10 Best Movies Like There Will Be Blood

Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood is one of the most highly acclaimed movies of the century. Daniel Day-Lewis was duly awarded a Best Actor Oscar for his compelling portrayal of the rise and fall of oil baron Daniel Plainview, while Robert Elswit won Best Cinematography for his breathtaking, naturalistic visuals.

While Anderson won’t be making a sequel to There Will Be Blood any time soon, there are plenty of similar movies – some involving Anderson, Day-Lewis, or even both – for fans of the 2007 epic to check out.

10 The Master (2012)

After receiving possibly the best reviews of his career for There Will Be Blood, P.T.A. tackled another large-scale but ultimately human epic for his next movie: The Master, a barely camouflaged critique of the Church of Scientology.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as a troubled kid who returns from World War II in search of direction in his life and finds it when a cult leader, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, takes him under his wing. The Master is a very different movie than There Will Be Blood, but they’re both intense character studies covering a dark corner of American society through a naturalistic lens.

9 Gangs Of New York (2002)

Five years before playing the role of Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, Day-Lewis played the villainous Bill the Butcher for Martin Scorsese in his historical crime epic Gangs of New York.

Like There Will Be Blood, Gangs of New York is a huge, ambitious, beautifully crafted movie about the early days of American history, starring Day-Lewis as one of the dark, violent pioneers who left a trail of blood behind as he paved the way for progress.

8 Wall Street (1987)

On the surface, Oliver Stone’s financial drama Wall Street might not seem like it has a lot in common with Anderson’s oil epic. But There Will Be Blood is essentially Wall Street in 1898.

Like Daniel Plainview, Gordon Gekko – played by Michael Douglas in one of his career-best performances – is an unscrupulous businessman who values dollars over human beings.

7 Giant (1956)

Before There Will Be Blood, the most high-profile movie about the rise of an oil empire was the 1956 western epic Giant. Giant tells the story of a Texan ranching family struggling to adapt with the times. After they strike oil, they become rich – and, naturally, corrupt.

The movie is headlined by three of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history – James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson – and also features an early-career turn by Dennis Hopper.

6 Lincoln (2012)

After winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for There Will Be Blood, Day-Lewis won another one for his lead performance in his next movie, Steven Spielberg’s biopic Lincoln.

Day-Lewis gives a typically fierce, engaging performance as President Abraham Lincoln. The movie doesn’t cover Lincoln’s entire life, just the crucial juncture in the Civil War when he managed to abolish slavery. Trust Spielberg to make a riveting suspense sequence out of politicians voting on a bill.

5 No Country For Old Men (2007)

The Coen brothers’ gritty neo-western No Country for Old Men was shot in the same area as There Will Be Blood at the same time. Like Anderson’s movie, the Coens’ Oscar-winning masterpiece is about the negative consequences of greed.

In Llewelyn Moss’ case, he abandons a wounded man begging for water and steals $2 million, then his guilt drives him into a relentless cat-and-mouse pursuit after he returns to the scene in the middle of the night to give the man (who’s already dead) the water he asked for.

4 Raging Bull (1980)

Scorsese bounced back from his first box office bomb with Raging Bull, a biopic of middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta. Thanks to the sobering minimalism of Scorsese’s filmmaking (juxtaposed with the cinematic flashiness of the fight scenes) and Robert De Niro’s raw, warts-and-all portrayal of LaMotta’s anger, Raging Bull was rightly praised as the director’s magnum opus.

There Will Be Blood isn’t a sports movie, but neither is Raging Bull. Like There Will Be Blood, Raging Bull is a dark character study of a man whose own inner demons cost him everything meaningful in his life.

3 The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)

John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is one of the most widely acclaimed movies ever made. Humphrey Bogart stars as Dobbs, one of three men who go out onto the frontier in search of gold. They uncover a fortune, but Dobbs’ paranoia threatens to derail the whole endeavor.

While rumors that Anderson watched this movie every night while shooting There Will Be Blood may have been greatly exaggerated, it was clearly a thematic influence on the film. Huston’s movie is a quintessential portrait of the corrupting power of wealth.

2 Citizen Kane (1941)

Thanks to the technical breakthroughs made by first-time director Orson Welles, Citizen Kane is often called the greatest movie of all time. Welles stars in the movie as a thinly veiled stand-in for William Randolph Hearst.

Like oil tycoon Daniel Plainview, media mogul Charles Foster Kane spends his life chasing wealth and glory, but ultimately ends up living alone and miserable in a giant, empty mansion.

1 Phantom Thread (2017)

A decade after making There Will Be Blood, Anderson and Day-Lewis reunited to make Phantom Thread. This was Day-Lewis’ last movie before retirement. Its scope isn’t as vast as that of There Will Be Blood, but it’s just as gorgeously shot and masterfully acted.

Set against the backdrop of the London fashion scene in the 1950s, Phantom Thread is a heartbreaking examination of the incredibly toxic relationship between a short-tempered haute couture dressmaker and the young waitress he falls for.

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Ben Sherlock
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Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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