One Battle After Another

That’s a movie.
No—no.
That! Is a movie.

Did Paul Thomas Anderson just drop the film of the year? Well, let’s see, because the premise is kinda crazy for that statement.

A radical leftist group known as French 75 emerges as a force against the state, rescuing immigrants, bombing government buildings, and robbing banks. In that group, the love story between Perfidia, the movement’s fiery leader, and Pat, the mastermind behind its explosives, begins. At the same time, the pursuit by one officer, Lockjaw, also begins, as he grows obsessed with Perfidia after she humiliates him. Their brief union produces a daughter, only for Perfidia to abandon both child and partner in pursuit of her revolutionary ideals. Years later, with the group broken and extinct, Pat—now living in hiding as Bob—struggles with addiction while raising his daughter in sanctuary city. The past returns violently when Colonel Lockjaw, once Perfidia’s captor and now a powerful military figure seeking entry into a white supremacist organization, launches a brutal raid on the city. When Bob’s daughter is taken, what follows is both a fight for survival and a reckoning with history.

If the setup feels uncomfortably familiar, that’s the point. The film mirrors today’s (well, constant) anxieties: detention centers, militarized raids, white supremacist brotherhoods, the failures of governments to protect vulnerable communities, revolutionaries, power plays, and people’s lives. Unlike Ari Aster’s Eddington, which floundered in its attempt to tackle political relevance, Anderson delivers a razor-sharp and perfectly timed reflection of our present. He finds the exact blend of satire, drama, and urgency needed to make the story resonate.

What makes One Battle After Another remarkable is how all of its seemingly random elements—political and activist extremism, personal tragedy, generational conflict—coalesce into something that feels both massive and intimate. The film explores revolutionaries not as archetypes but as people: some driven by ideology, some by anger, some simply swept up in a movement. It presents regimes as laughably grotesque, extremely stupid, and power-hungry men. And it grounds everything in the painfully human story of Bob/Pat, a broken man trying to raise his daughter while haunted by past decisions. Anderson balances genres with extraordinary precision—action, drama, black comedy, satire, and political thriller somehow beautifully coexist. Instead of lecturing, the film speaks side by side with the audience, letting us experience the story’s humanity together. At its core, it’s a tale of a father rediscovering his instincts and passing the torch to a new generation, reminding us that resistance must evolve, but it must never disappear.

The performances are out of this place. I wouldn’t shock anyone, but Leonardo DiCaprio is phenomenal as Bob/Pat, portraying a desperate, lost, and tragic man who transforms back into the revolutionary he once was when the moment demands it. It’s one of his finest roles and a clear contender for Best Actor. Sean Penn, as the grotesque and even kinda non-human yet masculine-fragile Lockjaw, is equally unforgettable—this may be his career-best work and a powerhouse bid for Best Supporting Actor. Chase Infiniti shines brilliantly in her feature debut, perfectly embodying the teenage daughter caught between what she thought she knew and what was really there; she feels like a strong candidate for Best Supporting Actress.

But none of this would be possible without Anderson’s vision. Few directors could’ve pulled this off on this scope—both wildly entertaining and thematically massive—without it collapsing under its own weight. They tried and failed, but he has delivered the film. Even at 162 minutes, it flies by like a sharp TV episode that still holds the depth of a grand political story.

One Battle After Another is not just a great movie—it’s an extraordinary one. It captures the chaos of our times, the contradictions of resistance, and the eternal struggle between power and humanity. Bravo to everyone involved and

Viva la revolución!

9.5/10