One Battle After Another (2025)

I walked into One Battle After Another with astronomical hype - and still left the theater knowing in my gut that I’d just witnessed a five out of five star masterpiece.

This might have been the perfect movie for my girlfriend and me. We were activists in Minneapolis during the uprising after George Floyd’s murder by the Minneapolis Police Department, and we’re currently wrestling with what it means to bring children into this world. Watching revolutionaries grow old and inspire the next generation felt deeply personal and wildly optimistic in a way I desperately needed right now. If Eddington wallowed in nihilism and anger at the youth, which I appreciated but found limiting, this film blows it out of the water by actually believing in the possibility of change.

Paul Thomas Anderson is trying to make a populist action movie about revolutionary action wrapped around a complicated family drama, which is such a brilliant move. If you want to inspire revolution, you need to make it accessible. This movie is a little bit Mad Max Fury Road, a little bit Altman’s Nashville, a little bit How to Blow Up a Pipeline, a little bit The Spook Who Sat By the Door - and the best part is you don’t need to have seen any of those films or even engage with the revolutionary subtext to enjoy this as pure cinema.

I caught this in IMAX since there are no 70mm Dolby Vision theaters in the Midwest, and that final car chase sequence made me genuinely seasick as the camera rolled over waves of hills. That’s the power of the format and what this film demands.

Make no mistake, this is Leo’s movie - but the supporting cast of Black women is absolutely phenomenal. Regina Hall, Junglepussy, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti are incredible. And if you told me Sean Penn had a butt plug up his ass the entire shoot as a method acting choice, I would fully believe you. His performance is completely unhinged with wild physical tics that somehow work perfectly. Benicio Del Toro will probably get overshadowed, which is a shame because his character is an absolute saint, and his underground railroad is genuinely inspiring.

I’m an absolute sap, and I was sobbing through the final 15 minutes, which gave me exactly the catharsis I needed. This movie is so emotionally complex that I’m not even going to attempt unpacking all my thoughts about the characters and their choices - but if you want to dig into that, there’s so much to chew on.

This is a 5/5 masterpiece, the best film of 2025, one of the best films of all time, and an absolute blast in a real cinema. It’s funny, pounding, expansive, engaging, and I fully approve and endorse every message in it. I already cannot wait to watch it again.

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