Film: One Battle After Another [2025] – Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor

One Battle After Another is a rather straight-forward thriller which benefits most from its two compelling leads.

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio & Chase Infiniti, this film is Paul Thomas Anderson at his most unrestrained, delivering a crime epic that fuses high-octane thrills with biting humour and unexpected tenderness.

Is it a crime thriller? Is it political? Is it a comedy? Is it personal? Is it a drama? Is it chaotic or is the trailer just edited to look this way? And the answer to all of these questions is… yes! And that’s both the good and the bad thing about this movie.

A messy drama that is well written, well acted, well shot and well produced, but also one who uses current issues and events to their financial gain, instead or artistic expression. Anderson seems to be taking on some of the most divisive issues of our time but only to exploit them.

However, all of that aside, I have 2 issues with the movie. In the second and third acts, 2 subplots go nowhere except with the intention of adding 20 to 30 minutes to the movie, without affecting the storyline. And they both revolve around Sean Penn‘s character.

Spoiler Alert. Penn’s Col. Steven J Lockjaw ‘dies’ twice, with one of them being completely useless to the storyline besides showing Penn in a Terminator inspired shot. And the other scene, after Chase Infiniti is handed over by Penn. Did we really need a 7 minute scene that gets cancelled 2 minutes later without actually adding or removing anything from the story?

Other than those two things, which should have been adressed during editing, One Battle After Another is an almost perfect film that will certainly be an awards contender next year.

Should You Watch It?

It’s grand, gritty and epically long, 25 minutues too long. But most of all, it’s outrageously, nay obscenely funny. Cinema really doesn’t get much more entertaining.

Where Can I Watch It?

One Battle After Another is now playing in theaters.