Pitt plays a comically bow-legged and buffoonish version of General Stanley McChrystal, who you might remember as the army ace who got canned after his hard-drinking staff ran their mouths around a Rolling Stone reporter. By that, Day Lewis' oilman means that he's single-handedly sucked the west dry, and yet his unquenchable thirst for the blood of the land has not yet been sated. 'I drink your milkshake,' Plainview shouts at Sunday in the film's grim and hilarious climax.

It's the story of one man manifesting a maniacal destiny with such spitting grit that he becomes the embodiment of ambition, capitalism, and the frontier spirit itself. 'There Will Be Blood' is a meta-western the wild west here is a metaphor for western society, writ large. At bottom, the men are mirrors, each desperate for control the preacher himself makes a big show of conducting faith healings and speaking in tongues, and Sunday uniquely sees through Plainview's hustle. His biggest obstacles are not the farmers who are reluctant to sell their land or the inherent danger of the work, but rather Eli Sunday, a charismatic evangelical charlatan played by Paul Dano. Plainview totes around his adorable adopted son to put on a family-man facade for investors, but he's really devoted to his single-minded mission to conquer every oil field in America. Here are 12 of the best westerns that Netflix has made available at the drop of a big-brimmed hat.ĭaniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, an aptly named prospector turned proud oilman. And yes, despite our unscientific polling, streaming studios are still producing traditional westerns, too.

See, westerns aren't truly defined by dusty archetypes, but by stories about wild and wide-open places where ordered society has receded just enough for heroes and villains to duel without the oversight of a strong centralized state.

Many excellent westerns are still being made, often without sunset duels or other well-worn tropes, but instead taking the genre's trappings and themes into slightly different settings. Push a little harder on these unbelievers and you'll hear vague critiques like 'they're boring' and 'they're all the same.' But what these city flickers might not realize is that the western is alive and well. Once among the most reliably popular staples of the Hollywood machine, ask around today and your average film fan under 50 is likely to express disinterest, if not outright disdain, for the genre entirely.

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