One Battle After Another
Author and Reviewer: Ben Zhang
Date: Sep 30, 2025
Introduction
One Battle After Another is a 2025 action-thriller from Paul Thomas Anderson (adapted loosely from Vineland by Thomas Pynchon). The film barely gives you a moment’s rest across its 162-minute runtime: it opens with a bang and then keeps punching, shifting between raw political violence, intense tension, and moments of absurd, dark humor. It hasn’t pulled its punches, and you, the viewer, are along for the full ride.​
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Genre: Drama, Action, Thriller
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Release Date: September 26, 2025
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Benicio Del Toro
Storyline And Background
The film kicks off with a militant group (French 75) carrying out a radical operation at the Mexico–U.S. border: freeing immigrants, seizing control, a chaotic statement against power. From there, the narrative jumps 16 years forward. The central character, Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), is a former revolutionary turned father, trying to protect his teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) from a relentless pursuer: Col. Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a ruthless villain hell-bent on revenge and control. As the chase escalates, we witness a mixture of guerrilla-style resistance, father-daughter drama, chaotic escapes, and a larger critique of oppressive power structures.
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The film blends its revolutionary roots with the intimacy of a family story, love, fear, hope, and packages that in a whirlwind of guns, escape routes, and moral fury.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
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Electrifying momentum and tension: From the first scene onward, the film pulls you in and rarely slows down. As one critic put it, the film “opens with the kind of momentum usually reserved for the climax of an action film.”
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Powerful emotional core: The bond between Bob and Willa — chaotic, strained, deeply loyal — gives the chaos human weight. Their relationship makes the larger political violence hit harder.
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Strong performances: DiCaprio delivers a gritty, vulnerable Bob; Penn as Lockjaw brings menace and unpredictability; and supporting actors add layers to the revolutionary ensemble. Many reviewers single out Penn’s turn as among his best, balancing grotesque villainy with chilling realism.
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Cinematic craft & atmosphere: Cinematography (by Michael Bauman) skilfully shifts tone, warm and personal when with Bob, harsh and sterile when aligned with the villain. Collider+1
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Bold themes and relevance: The movie dives into oppression, resistance, institutional cruelty, generational trauma, and radical politics, all while refusing to sugarcoat. It doesn’t merely entertain; it asks uncomfortable questions.
Cons:
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Ambitious but sometimes overstuffed narrative: The film often feels like two different movies stitched together: the political-thriller/revolution arc and the father-daughter escape drama. The shift can make parts feel disconnected.
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Runtime and pacing issues: At nearly 3 hours, some scenes linger too long. There are moments where the tension drains and the story stalls instead of building.
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Occasional lack of nuance: The “villains vs. revolutionaries” framework sometimes borders on black-and-white moralism. Some characters on one side feel entirely villainous, with little complexity, which can make the film feel more like a political statement than a balanced narrative.
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Tonality swings can be jarring: The mix of brutal violence, dark political commentary, and absurdist humor occasionally clashes, succeeding brilliantly sometimes, but feeling weird and dissonant at others.
Review and Comments
One Battle After Another is one of those films that demands a commitment: you go in knowing it’s going to be rough, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s messy, loud, violent, ideological, emotional, sometimes all at once. But that messiness is also its strength. Because under the chaos lies something human: a father’s love, a daughter’s survival instinct, desperate resistance against injustice, and a stubborn refusal to back down.
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It’s not perfect. The tonal shifts can throw you off, and if you go in expecting subtlety or balance, you may leave frustrated. Yet if you accept what it is, a brutal, chaotic, emotionally driven epic, it becomes something rare these days: a film that hits hard and sticks with you.
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There are sequences I can’t unsee, moments when I wanted to look away, and other moments when I felt genuine heartbreak or rage. That emotional swing, from empathy to horror to hope, is why I think One Battle After Another matters.
Reviewer Score
8.7
Rotten Tomatoes
94%
IMDb
8.0
Metacritic
95