ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor
Release Date: 9/26/2025
Platform: Theatrical
Rating: 5/5
By Stephen Lackey
“Not just another notch on Anderson’s belt; it feels evolutionary, a next step.”
Paul Thomas Anderson has always flirted with social commentary, but ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER might be his sharpest scalpel yet. Set firmly in modern times but dressed up in the sweaty, jittery textures of a 1970s crime action flick, it is a film that comments on today by channeling the paranoia, grit, and broken ideals of yesterday. The past bleeds into the present, both visually and thematically. Shot in VistaVision, the film does not just look gorgeous, it feels alive. Where recent VistaVision experiments like The Brutalist simply parked the camera, Anderson wields it as a co-conspirator. His camera does not just watch the action, it prowls, it breathes, it argues with the characters. It is another performer in a film already teeming with them.
At its core, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is about legacy. A family born of revolutionaries is forced to confront what that inheritance has done to them. Anderson smartly resists romanticizing the cause. Revolutionaries may be fighting for the underserved, but they are flawed, sometimes selfish, sometimes misguided. The line between noble idealism and personal recklessness blurs, and that is where the film finds its fire.
The performances are uniformly excellent, though in wildly different registers. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers his funniest work to date, playing a man clearly more enamored with the adventure and the romance of the revolution than its higher goals. Teyana Taylor, is a live wire, charismatic, magnetic, often stealing entire sequences. At the center of it all is Perfidia, a character so layered and contradictory she feels pulled from life, rather than a screenplay. She is both inspiring and maddening: a revolutionary who rats, a mother who deserts, a fighter who regrets. Rarely do films allow women to be this messy, this human. It is riveting.
The supporting cast is stacked with wildcards. Sean Penn is gloriously unhinged, an agent of chaos who keeps the film off-balance in the best way. Benicio Del Toro, in what amounts to a cameo, detonates the film for the brief time he is on screen. His subplot, both hilarious and devastating, crystallizes the film’s larger commentary about protecting immigrants and minorities in a country increasingly hostile to them. His presence lingers long after he is gone.
For all of its ferocity, the film never loses its offbeat humor. Anderson has always had a knack for awkward comedy, but here it is weaponized, each laugh undercutting or amplifying the tension. The result is a film that is both funny and unsettling, as well as entertaining and damning.
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is not just another notch on Anderson’s belt; it feels evolutionary, a next step. It is fun, it is funny, it is beautiful, and it is populated with nuanced characters, complicated themes, and wrestles with ideas that matter. In contention for his best film yet? Absolutely.
