"There Will Be Blood" features which resource? The answer is oil.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film follows Daniel Plainview, a ruthless prospector and oilman who builds a petroleum empire in Southern California during the early twentieth-century oil boom. The story begins with Plainview pursuing mineral wealth and later centers on his discovery of a major oil deposit beneath land owned by the Sunday family.
Oil drives the film’s business negotiations, family conflicts, and power struggles. Plainview wants control over drilling rights and surrounding land, while the local preacher Eli Sunday seeks influence and financial recognition. The resource therefore functions as more than a plot device: it represents industrial expansion, wealth, ambition, and the human cost of unchecked competition.
The film is loosely inspired by Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel "Oil!" but is not a direct adaptation. Another common mix-up is the opening sequence, in which Plainview mines silver before the narrative shifts decisively toward petroleum. Daniel Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for Best Actor for portraying Plainview.