Taking place from the turn of the century in 1898 to 1930, the story chronicles the life and times of Daniel Plainview, who transforms himself from a struggling silver miner into a self-made oil tycoon. When Daniel gets a tip-off that there's a small community out west where an ocean of oil is oozing up out of the ground, he heads with his adopted son, H.W., to take there chances in dust-worn Little Boston in southern California. In this hard-scrabble town, where the main excitement centers around the holy roller church of charismatic preacher Eli Sunday, Daniel and H.W. make their lucky strike. But even as the oil well raises all of their fortunes, nothing will remain the same as conflicts escalate and every human value is imperiled by greed, deceit, and the flow of oil.
