“One Battle After Another” Turns America’s Political Chaos Into Art

At times, it feels as though One Battle After Another was engineered precisely for this moment in America’s chaotic political climate. This loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 35-year-old novel Vineland brims with the urgency and imagery to make it the defining political satire of the Hollywood year, complete with radical uprisings, a white-supremacist cabal steering the government, and the chaos of immigration crackdowns.

That it flows from a filmmaker as austere and introspective as Paul Thonas Anderson (or “PTA,” as cinephiles fondly dub him) makes it all the more startling. Rarely has he been this direct, outspoken, or energized in his slim but qualitative filmography; it’s easily his most overtly political work, and perhaps his most electrified.

One Battle After Another’s intensity begins early with the revolutionary group French 75 raiding an immigrant-detention center to free detainees. It’s anything but a nice and neat job (some suspects are extra-judicially killed). But at least French 75-er Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) manages to unwittingly lock presiding officer Colonel Steve Lockjaw (Sean Penn) in a one-sided romantic obsession so unhealthy that it sparks a chain of political and personal consequences that ripple through the entire story.

For Perfidia, it’s revolution first, family second. This rightly worries her lover and co-revolutionary, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ghetto Pat (to be known in most of the film as Bob Ferguson), since she is heavy with his child. Perfidia goes where her heart lies, and subsequently, down with the French 75 when things get hot, leaving the job of parenting their newborn daughter, “Charlene,” solely to Bob.

DiCaprio is entirely in his element here (raw, restless, and magnetic) as is breakout-star Chase Infiniti stepping in as the now-16-year-old “Charlene” (renamed “Willa Ferguson” by her father). Together, they form a father-daughter pair bound by love despite the former’s drug addiction and the latter’s usual 16-year-old headiness.  When nemesis Lockjaw comes knocking and Willa is missing, Dicaprio’s Bob is restless, frustrated at the failing memory of his past revolutionary life which would have otherwise been useful in finding his daughter.

This brings us to the real star of this show: Sean Penn. Make no mistake, the performances across One Battle After Another are uniformly stellar: DiCaprio for being DiCaprio, Chase for being one of the more impressive newcomers of the awards season, and even Benicio Del Toro for being everyone’s favorite sensei by day, quiet savior of undocumented immigrants by night.…and for being Willa’s karate teacher.

But all flee in the face of Penn’s Lockjaw—as characters and as performers. Save for a few underground films since 2016, one would be forgiven for thinking Penn was still in the business. Yet, despite belonging to the rare echelon of double Best Actor Oscar winners, he continues to deliver startling reminders of his mastery.

Unsettlingly unhinged, brutish and calculative, his Lockjaw (“Scarface” more like it, by the end of the film) sends shockwaves through rebellious and immigrant strongholds. It’s a performance so ferocious and charged with deranged conviction that it’s hard to imagine anything this year matching its force.

Comedy has always been a tool of Anderson and his brand of using dark comedy to punctuate the drama and amplify emotional contrast is evident in One Battle After Another, but it’s the filmmaker’s boldest and loudest attempt at full-scale action that’ll move mouths.

His iteration of a car chase is the polar opposite of the flashy, high-octane wheels, rife with rapid editing and dynamic camera movement that defines such scenes. 

No, it draws the same heart-pounding reaction by ironically restraining: a slow-burn pursuit involving three cars on a hilly, highway in the middle of nowhere, each with conflicting missions. Don’t expect guns or fancy Fast & Furious-style drifts; it’s just Michael Bauman’s divine cinematography and a sound understanding of the command of suspense. 

Think of One Battle After Another as a series of literal and metaphorical wars, unfolding simultaneously on and off the screen. Characters wrestle with their pasts—guilt, betrayal, and the power-hungry, racist impulses of the ruling class—while audiences confront the film’s own uncomfortable reflections of contemporary reality. 

For American viewers, it lands with particular volatility and timeliness as it’s deeply reflective of the nation’s ideological fractures. For everyone else, the story functions as a power play between the mighty and the marginalized, an exploration of how systems exploit, oppress, and endure. Whether or not there truly exists a secret white-supremacist cabal called the Christmas Adventurers’ Club within the American political hierarchy, as the film imagines, matters less than the chilling plausibility of the idea itself.

Anderson, on his part, seems to be having fun behind the camera. He paints the “Viva la Revolución” as a casual side hustle rather than a credo so much so that he overlooks Bob’s inertia in semi-retirement, perhaps the film’s only real flaw.

Already the highest-grossing film of his career in just two weeks, and an Oscar frontrunner, the filmmaker seems far less concerned about what America’s political establishment will interpret One Battle After Another. You shouldn’t be either.

We’ve waited ages for an Anderson–DiCaprio collaboration, and now it’s here: an exhilarating political action thriller that not only delivers on its promise but hits most of its intended notes. 

Release Date: September 18, 2025

Runtime: 2 hours and 40 minutes

Streaming Service: None —  Cinematic Release

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, Wood Harris, Alana Haim, Paul Grimstad, Shayna McHayle, Tony Goldwyn, John Hoogenakker, Starletta DuPois, Eric Schweig, D. W. Moffett, Kevin Tighe, Jim Downey and James Raterman.