Some audiences have trouble with There will be Blood because they are not entirely certain of the stakes. What is really at stake in the portrait of Daniel Plainview’s single-minded devotion to ambition? There will be some occasions—among the...

The central conflict in There Will Be Blood (2007) is found in the relationship between the two main characters, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). Daniel’s plain-speaking oilman customs and Eli’s archaic spiritual...

When learning how a film is put together, one of the first things to do is get a pen and paper and count the shots. It's not very technical and a bit tedious as well. Tallying every time there are cuts forces the viewer to see things differently....

Many have called writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread a return to form after two misfires. Not only is Phantom Thread a glorious return to form for Anderson, it will go down in film history as a classic. What makes ...