5. There Will Be Blood
Paul Thomas Anderson's masterpiece - which should have beaten No Country for Old Men to the Best Picture Oscar - might very well be one of the best films ever made, making of its study of early twentieth-century grappling between capitalism and religion a quasi-universal tale that still reverberates today. Though based very loosely on Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, Anderson's film is largely different, except for its depiction of Daniel Plainview's (Daniel Day-Lewis) relationship with his son, H.W. Aside from this, There Will Be Blood branches off to become a far larger film in scale, and owes a lot not only to Anderson's craft, but Daniel Day-Lewis' astonishing, unforgettable performance. This film is a testament to the subtle work that can go on in film, largely thanks to the expressiveness of the human face. Day-Lewis' performance is so loaded with nuanced tics, that even a fifth or sixth viewing has, for me, revealed new details about Plainview's psyche, which is more than I can say for the vast majority of novels, let alone Sinclair's good-but-not-great work. It is a lunatic, furiously confident maelstrom of a film from start to finish; gorgeous to look at, immaculately acted, and thematically unbreakable.