One Battle After Another (2025)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Washed-up revolutionary Bob exists in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited, self-reliant daughter, Willa. When his evil nemesis resurfaces after 16 years and she goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her, father and daughter both battling the consequences of his past.
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92 films that influenced One Battle After Another
What critics say influenced One Battle After Another
What it does do, however, is answer the question: “What if we gave one of the most talented filmmakers out there a blockbuster-sized budget and let him shoot the absolute shit out of The Big Lebowski-meets-Mission: Impossible?”
…the movie is like if Taken and The Big Lebowski had a baby…
…the fact that he plays most of the back half in a bathrobe makes Big Lebowski comparisons somewhat inevitable, as does the uproarious scene (featured in the trailers) when he attempts to make contact with his handlers, and cannot remember the damn passwords and spycraft in the slightest.
Pat/Bob plays like a variation of “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski (1998)…
It’s hilarious to see DiCaprio work his own twist on the stoner Jeff Bridges immortalized as the Dude in “The Big Lebowski.”
DiCaprio channels “The Big Lebowski’s” shambolic Dude. From his ever-present bathrobe and slightly bewildered facial expressions to his loyalty to friends and family and resilience the star’s take on Bob is a fun and funny homage to Jeff Bridges’s iconic performance.
…or the Coen’s No Country for Old Men…
There are strong echoes of “No Country for Old Men” and hints of “Goodfellas.”
One Battle After Another is one of those rare examples – think Pulp Fiction, No Country for Old Men, Sicario – where nary a moment is wasted, each scene smoothly leading to the next…
(*cough* Eddington cough*) Instead of emphasizing, "Hey, everything sucks now,"…
Like Eddington, Friendship, and Weapons, One Battle After Another is one of the best movies of the year because it so deftly diagnoses America…
Earlier this year, Ari Aster’s equally timely Eddington focused on how flawed both sides of the American aisle can be.
It succeeds in obtaining thematic symmetry with its focus on political extremism, whereas someone like Ari Aster nearly obtains it but falls a little short in his recent film Eddington (2025)—a cinematic retrospective of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet when Ari Aster attempted it earlier this year with Eddington, a dark political comedy about a town gone mad during the COVID-19 epidemic, it felt at times like staring directly into the sun, feeling so blinding (and unpleasant) that any perspective was hard to come by.
Like Eddington, One Battle After Another is the work of someone so comfortable in their bubble that it believes a generalized fart in all directions is an effective form of satire.
…it’s a late ‘60s/early ‘70s West Coast throwback that channels a gutsy female Black Panthers vibe, Bullitt-style car chases…
…one almost wonders if Anderson secretly wants to remake Bullitt.
…directed with such verve that one almost wonders if Anderson secretly wants to remake Bullitt.
It might not reach the heights of Bullitt or The French Connection, but it has its own thrilling, unpredictable energy.
One Battle After Another isn’t pure action, nor is it pure comedy — it’s a deft blend of both, tonally similar to The Wolf of Wall Street (ironically also starring DiCaprio).
DiCaprio often appears as a bumbling hero in the vein of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, even if he shows a capacity for delivering snarky one-liners not seen since his work in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
…occasionally recalls the more tiresome aspects of Martin Scorsese’s 2013 The Wolf of Wall Street…
It’s an incredibly physical performance that has shades of his work in The Wolf of Wall Street and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, yet showcases facets of his talent that haven’t been seen on screen before.
DiCaprio is always great when he gets to be funny in a sad, pathetic way (see: "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood")…
Imagine his drugged-out fight and drive home from The Wolf of Wall Street extended to three hours and you get the idea of what to expect.
DiCaprio’s performance could be seen as a reprise of his greatest hits: one long paranoid freakout like Shutter Island…
There are strong echoes of “No Country for Old Men” and hints of “Goodfellas.”
…he borrowed heavily from Scorsese’s fiery cutting techniques (“Goodfellas”)…
…broken, brutish male anti-heroes (“Raging Bull”)…
…this all makes me think about the brilliant epilogue from Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scrosese, 2023)…
Portraying weak, tractable men, like his Killers of the Flower Moon character and Pat/Bob here, DiCaprio leaves a longer lasting impression than he often does when playing cocky Alphas.
DiCaprio continues a fascinating recent trend – begun with Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Killers Of The Flower Moon – of playing fundamentally weak men who mistakenly believe they have greatness in them.
In Martin Scorsese’s recent Killers of the Flower Moon, those actorly instincts helped illuminate the chillingly clueless sociopathy…
Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon)…
This marks DiCaprio’s first starring role since 2023’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese’s historical drama that was nominated for 10 Oscars.
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It’s no coincidence that a key sequence is set in Monument Valley, a location that popped up in “The Searchers,” “Stagecoach,” and “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon” among others.
Classics ranging from John Ford’s “The Searchers” (1956) to Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty” (1988) may have motivated Anderson in making “One Battle,”…
But the biggest influence I want to draw attention to is to a film in the running for the greatest American movie of all time: John Ford’s The Searchers (1956)…
It’s no coincidence that a key sequence is set in Monument Valley, a location that popped up in “The Searchers,” “Stagecoach,” and “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon” among others.
It’s no coincidence that a key sequence is set in Monument Valley, a location that popped up in “The Searchers,” “Stagecoach,” and “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon” among others.
What could have been a standard Taken-esque snatch-and-grab thriller takes on towering dimension in PTA’s visionary hands.
…the movie is like if Taken and The Big Lebowski had a baby…
This is not some kind of Taken situation, the helpless daughter who must be saved…
PTA decided to film using the large-format VistaVision, similar to how The Brutalist was shot.
…shot in VistaVision, just like last year’s Best Picture nominee, “The Brutalist.”
…like The Brutalist, shot on the antique VistaVision format…
Yes, this has the propulsion of paranoia thrillers from the 1970s, such as The French Connection…
It might not reach the heights of Bullitt or The French Connection, but it has its own thrilling, unpredictable energy.
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Director
Paul Thomas Anderson
Critics compare One Battle After Another to 8 of Anderson’s own films.
He even sneaks in a visual homage to Punch-Drunk Love, attaching the camera to a car door as it slams shut—a playful wink to longtime fans.
Anderson is at his best when he takes his subjects seriously ("Punch-Drunk Love," "The Master")…
One Battle After Another is Anderson’s version of an action movie the way the 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love was his version of an Adam Sandler comedy.
From the shaky and grounded sequences in Punch Drunk Love to the plethora of one-takes in only his second feature, Boogie Nights, the foundation was always there…
I’ve only watched three of his ten feature films: Punch-Drunk Love, Phantom Thread, and this one.
Anderson’s deft and disturbing studies of glass-shattering emotional violence (“Punch-Drunk Love”)…
His filmmaking blends the formalism of The Master and the exuberance of Boogie Nights, yet it still feels like he is continuously mining new territory here, pushing himself to confront the thorny, dark heart of America that most modern filmmakers are too afraid to tackle head-on.
…orchestrated by Anderson with the kind of pop electricity he hasn’t tossed off since the first hour of Boogie Nights.
Anderson reveals One Battle After Another as one of his fraught family dramas in the vein of Boogie Nights and Magnolia…
From the shaky and grounded sequences in Punch Drunk Love to the plethora of one-takes in only his second feature, Boogie Nights, the foundation was always there…
For PTA, it’s been one battle after another to take home Oscar gold for landmarks that include, in addition to the peerless “There Will Be Blood,” “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “The Master” and “Phantom Thread.”
If Boogie Nights was his wild youthful outburst, There Will Be Blood his austere meditation on greed, and Inherent Vice his stoner dream of lost idealism, then this is his full-throated howl at a broken nation, wrapped in the guise of an action-thriller.
She demands him to “get up,” and get it up he does, signaling a theme that courses through the veins of Anderson’s filmography (Magnolia, The Master): the shift from hubris to humiliation that keeps powerful men up at night.
…an emotional punch I haven’t felt in a PTA movie since Magnolia.
My favorites of his are still Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love…
He’s dealt with families and father figures before, of course, most notably in Boogie Nights, Magnolia and The Master, but never as keenly and perhaps as sensitively as he does here.
Indeed, there’s a kineticism here that he hasn’t achieved since Magnolia.
For PTA, it’s been one battle after another to take home Oscar gold for landmarks that include, in addition to the peerless “There Will Be Blood,” “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “The Master” and “Phantom Thread.”
Like the filmmaker’s other recent masterpieces, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, almost no one here is likable.
As Daniel Day-Lewis did for There Will Be Blood, Penn raises this film to something beyond naturalism: he lifts the film, in its most audacious moments, to the mythic.
"There Will Be Blood's" Jonny Greenwood uses jazzy hors and percussion…
Anderson has delivered numerous critically acclaimed films — Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Licorice Pizza — though only There Will Be Blood achieved significant box office success ($75M).
Regardless of his focus on the degenerate gamblers of “Hard Eight,” the lonely adult film stars of “Boogie Nights,” or the sinister anti-hero of “There Will Be Blood,” Anderson has shone a spotlight on characters that, either by choice or virtue, have found themselves isolated from the rest of society.
…the director’s also got classics like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood to his name…
She demands him to “get up,” and get it up he does, signaling a theme that courses through the veins of Anderson’s filmography (Magnolia, The Master): the shift from hubris to humiliation that keeps powerful men up at night.
Anderson is at his best when he takes his subjects seriously ("Punch-Drunk Love," "The Master")…
…this isn’t Anderson in There Will Be Blood (2007) or The Master (2012) mode…
I’m hoping to catch up on his earlier works, especially Magnolia and The Master.
While Anderson’s world can be post-modern and surreal, as showcased in films like “Magnolia,” “The Master” and “Inherent Vice,”…
He's like the lovechild of The Master's Freddie Quell (insane, horny, rabid dog) and Lancaster Dodd (will bullshit anyone and believe his own hype to get his way)…
Just as Anderson does in his best relationship dramas (Phantom Thread comes to mind), he introduces the pair by first contrasting them.
Like the filmmaker’s other recent masterpieces, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, almost no one here is likable.
For PTA, it’s been one battle after another to take home Oscar gold for landmarks that include, in addition to the peerless “There Will Be Blood,” “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “The Master” and “Phantom Thread.”
I’ve only watched three of his ten feature films: Punch-Drunk Love, Phantom Thread, and this one.
The latest film by Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread), One Battle After Another, chronicles how one wrong move can change a person's trajectory forever.
…his filmography is tonally broad, with intense period pieces like “There Will Be Blood” and “Phantom Thread” standing alongside offbeat dramedies like “Punch Drunk Love” and “Licorice Pizza.”
That’s a lot of information to process about weird subcultures and conspiratorial connections, which would connect One Battle to Another to Anderson’s Inherent Vice even if both films weren’t rooted in Thomas Pynchon novels.
…he’s in the tradition of Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski and Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice (Anderson’s previous Pynchon adaptation)…
With Inherent Vice, one of his best films, Paul Thomas Anderson established himself as a brilliant channeler of the particular poetic disappointments of America’s countercultures.
The challenging postmodern material of author Thomas Pynchon was first brought to the big screen just over a decade ago when Paul Thomas Anderson adapted stoner-noir tale Inherent Vice, and the filmmaker has once again looked to the novelist for inspiration in his latest feature.
The script, cowritten by previous collaborator (Inherent Vice) Thomas Pynchon, makes them funny without softening their danger.
If Boogie Nights was his wild youthful outburst, There Will Be Blood his austere meditation on greed, and Inherent Vice his stoner dream of lost idealism, then this is his full-throated howl at a broken nation, wrapped in the guise of an action-thriller.
…whose most “divisive” projects (Inherent Vice, Licorice Pizza) still tend to be far superior to any of the other movies released in their respective calendar years…
Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” star, Alana Haim…
…his filmography is tonally broad, with intense period pieces like “There Will Be Blood” and “Phantom Thread” standing alongside offbeat dramedies like “Punch Drunk Love” and “Licorice Pizza.”
…the filmmaker delivered movies like Inherent Vice, Phantom Thread, and Licorice Pizza…
As he’s grown older, his stories have shifted from the perspective of a son, as seen in Boogie Nights and Magnolia, to that of a young father with There Will Be Blood and, as of late, to that of an older, wiser man looking back at the life he has led with the eyes of experience and empathy, with Phantom Thread, Licorice Pizza and now One Battle After Another…
Comrade Josh (Dan Chariton, "Licorice Pizza")…
Like Eddington, Friendship, and Weapons, One Battle After Another is one of the best movies of the year because it so deftly diagnoses America…
Amy Madigan (Weapons)…
Much like Zach Cregger’s Weapons, One Battle After Another has its plot, character development, and tension weaving together flawlessly while the movie stays in near-constant motion.