Review: P.T. Anderson's Glorious "One Battle After Another"
Monday, September 29, 2025 at 1:00AM by Eric Blume
If you’re a regular site reader, you’ve probably been following all the film blogs discussing the new Paul Thomas Anderson epic, One Battle After Another. So we don’t need to discuss plot or beat around the bush…the question is: Does it really deliver like everyone has been saying? I remember being so excited before seeing Licorice Pizza -- it too was heralded by early viewers -- only to find it contrived and uninvolving in the cinema. My vote, this time, is an unqualified yes! PTA is a great filmmaker: ideologically ambitious, profoundly humanistic, and daringly assured technically. Anderson delivers with depth and panache here in this new contemporary, highly political film...
Leonardo DiCaprio gives his most inspired performance in years (ever?) as a guy swept up with a 1990s political underground movement. Anderson throws you directly into a whirlwind of a milieu without much setup, and part of the thrill of the first reel of the film is that you’re not spoon-fed information: the action is fast-moving, the relationships are confusing and surprising, and your orientation is a bit off (but Anderson’s isn’t).
Teyana Taylor, who plays the main revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills, helps shoot this film off like a cannonball: she feels like a completely original character, taking what could be a cliché and fleshing it out in small moments of complexity. We’re not accustomed to seeing female characters this selfish and intense presented without compromise, and there’s something fiercely unapologetic about Taylor’s acting that feels very thrilling and launches the pacing and energy of the film from the start.
The story skips 15 years to reveal DiCaprio’s character, now a stoner and alcoholic, and the father of a feisty teen (Chase Infiniti). Through a series of complicated events, they find themselves being chased by the military officer who was involved with Perfidia years ago (played, to the hilt and back and to the hilt again, by Sean Penn).
Around this central chase, Anderson fills the fabric of the film with characters very much in PTA vibe…dreamers, rule-breakers, system-busters, lost souls. We could go on for paragraphs about the political dialogues this film engages in, but does anybody really want to read about that? Let’s just say that Anderrson is tackling very big, very contemporary, and very controversial issues here. This is a vicious examination of today’s decaying values, monstrous abuses of power, and vile hypocrisy. It’s a full meal of ideas.
As good as DiCaprio is (he’s an actor who often bores me, but just superb here), he does not have the colossal power and bravura grandeur that Penn brings naturally. As Daniel Day-Lewis did for There Will Be Blood, Penn raises this film to something beyond naturalism: he lifts the film, in its most audacious moments, to the mythic. Penn is playing both the specific human and the monolith within the same moment. The film gets larger in his scenes and more dangerous, too. You feel that Penn was inspired by Anderson in a way he hasn’t been in years; The specificity of self-loathing the director and his star find in Penn’s gross doubling-down is electrifying.
And while every actor shines in this film (Best Casting Oscar for sure)…the real star of the picture is the director. Anderson stages each set piece with astounding assurance, but with a sense of gonzo deliriousness, too. One of the best aspects of the film is that it’s operating within several genres at a time: thriller, action, comedy, drama. He doesn’t miss a single opportunity for a joke or a comic observation even at the highest moments of drama. The stretch of the film that begins with DiCaprio realizing he is going to have to run from his home through to his escape from the hospital, is gloriously sustained with Johnny Greenwood’s simple but powerfully effective score, and the sheer energy that Anderson is bringing. The final chase sequence, with concrete roads feeling like ocean waves, is a bit of a coup visually... watch the way it contributes to the pace and the urban vibe of the film. Everything is shaped so precisely: the film is essentially a series of extended segments that Anderson connects with enormous propulsion and observation. It’s a dazzling feat of direction that I imagine will finally bring him his long-overdue Oscar regardless of how the Best Picture race turns out.
There are moments where the film feels like a Stanley Kubrick film, and other moments when it feels vaguely like a Quentin Tarantino film, but at every moment, it is absolutely a Paul Thomas Anderson film.
I think Anderson has made two unqualified masterpieces (Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood), and three near-masterpieces (Magnolia, The Master, and Phantom Thread). For me, One Battle After Another lands at the top of that near-masterpiece list. There are a few moments in the film that are almost too cheeky, where you’re a bit too aware of the virtuosity. That's true of his two masterpieces, too, but the virtuosity works in sweet opposition to the milieu of Boogie and in terrifying symphony with the milieu of Blood). In One Battle... most of the characters have to operate in one lane emotionally, so I missed the deep character detail of some of his other films.
But bottom line, One Battle After Another is the real deal. It’s pure cinema: bold, challenging, complex, and riveting. This is a deeply personal film that somehow got through the studio system, getting a big wide release to a very divided public. Anderson has truly met the moment.
P.S. For the Oscars, because everyone loves discussing those, I can't see it missing Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for Penn, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Sound, and Editing. DiCaprio stands a very good shot at his seventh nomination... a much stronger shot than he had for Killer Moon at any rate. Teyana Taylor seems most likely for a Supporting Actress nomination, but she has limited screen time...could go either way. Infiniti could get swept along if the film hits huge, but I think her reward is the great reviews and the start of a great career. Regina Hall is lovely in her handful of scenes, but she ultimately has very little to do.)
Reader Comments (12)
I am really looking forward to this but it's box office prospects may hurt it unless it breaks out in a sleeper kind of way.
I feel sure DiCaprio is getting his nomination,if this is the leading Best Picture nominee the lead actor always gets in,I am glad Taylor is having the moment she should have a few years ago for One Thousand And One when everyone was falling over themselves over the underwhelming Lily Gladstone.
Penn seems most likely for a nomination,it'll be very difficult to win a third and his 2003 win would hurt me even more.
Once again Hall is not getting the reviews needed for a nomination but a coattail nomination is possible but I think Chase would be the coattail nomination or maybe Benicio
Thanks for this review.
I think Regina Hall has a shot - she has a powerful last moment, and the viewer remembers her when they leave the theater. Same with Benicio - those characters are somewhat twinned in the later part of the movie, and their last shots are one after another.
Penn has things locked up - but I really think it has a shot at 5 supporting nominations. It'll be the only movie owning that part of the convo for weeks.
MyRipley - I don't hate the idea of Penn having 3 Oscars, but agreed that the first one is pretty annoying.
Right now behind Sinners, this is my favorite film of 2025. This is the work of a master who has once again shown that he can be full of surprises and create something that is totally his own thing (though it is inspired by a novel by Thomas Pychon) and create something that feels really accessible. The cast alone is tremendous. This has to get a bunch of Oscar nods.
Wow, I found this minor PTA!! It's so conventional and straightforward in a way none of his other films really are, with a clear-cut villain and clear-cut heroes. Not a lot of moral ambiguity or character development! Also perhaps his least interesting film visually. Quite perplexed by the raves?!!
Can't wait to see this.
"Best Casting Oscar for sure."
I just want to say — do we really think someone other than PTA is responsible for assembling these principals, who are all either icons or at the top of their game in one way or another, and would (just like anyone) kill to be in a PTA movie? I know there are below-the-line roles someone cast and perhaps that's remarkably done, but I still struggle with the criteria of this category.
I'm sure the Knives Out movie will be buzzed about for this too—even though those movies are bottle episodes of all-star casts who probably aren't even auditioning.
DK, you're absolutely right, the Casting Oscar will really struggle from a perception problem since yes, often principal actors are sometimes decided upon by the director, or projects originate from the actors, etc.
But the reason I think OBAA will be one of the key contenders for this Oscar is the way all the secondary, tertiary, and below roles are cast. Every actor down to walk-ons is just extraordinarily *right*...there's an actor who has a small bit as a skateboarder who is just divinely perfect, and he pops. The way the casting director found all the bad white guys...casting variations on classical military looks, reflections of current politicians, and stern-voiced threats...all of whom can act and all of whom make vibrant contributions...it's very impressive. The young actors cast as Chase Infiniti's friends are so dead-on quintessential young Gen Z, and they all look and feel like LA kids. Just so many carefully-curated decisions by the casting agents that all contribute to the film's crackle.
Plus the film must have at least over 60 speaking parts? Some big number like that. That casting group was BUSY.
But yes, I agree that the category is often going to default to the industry-favorite each year, and we have to hope that the casting folks who nominate the five films shake things up a bit. Or who knows, maybe it will be like the Sound category, where we start to get really amazing surprise winners like The Sound of Metal and The Zone of Interest?
I love Pynchon, like/love most PTA, I thought the chase caper bits were all well done, but like Wae Mest it seemed minor PTA. Flat characters (ok, Pynchon but...), straightforward plot, not much depth. Obscure or flat motivations. What really tripped me up was the timeline. Updating from 1960s/1980s to 2000s/now made no historical, thematic, or narrative sense to me. Left revolutionary group? In the 2000s? Where? What? Why? There's the immigration raid which seems anachronistic (now, not then), one abortion reference (again, seems now not then) and otherwise no sense of what French 75 was for, who these people were, why Leo was involved (and didn't really seem to care and quickly dropped it). And then Sean Penn looked like the same 85 year old in the 20 years ago sequences that he did in the present day sequences (and iffy definition on who he was/is). The middle chase sections were fun; Benicio del Toro was fun. But the Vineland frame didn't seem to make any sense when updated 40, 50 years later. I'm fine with giving PTA an Oscar or whatever. But it seems lower level PTA.
Great review Eric but one minor quibble: Taylor has PLENTY of screen time for a Supporting Actress nomination. This is why so many of us rail against category fraud. The category is meant for a performance like hers : every scene of hers POPS and you can't take your eyes off of her.
They are great, but that section of the film is set in Northern California, not Los Angeles.
It's a great film, filmmaking-wise... but has people lost their mind?
OBAA is literally unbelievable from beginning to end. Ever heard of a far-left terrorist group expanding their career for over 2 decades in the USA? OK, we might get suspension of disbelief, but still the film is just lazy to correct the source's plotholes specially on the final car chase, with several cars involved and in which how in hell do some of them know which car to chase or which one is chasing them?
And better not get started to analyze Sean Penn's character idiocy or his double fate, cheating the audience, not once, but twice.
It's still a **** 1/2 film thanks to the filmmaking and the cast and the technical values, but sorry, to be a masterpiece you have to not make your audience switch off a minimum believability, because really, going back to the same house that was already attacked, at the end, and live like if nothing ever happened?
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