The film follows Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis), a silver mine operator in New Mexico whose mine runes out. Luckily for him, he finds oil in the mine and he's made enough money off of the silver that he can build himself a bump and hire some men to work on it. When a man dies in an accident during drilling and leaves behind a young son, Plainview adopts him and names him H.W. (Dillon Freasier).

Fast forward a few years and Plainview is doing quite well for himself. He owns a few oil wells and is continually buying property that he figures he can drill on. When a young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) shows up at Plainview's camp one night to sell him some information about his family's California ranch, a chunk of land he claims is right with oil, Plainview and H.W. pose as quail hunters to investigate the land. When he confirms that yes, the land is rich with oil, he negotiates with Paul's twin brother Eli (Dano again) and his father Abel. Plainview agrees to give them ten thousand dollars towards building a church for Eli to preach in. Plainview starts building and buying up the surrounding area to get a pipeline put in, but one ranch won't sell. Meanwhile, H.W. and Eli's younger sister, Mary, become friends while their respective parents start to distrust and come into conflict with one another. Eli's religious ways are at odds with Plainview's entrepreneurial technique and he doesn't want Eli trying to turn his workers into churchgoers.

An explosion at the oil drill turns H.W. deaf shortly before a man named Henry (Kevin O'Conner) shows up claiming to be Daniel's half-brother. Henry and Daniel become closer as H.W. becomes jealous and starts a fire, resulting in Daniel's decision to send him off to boarding school. Soon, however, Plainview starts to become suspicious of Henry, and his ambitions all start to unravel...

On paper a three hour epic about the oil industry of 1920s America might not sound like a great idea for a film, but Anderson really makes this one work and he's surrounded himself with some exceptionally talented collaborators to ensure that There Will Be Blood stands out. First and foremost are the performances. While Dano is excellent in his double role (though Paul Sunday's part is small) as are Kevin O'Conner and Dillon Freasier, it's Daniel Day-Lewis who completely steals the show. He's fantastic as Daniel Plainview, he's manipulative, deceitful, and insanely greedy and Lewis' work here is positively chilling.

If the great acting and compelling storyline weren't enough, there's the cinematography from Robert Elswit. Plenty of long, lingering shots of the landscape and some very stylish shots that capture the detail in the sets make that film a joy to look at while the various close ups employed during some of the more intense scenes add tension and atmosphere. The look of the film works very well alongside the score, courtesy of Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood, which employs a lot of heavy strings and provides an appropriately dark tone for the film.

Audio options are available in English, French or Spanish language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, with optional subtitles provided in English, French and Spanish. The 5.1 mix on this disc is superb. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout and the rear channels are used very effectively during the more active scenes in the film. Johnny Greenwood's string intensive score sounds beautiful and the mix spreads it out quite nicely. Subwoofer response is spot on and the levels are all balanced properly.

The first disc in this set is completely barebones save for a slick but basic menu with setup and chapter selection options. Disc two is where all of the supplements are, starting off with a documentary entitled The Story Of Petroleum (25:27). This is an archival film that was created by the U.S. Bureau of Mines and the Sinclair Oil Company sometime between 1923 and 1927 to promote the U.S. oil industry. Although this fullframe black and white film was shot silent, Paramount presents it here with a new score courtesy of Johnny Greenwood. As the film plays out we learn how petroleum production has increased over the years and how the United States is the largest producer of crude oil and what that crude oil is used for. From there we learn how people search for oil, how it is mined from the Earth, and what is done with it once it's been refined. While this supplement may not relate directly to the feature, it does give some valuable background information on the time in which the film is set and the industry in which There Will Be Blood plays out. It's also an interesting time capsule of the oil industry as it was in the 1920s. Obviously things have changed a lot since then with the emergence of the Middle East as a dominant player in the industry. It's interesting to see the technology and architecture of the time represented here and to learn about what were, at the time at least, huge technological advances in the extraction and distribution of oil across America.

From there we can delve into the film related supplements starting with 15 Minutes (15:33), which is a slideshow of pictures and materials used for research purposes. While this is essentially just a still gallery set to music, some of the pictures here are pretty fantastic and we get to see them compared to what wound up on screen thanks to some well placed clips. Some clips from The Story Of Petroleum show up in here as well. By all accounts, if the comparisons are anything to go by, it looks like Anderson and company really nailed the look, as what's up on screen in the finished product looks remarkably like what we see in the archival materials.

From here, check out the two deleted scenes, Fishing (6:13) and Haircut/Interrupted Hymn (3:16). The first scene shows Daniel inspecting a caved in rig, before instructing his men to 'go fishing' for the part that's trapped at the bottom of the well so that drilling can continue - the importance of which is explained to Mary Sunday. An interesting conversation between Daniel and the priest lends some insight into Daniel's character. The second scene shows Daniel getting his hair cut then taking a train ride.

Dailies Gone Wild (2:47) is an outtakes where Daniel sits with his son and drinks only to interrupt two Standard employees having lunch near him.

Also included are a teaser (1:24) and the theatrical trailer (2:12). All of the supplements are presented in anamorphic widescreen except for The Story Of Petroleum which is presented in its original fullframe aspect ratio. Slick, sepia toned menus are included. You can watch the supplements individually or by way of a handy 'play all' button.

While the supplements that have been included in this collection are well done and quite interesting, one can't help but lament the absence of a substantial making of featurette or commentary track. On a semi-related note, while the packaging for this DVD is very attractive, the discs sit inside the cardboard digipak without any protection and as such could be easily scratched. It's also tough to get the discs out without getting finger prints on them.