Paul Thomas Anderson hands you a live wire and hits the ground running with his latest film. The current flows throughout One Battle After Another, never finding a weak point in all of its nearly three-hour runtime and shaping up into one of the most politically charged, visually stunning, well-performed films of the decade. Anderson has delivered a movie with ambitions of both style and theme that are rarely seen in a major studio release.
Based loosely on Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Vineland, and brought into the modern day, One Battle After Another is a political epic following freedom fighters who are thrashing against the waves of a fascist government built on intersections of white supremacy, xenophobia, and misogyny to maintain control.
The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob, a washed-up bomb-maker who left the French 75, a revolutionary group, years prior. Bob had gone into hiding with his daughter, Willa, after her mother was forced to betray their crew to a violent military officer set on destroying them. Willa, played by Chase Infiniti, has been shielded from her mom’s story, but carries a revolutionary flame that burns brighter when this officer, portrayed with incredible menace by Sean Penn, tracks them down to complete his mission.
DiCaprio and Penn, along with Benecio Del Toro as a savvy and politically-involved karate sensei, are the film’s largest stars, so to speak, but the women of One Battle After Another are central to both the story and the film’s success. Infiniti shines bright in her cinematic debut, a force that will surely grace our screens for many years to come and becomes the real hero of the film’s final act. She is joined by Regina Hall as one of the French 75 members, a gentle and strong presence throughout the movie, and Teyana Taylor, who portrays Perfidia, Willa’s mother, a complicated figure who makes a huge impression in the opening set-piece and looms over the narrative despite not being around for most of the film. These three performances are the heart of One Battle After Another.
DiCaprio and Del Toro share an electrifying, comedic chemistry during their scenes together. DiCaprio, who has leveraged his star-power to embody some real scumbag-type of roles recently, is brilliant as a stoned-out, paranoid guy at the center of an increasingly frenetic story. Bob always arrives a little too late to be the hero, but his frenzied effort is admirable, and DiCaprio makes him a character you root for even when he is consistently two steps behind.
Penn delivers some of the best work of his career as an utterly despicable antagonist who continually closes in on Bob and Willa, leaving carnage in his wake.
Anderson’s film champions the radical nature of revolution and makes a strong argument for the value of fighting like hell to make a better world for the next generation. Bob and Perfidia don’t change the world singlehandedly, but their daughter is able to live a better life because of their efforts. Willa can carry the torch for them.
It is an outwardly political movie, and set in contemporary times, but part of the point Anderson makes with One Battle After Another is baked into the title itself: the fight is never-ending. Vineland was set in the throes of Ronald Reagan’s overhaul of American government and culture. Moving the story into the present day, underlines how people with skin in the game, with livelihoods to protect, and kids to look after, are always going to have to fight for a better world, especially when they are immigrants or women of color or other demographics whose rights and very existence are consistently threatened by those in power.
As thematically rich as it is, the film is also a deeply entertaining and accessible watch. Anderson’s craft is as strong as ever, with star-making close-ups and sweeping shots of desert vistas captured by cinematographer Michael Bauman, that keep the visual language of the film consistently beautiful and engaging, a healthy stream of humor, and a handful of thrilling set-pieces that will raise your pulse and lift you out of your seat. It does not feel its length at all, flowing from act to act with a grace that is surprising in a movie built around an energy that goes from spaced out to explosive, one minute to the next. There’s a warm and welcome streak of humanity that keeps it a lighter watch than the subject matter would indicate.
The way the film speaks to the shape of a country fractured by violent acts of hatred organized at the highest ranks of power, and the efforts of people who put everything on the line to fight against that hatred, makes it a defining work of this decade. One Battle After Another is as much about the fight as it is about what is worth fighting for: family, community, and humanity.
10 out of 10
One Battle After Another is in theaters now.
This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2025.