At Cinemas Now - The film is adapted from Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel "Oil! " Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), begins as a silver prospector in 1898, when he discovers oil in one of his silver claims. He soon earns enough money to build a small drilling company.
One of his workers is killed in an on-site accident, and his infant son is left an orphan. Plainview takes the child as his own, and begins a much larger enterprise, using the boy, whom he names H.W. (Dillon Freasier), as his nominal "partner" to project his status as a family man and a family businessman. By 1911, he is one of the most successful oil men in California.
Plainview is approached by a young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) who sells Plainview an oil lead located on his family's property in Little Boston, California. Plainview and HW travel to Little Boston, and, pretending to be hunting quail, scout out the Sunday property and discover a good amount of seepage oil. Plainview attempts to buy the property without notifying Paul's father Abel (David Willis) of the oil, but Paul's twin brother, Eli (also Paul Dano), knows of the oil and raises the price to $10,000, the bulk of which he intends to put into the founding of his own Church. Plainview pays him $5000 up front and promises the other $5000 as a donation to the church.
In order to ensure the monopoly on the Little Boston oil, Plainview buys the "ranches" of a number of the surrounding neighbors, with the exception of one property, which the owner, a Mr. Bandy (Hans Howes), was hesitant to sell. With the money from his land, Eli founds his own church, which he calls The Church of the Third Revelation, and styles himself as a faith healer. Plainview erects a cable tool drilling rig, and the day before it is to spud, Eli asks to bless the drilling operation as a promotion for the Church. Plainview agrees, but reneges on the agreement and in the spudding ceremony, publicly snubs Eli in favor of Eli's young sister Mary (Sydney McCallister), who has befriended HW. Drilling then begins.
The hole is eventually dug deeply enough to hit a large "ocean of oil" underneath the town, but in the process,a blow-out and fire occur. HW loses his hearing in the blast, and Plainview is unable to communicate with his son. When Eli comes to the derrick to request the money Plainview owes him, Plainview suddenly and violently attacks him, screaming at him for being unable to heal his son. Humiliated, Eli returns to his father's house, where he beats the older man for allowing his brother Paul to tell Plainview about the oil that has ruined their lives.
