There Will Be Blood

Released: 2007
Drama
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciaran Hinds
Running Time: 158 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown:  A blossoming oil tycoon adopts a baby boy as his own and travels the country trying to buy land to build an empire at the turn of the twentieth century.  Based on a book by Upton Sinclair titled "Oil" written in 1927.

I had no desire to see this movie, but I ended up loving it.
It is a very intense drama and beautifully acted.  An absolutely flawless movie, I have nothing to complain about.
Daniel Plainview is a miner who is incredibly driven and will do just about anything he has to to get ahead.  He discovers oil and gets into the business of buying land and building oil rigs.  Along the way, he "adopts" a son and basically uses him as a tool to have people feel bad for him being a single father and they part with their land easier.  After he's been in the game a while, he finds a particularly valuable piece of land that is owned by a farming family.  He tries to buy their land, but one of the twin sons is smarter than the rest of the family and wants a lot more money that Mr. Plainview initially offers.  The son is a self-proclaimed faith healer and a very religious preacher.  He wants a sizable amount of money to build a big church for his followers.
There is an incredibly dynamic relationship between the preacher and the oil man that cannot be missed.
This is one of the few movies that I will ever say is perfect.

5 out of 5 for an amazing performance from Paul Dano, playing twins, and Daniel Day-Lewis being brilliant, as usual.  This movie is extremely superb.  You must see it.
By the way: as a piece of information that I find flabbergasting.  Paul Dano was originally only cast as one brother when the project began.  The other actor that was going to play Eli (a huge emotional and important role) dropped out and the script was re-written for the brothers to be identical twins.  Dano is quoted as saying he only had one week to prepare for his role as Eli; and if you've seen this movie, you can imagine how difficult that must've been, and how amazing Dano must be as an actor to be able to pull this off.