4. There Will Be Blood (2007)
There Will Be Blood is another in a long line of "Daniel Day-Lewis doing great acting" movies, as written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the master filmmaker behind other awesome works such as
Boogie Nights and
Magnolia. Given Anderson's tendency to write original screenplays, though, one might be surprised to learn that it's based around that of the 1927 novel "Oil!" by Upton Sinclair. And although there are obvious similarities occurring between the novel and Sinclair's movie, this is about as loose as a book-to-movie adaptations come. That's to say, Anderon's movie is far darker than its source material, and Daniel Plainview is much more of a monstrous creation than his novel counterpart, James Arnold Ross. Ross also has a biological son named Bunny, whereas the movie grants us H.W., Plainview's adopted son. These may seem like trivial differences, but
There Will Be Blood differs mostly in its exploration of the Plainview/Eli Sunday relationship. This is practically non-existent in Sinclair's book. In Anderson's own words, the novel was more of a "really good collaborator," as opposed to a legitimate source.