Film Review: One Battle After Another

5 Stars

By Joseph Beyer | Oct. 4, 2025

As I sat down in the AMC IMAX to experience Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, One Battle After Another (should we call it an opus yet?), I truly didn’t know what to expect. And that’s how I also recommend you see it; so the following review shall contain no spoilers but will hopefully make you curious enough to watch this edgy, political thriller on the big screen.

It’s hard to say whether this parable takes place in the future or if it’s ripped from the here and now as we begin our morality tale in an America overrun with immigration checkpoints, militarized police, secret racist societies, and a small band of misfits just crazy enough to think they might be able to stop it.

The plotline of good vs. evil and the hunt for revenge is straightforward and easy to follow, but the emotional consequences of each character’s actions are not. Both will keep you engaged fully even as the twists and turns sometimes literally explode around you.

The film is led with conviction by actor Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, actress Teyana Taylor as his partner in crime aptly named Perfidia, and the debut turn of actress Chase Infiniti as their daughter, Willa. This trio of combatants—and the like-minded posse that surrounds them—may be fueled by passionate personal beliefs, but they all face the same red tape to get anything done.

In the revolutionary moment the story begins, the outcasts have taken command, creating a sophisticated network for their counter-measures slash domestic terrorism, a network that is inevitably and hilariously fraught with the same bureaucracy as waiting on hold with your cell phone provider.

Bob is a wild card, Perfidia has a Judas-like energy, and Willa must try to make sense of them both, the world they’ve left her, and what her legacy really is.

With notable supporting performances from the legendary actors Sean Penn (even more fiery than normal) and Benicio Del Toro (in an effortless swing), and cameos from Regina Hall and Alana Haim, there’s never a dull moment as the tragic action unfolds.

Moving between realistic horrors reminiscent of a documentary, along with high parody the likes of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson seems content to keep you guessing with One Battle After Another, even as his cast of characters charges forward in ways you’ll sometimes be catching up with (or disgusted by).

Sound, the absence of it, and the magnificent score by Jonny Greenwood all come together to feel sweeping, mythic, and overwhelming. It’s reminiscent—I think very much on purpose—of the New Hollywood era of the ’60s and ’70s.

Fittingly, One Battle After Another is only the second film since 1961 shot using VistaVision, a competing high resolution format to CinemaScope.

In a sparse but meaningful screenplay, which was inspired by co-writer Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, the film displays terrific timing throughout the 2 hour 41 minute ride.

With a hyper visual intensity á la Uncut Gems (a film by the Safdie Bros. that Anderson admires), One Battle After Another will often have you on the edge of your seat—or in the case of one insanely memorable car chase, on a roller coaster ride.