There Will Be Blood

Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's magnificent oil-prospecting saga is - in marked contrast to his contemporary multi-character drama Magnolia - the story of one man, Daniel Plainview. An old-fashioned epic, forged self-consciously in the mould of Citizen Kane and Giant, it begins in 1898 with Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) perilously mining silver from the unyielding rock of Southern California. Four years later he strikes "black gold", and later, following a tip-off and a sly land grab, he expands his operation to become one of the 20th century's new industrial tycoons. The Oscar-winning Day-Lewis seems to have used the legendary John Huston as the model for his character. While not exactly a villain - he seems to care for his adopted son HW (Dillon Freasier) - he's certainly monstrous, his cold-hearted capitalism standing in opposition to the empire of his nemesis, the local fire-and-brimstone priest Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). Visually resplendent, thematically rich and by turns lyrical, hysterical and baffling, Anderson has made his finest film yet.