbs up. I'm trying to think of what's the right of correct hyperbole. Like, I wrote down Total Cinema, and we've been making a joke about Total Cinema Baby for a long time. But when you consider the production design and the Greenwood scoring the film and just kind of going to another level, this is his first film without John. Brian as the composer and the long stretches, the building of the train and the derricks and the idea of the church operating in the shadow of the oil.

And then you consider the cast. We can talk a little bit about Daniel Day Lewis and maybe what this means. We did do the Daniel Day Lewis Hall of Fame earlier this year with David Sims. And this was an auto green for him, obviously. He won an Academy Award for this performance. I believe it is the performance. of the 21st century. I think that's true and fair.

I do think you could make a case. Tell me what you think about this. That this is like the end of a certain style of acting or a certain style of like acting persona communication, the person who like completely turns themselves over to something and in not being ripe for mockery, you know? Like it sounds like Daniel DeLewis was challenging on the set of this thing. Right.

You know, because he was trying to embody Plain View all the time. And, you know, I think back to that New Yorker piece that Michael Shulman wrote about Jeremy Strong and how Jeremy Strong just kind of gets, like, pilloried for being too serious. And this was a time before pretension was mocked in the same way. I don't think it's the last time that Daniel D. Louis gets away with it because, you know, the Lincoln and talking like a read. But there was like a jokeyness around the Lincoln thing. Sure. Even to the point of CR developing the, the, the, the, the, you know, the,

bits, you know? And then I guess Phantom Thread is just it's a lighter performance and so... And feels closer to maybe just how he sounds and looks in the world

sometimes. I guess so. He was like a 50s cotriere. It's not, you know, it's, I mean, that's closer to him disappearing and making

boots for a while. It is, but I just mean in terms of like his speaking voice and the energy that he's emitting as a creative person, like this is like a,

you know, mustachioed American demon. Yeah. It's a very different kind. It's very far from who he actually is. Well, forever after this, you're always just, there's no performance that is going to, like, exceed it. So you're always just in the shadow of it.

And it's like someone doing their DDL and Phantom Thread, you know? And like, and that's probably very good. Mm-hmm. But this performance looms the largest. It really does. Ambition. Mm-hmm. You mentioned that men are taught this.

Yeah. I don't I'm not sure if that's true I think maybe it's communicated by the world Yeah maybe that's it But no one sat me down It was like what you need to do is try really hard Then maybe it is just communicated to your generation And the generations before

But yeah I do feel You know as we do this project of this podcast together As well as 25 for 25 And also just observing you know you and my husband and all the other people. There's something expectation-wise about ambition and chest beating that is communicated to you that it's not that I'm not competitive and it's not that I don't want to be great, but it's expectation that I guess was not built in for, you know, for women of my age.

And so I feel freer. Your expectation was barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. I get it. I get it. Or marry a doctor. That would have been great. I would have married a doctor. I don't, I don't feel that I would get along constitutionally with a doctor, you know?

Well, we know you couldn't speak to a dentist. So that's off the table completely. As far as Daniel DeLois, like, communicating the ambition stuff, I think that he is, incredibly good at showing like this relentless drive and then not knowing really what to do with that drive. And so, of course, he becomes an alcoholic and he is constantly looking for another person to use and another person to, you know, yell at and become frustrated with. He does have a few moments where he's kind of more vulnerable, the man who presumes, who is, you know, announces himself as his brother, comes into his life. And he feels like he has someone for a moment that he can confide in and be a little bit more vulnerable, even. I mean, if he's explaining how he doesn't like anybody in the world.

Yeah. During that amazing scene, that scene is still so brilliant. But, you know, the men will build an oil empire. Instead of going to therapy thing. It does apply here. Like, this is a person who maybe if he just had one person he could really talk to, might be doing a little bit better. Yeah, I guess so.

But then it's not a good story, you know? That is the thing. Like, therapy is the enemy of good cinema. It's very, very, very true. for us, but it's really not helpful. And again, that's, maybe if he even understood, you know, I suppose a therapist would be like, we do need to locate

the childhood scene, you know? We need to understand what's going on. Yeah, I don't want that film. Yeah, I don't want his therapy session filmed for my entertainment. I think also, in terms of the movies that PTA was making before this, and after this, really, like, he's a master synthesis.

It's very similar to a lot of his contemporaries, Tarantino, Soderberg. These guys who have, like, watched 75 years of film history and read a lot of books and understand story at a high level. And so they're constantly pulling things in. This is the rare case of literalizing, adapting a novel, or at least parts of a novel, basically the first hundred pages of oil. And then you've got the Doheny family, this very powerful California family that kind of established a huge stronghold in Beverly Hills at the, really, during the real rise of this city. And a lot of specific details are culled from real-life events, which I find fascinating. And it's something that he has done again here and there, but, you know, inherent vice is an adaptation of a novel.

And one battle is a semi-adaptation of a novel. But this is interesting to see him so distinctly pulling almost line for line. For example, you know, I think the most memorable thing from this movie is I Drink Your Milkshake, To me, I Drink Your Milkshake is one of the first memes. It's one of the, I think genuinely very few lines of dialogue from a 21st century movie that is on the level of here's looking at you, kid. You know, it's something that when you say that, you know exactly where you are. And you even, you see the exact shot of the bowling alley and the way that it's framed. Exactly.

In your mind's eye, you know exactly what the moment that it happens. that's hard to do. I think part of that is because just like the internet has allowed for us to see those images and those ideas more often, more regularly. I take it back. I drink your milkshake. It's funny. I don't laugh at that point, but that's, but it's really funny. But what's so interesting about that to me is that that is pulled directly from a real life testimony during the teapot dome scandal. A person actually said that. He explained this idea somewhat similarly to what Plainview says about, you know, drainage and, you know, if I drink your milkshake, I pull it all the way over to my land. And so, you know, like, that's a

feat of writing to me to kind of bring all those real life ideas and pull them into the space and still make that, like, entertaining, you know, and really funny. There's a lot of other really funny moments to me in the movie. You know, I'm very fond of saying, yes, I do, which is how Plainview talks when he's being baptized in the Church of the Third Revelation. The Plainview being absolutely hammered when the Standard Oil guys show up to the restaurant when HW has returned home. Oh, that's really sad. But very funny.

It's a physical comedy and he's like dropping the napkin on his face and it's played for gags, you know? Yeah. The first 15 minutes of the movie is not funny, which is this incredible silent exploration of a person failing and being literally at the absolute bottom of, you know, society, their own mentality. They're just like on the lowest rung imaginable. And what do you do when you're born into the lowest wrong imaginable? is like, you got to crawl your way out, crawl your way out of the darkness. So, you know, I think for all these reasons, the movie is incredibly special. I do want to talk about Paul Dano.

You know, he's been in the news. Sure. For this performance. For this performance. So Quentin Tarantino went on Brady-Snellis' podcast, and he talked about how this movie was on his list. That's how all great sentences start. Absolutely. I'm just putting context around this discussion.

But I do think it's worth having because... And I have long held this, as many people have clearly, based on the feedback that Paul Dano's been getting. Quentin went on the pod, said that this movie might have been number one for him, if not for Paul Dano, who his performance he felt was very weak. The weakest part of the film. I don't see it that way. We've talked about it a little bit since then, and it's obviously created this like overreaction of people being, like, how dare you, Paul Dano is one of our great humans. I'm not here to say that, but I think the idea of placing someone like him who is a, younger, not inexperienced, but relatively inexperienced opposite Daniel de Lewis figure into

this role. Also, the idea that Eli Sunday is this sniveling representation of like a certain kind of aspirant person who uses a different version of people's weaknesses and frailties to take advantage of them and take their money is extremely effective as like the two polarities of masculinity. And so I think he's like phenomenal in this movie. I think that he's great. I think he's very, very good. I, you know, it kind of comes back to the fact that, like, I just don't care about religion as much as. And I understand it's historical significance in this film and also that the weakness is the point because whatever is going on with him is just not going to compete with whatever is going on with Daniel Plainview and with money.

and money and greed went out every time. And you really got to play the game at the highest level that the wolf in sheep's clothing that is like an evangelical preacher being like, I need another $5,000 or whatever is like is pointless and never had a chance and is meant to be seen as like weak and lame. Like that that is that this person is just a loser who like is not going to compete. Like, is I guess the point? But it does. But, like, there is an unevenness to it. There is. I think the idea is ultimately that money and brute force conquers all.

Yeah. You know, that religion is nice as a way to kind of quell the masses and that keeps people in line. Sure. And it has utility to a businessman and the way in which he is, like, kind of falsely obsequious to Eli and Eli's flock as a means to getting what he wants, I think is very compelling as a concept. But in the end, money literally bludgeon's faith. You know, that it literally makes it impossible to believe in something that is greater than the system that we operate under. And to be... And also, you know, faith gets outsmarted every time.

I mean, he didn't see any of the drainage or the stock market crash coming, which is still one of the great... I was misinformed about our current... an economy. Yeah. His costuming in that sequence, with the cross around his neck is so amazing. One other thing about this movie is that it's hard to convey doom in a movie. And you can do it with music sometimes. You can do it by making your film seem very dark, you know, that the lights, there's very little light.

This is a movie in broad daylight. Almost a whole movie is bright in the, you know, Western Vistas of California. But... So it was filmed in Marfa. In Marfa, Texas, yeah. But it's hard... It's hard to, like, make a movie that makes you feel like everything is bad and we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, there's no hope. And yet, there's something funny about that.

Like the macabre sense of humor that the film has. I mean, I think that the, the Brahms violin concerto cue, which is used twice, uh, when, you know, right after the blessing. when Daniel gets his first come up and son on Eli and steals his thunder and then at the end which is just like it's everything is very dark and I laugh at that like jubilant like virtuastic music cue. Yeah, the other movie that I would probably draw

in a similar lineage to this one is Barry Lyndon where you very similarly like huge world production design the frailty of masculinity, very similar themes but also consistently using like music cues like that are costuming choices to convey the kind of silliness and the kind of like false upbeat in this world that is super smart. You know, you mentioned Marfa, Texas. This film was shot, I guess, roughly 10 miles away from No Country for Old Men. And it came out in the same year.

It did. This is also the same year as a number of other great movies, including Michael Clayton, which is on our list. The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford, Juno. Sure, yeah, one woman. There was a woman in these movies. You know, it's a huge year for American movies. Yeah. And a legendary year.

There Will Be Blood was nominated for eight Academy Awards. It won two. We mentioned Daniel Day Lewis won. Robert Elswit also won for cinematography. It lost picture, director, and adapted screenplay to no country for old men. Yeah. It's not a little hard to quibble with, you know. I think no country for old men.

is fantastic. I really have nothing bad to say about it. I love it. Um, just kind of a thunderdome situation. Interesting sliding doors as we kind of ease gracefully into Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar moment. How different. Don't jinx it. Is this real wood? I don't know. I don't know either. I'm not jinxing it, but I mean, we're sure. Yeah. I know. Don't count your chickens. Okay. Well, who's, they're not my chickens. Okay. They're Warner Brothers chickens. I guess so. I have no access to those chickens. Um, the film also lost editing and sound editing to the BORN ultimatum. Okay.

Well, hi, Chris. Sure. I mean, editing to the BORN ultimatum? Which one is BORN ultimatum? I want to say that's the second one. Oh, when it cuts at the end, and he's watching Glenn Close and the Mobius. I honestly don't remember. It lost art direction to Sweeney Todd.

You seen Sweeney Todd? The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Oh, yeah, no, I skipped that one. Okay. Sweeney Tott in Plainview had a bit in common. It could have been boys. Sure. I mean facial hair?

Yeah, they might have enjoyed a whiskey together. Reviews at the time, Manola Dargis wrote a bang-on classic review of this movie when it came out. This is something that she wrote in her review. There Will Be Blood is very much a personal endeavor for Mr. Anderson. It feels like an act of possession. Yet it is also directly engaged with our cinematicallyically constructed history, specifically with films Greed and Chinatown but also Citizen Kane that have dismantled the mythologies of American

success and in doing so replaced one utopian ideal for another, namely that of the movies themselves. That's an interesting insight that in a way, you can't really ever make a movie about history again because there have been so many movies about history. So any movie about history is invariably

a movie about movies. And this is very much like a, I have synthesized again, all of these grand visions. Chinatown, very interesting. I wrote a piece about this movie in 2017. and drew a lot of illusions to Chinatown as well and the idea of John Houston who plays the villain in Chinatown

who directed Treasure of the Sierra Madre which is Paul Thomas Anderson's favorite movie and him playing Noah Cross a water magnate, a sort of powerful man in Chinatown controlling natural resources and redeveloping California. Yes, to control the future as he tells Jake Giddis. Chinatown and this movie are in a...

Yes. In a little dance about the history of our city and power and guys who were trying to get in control of everything. I mean, Citizen Kane is also a pretty important reference. It is. And I guess like the rubric through which we try to understand our history and the quote-unquote great men of our history. Yeah, this movie doesn't seem to have as much interest in the media, which is kind of notable. Like, even a lot of the tycoons of this time tried to manipulate their image, some of whom bought media companies, like Charles Foster Kane. You know, a lot of those guys insisted on a certain kind of, like the rise of yellow journalism is in part driven by tycoons who own newspapers.

This movie is not really interested in that. Like, Plainview is much more interior. Like, he literally says, I want to make enough money so I can get away from everyone. Right. And I can relate to that. This movie is number three on the New York Times top 100. Okay. It's number four in the Reader's poll for the Times.

It's number one on Rolling Stones' top 100 movies of the 21st century. Okay. Number three on the BBC's 2016 21st Century Critics poll. Are you sensing a trend? People like this one. This is a consensus top five film of the last 25 years. Yes, it is. Any misgivings about that?

You're usually a little resistant to consensus. Sure. And it's not my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie. And my personal rankings, I think it's, what is it? I think you said fourth. Fourth? What do I? Because I got Phantom Thread one battle and the master over this.

So let's talk about which Paul Thomas Anderson we picked. This was ultimately your decision. Yes. And I support you and I stand by you. And I think it's the quote unquote right decision. I was needling you up until the very end to do the master. because I think that that is the fullest expression of PTA and this is like the fullest expression of cinema, I guess,

and I was more interested in the fullest expression of PTA. But, you know, sometimes you've got to be obvious. Sometimes you got, it's not even obvious. Sometimes you got to say the thing. It's my truth. This is my truth. My truth is that this is my favorite PTA movie and the master is my second favorite

and that they are a critical pairing. They are like him taking the next step from virtuosic, fast-talking, cool guy in his 20s to grown man trying to elevate himself with his art. And the master is much more mysterious than this movie. This movie is thematically fairly straightforward. I don't think that that makes it any worse. I don't think it makes the master better to me mysterious.

I think a lot of critics will favor the master because they'll say that there's more to kind of consistently unpack and explore. And I respect that. I understand that. I love to read about the master. I think it is endlessly rewarding. I just saw it again this year on 70mm at the Egyptian. An amazing experience.

I will watch the film many more times before I die. I think it's a beautiful love story, perhaps his most beautiful love story. I also think it's a movie about America, as you say. certainly a movie about masculinity and faith, you know, what we look for when we have an absence, you know, I think that movie also very smartly doesn't show us too much about its two main characters in their past. It just kind of insinuates a lot. It's like a trick that he picked up that you can also project onto him because he doesn't talk about himself anymore. And you can almost feel him like floating in and out of these strong male characters in all of his movies. I love The Master. If we could have had two movies from one filmmaker on these lists, I would have fought hard for it to be top ten. Okay. So it's not a bad call by you at all. Though, you know, he has made several movies this century. You know, he's got punched drunk love, there will be blood, the master inherent vice, phantom thread, liquorish pizza, one battle after another.

Now, you would advocate, presumably, for both phantom thread and one battle after another if this were your solo list. Yes. What do you think would, you think, you think, phantom thread would come first? I don't know. I mean, it's hard. I always, like, try to, like, counterweight the recency bias. But I do think one battle is pretty spectacular. And one battle brings in a lot of what is great about there will be blood.

I agree. And then brings in both, like, some of the emotionality, some of, like, more characters, more worldviews, more women, for sure. I mean, you know, some of it is I watched this movie. At a distance. And maybe it's meant to be experienced at a distance. I don't think you're, like, supposed to necessarily be cozy with Daniel Plainview. I think that it's... It's intimate, though.

The movie is very intimate with him. Sure. But it is, it's also, you know, shot, you know, sweeping and wide. And it is... Not every movie has to be, like, something that you personally relate to, right? And so... Certainly. So, even though...

I find more to connect with than Phantom Thread or one battle. Like I understand this, but I think one battle balances everything that has really jumped out to me from the last 10 years of Paul Thomas' Anderson's career and

big ideas about America and parenthood and you know, and men and men working together to achieve a something.

think that there will be blood has. So, you know, I guess it's personal preference. It is. I find one battle after another similarly not very mysterious. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's resonating in the same way that there will be blood did. These are the two movies that have gotten the most rapturous response that he's made since Boogie Nights.

it doesn't mean that one battle after another is going to be acclaimed forever as a masterpiece for all times it has plenty of detractors it's going to get even more detractors presumably when it wins best picture that's inevitable

I'm sure at some point I will be retracting certain things you know what I mean it's just like through the arc of the experience you can't help you be like well does this work or does that work I think it's a great movie we've made like nine episodes about it

yeah we're going to make more yeah it's just like it came out two and a half months ago you know so I just don't I don't have enough distance from it We'll talk next week about the offer that you made me. Great. Okay.

That sounds wonderful. I didn't accept it, obviously. You've mentioned that like five times on a podcast that you did not accept an offer. You got come with better offers. Just want you to know what that sounds like to the world when you say that. That you're a woman of strong conviction, is what I'm implying. Yep, that's correct. Should we have done licorice pizza?

I really like licorice pizza. I do, too. I stand by what I said is that I like it. Even more now that it doesn't have the weight of being, like, yet another great, you know, like one of like the magnum opuses, it can just be a great movie. It's a hang. It's a great hang. People contain multitudes, including Paul Thomas Anderson. Yes. Although perhaps not Daniel Plainview. Yeah, I guess so. Debatable. Recommended if you like. I mentioned the treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Manola Dargis mentioned Citizen Kane. I wrote down the night of the hunter, the severity of. of violence and religion in our society and culture. I mentioned Barry Lyndon already. Anything, obviously all of the PTA films. I was going to say any other Paul Thomas Anderson movie? You know, we don't need to recommend people see something in case they haven't seen there will be blood.

They've seen there will be blood, right? They've seen it. If you haven't seen there will be blood and you listen this far, I don't want to know about it. Keep it to yourself and then go watch it. Okay. You feel good? Well, I think we've made the right choice and I feel.

Yeah, I do too. I do too. We're almost done. Yeah. I'm excited. I saved my number one rewatch for a little treat. You know, because I have to... When are we doing that Monday? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. First. I got to rewatch it. First. Yes. Before things really devolved. Yeah. Okay. That'll be exciting. And then...

Wait, how is it possible that this is... Oh, when is this running? Oh, I see. Okay, I get it. It's a complicated release schedule here. We're recording many episodes concurrently. Well, I know, but so we are recording our number one, and then we're recording the episode that listeners will hear next.

Yes. Which is. The next episode that you will hear is a breakdown of two more certified American masterpieces. I'm referring, of course, to Anaconda, Anaconda, and The Housemaid. That's going to be our second to last episode of the year. Right. and our last episode of the year will be number one. We'll see you then.