One Battle After Another (2025)

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Benito Del Toro, Sean Penn, Regina Hall et al.

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Where it’s Available: HBO MAX in the US and most territories, Crave in Canada.

The first scene of PTA’s 2025 opus, ‘One Battle After Another’ literally involves a group of self-styled ‘revolutionaries’ breaking migrants out of an ICE internment camp. I texted a friend of mine, “Oh, so this film is POLITICAL political”. And it is. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Pat (later Bob), a bomb specialist of the ‘French 75’ revolutionary group. Their manifesto, while not explicitly stated on-screen, is clearly left-leaning (they protect immigrants and minorities, they threaten a senator’s campaign office because they voted for an abortion ban, etc). These are the film’s good guys. The primary antagonist is a white supremacist soldier with a fetish for powerful black women (played with sufficient malice and menace by Sean Penn). This is the playing field on which this film lives - which is why I find it utterly insane to see some takes saying the movie “doesn’t care” or is “apolitical”.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, if this film is apolitical, then The Passion of the Christ isn’t religious. One Battle.. lives and dies by the passion and fire and quiet resistance in how these characters choose to live their lives (the entire film feels like a giant middle finger to the current US regime, even though I know that PTA had to have started filming this even before the 2024 election concluded).

I’m not quite sure how to quantify this movie. The advertising leans heavily into its dark humour (Leo famously spends half the film running around in a bath robe) - and make no mistake, it IS very funny. Leo’s Pat / Bob (as he was renamed following the film’s inciting incident) is strung out and spends most of his time either drunk or stoned. Like The Dude if he built bombs. Benicio Del Toro is a delight as Bob’s friend, the ‘Sensei’ (he teaches karate to Bob’s daughter, Willa). If Bob is manic, Sensei is entirely nonplussed. Nothing surprises him. Nothing rattles him. His mantra, “Clear mind” resonates as he navigates the film’s turbulence like a stone in a river - unmoving. As such, he is an incredible straight man.

In spite of the humour, however, the film works best as a political potboiler. It’s tense, frantic and incredibly kinetic. The 2 hour, 40 minute runtime just flies by. As noted, the movie opens with a jail break and just moves from there, never really taking a second to breathe and this works to the movie’s benefit as that hyperkinetic, manic nature really shows how crazy and fucked up the world these characters inhabit truly is (and given that this is just a black mirror version of our own reality, it simultaneously holds the mirror up for ourselves to gaze into).

The Good: One of the main plot points involves Sean Penn’s character hoping to join a white supremacist cabal - think of a Klan Illuminati. They’re called the ‘Christmas Adventurers’ and they greet each other by saying ‘Merry Christmas’. PTA literally politicized ‘Merry Christmas’. This gag consistently kills.

The Bad: Speaking of Sean Penn, he is a baaaaaaad man. His glassy-eyed, intense Corporal Steven Lockjaw is one of the most menacing on-screen villains in recent history (he’s basically what Stephen Lang’s ‘Avatar’ baddie *wishes* he could be). Penn’s getting a lot of Best Supporting Actor buzz for this role and should he take it, it would be well-deserved.

The Ugly: Sean Penn’s Corporal Lockjaw tells a story at the end of the film that is depraved and hideous, both morally and substantively. But what truly makes it ugly is that you realize there are plenty of powerful white men who have told exactly the same story countless times over the years and it’s always worked.

Is It Safe For Kids: It’s not too gory - there’s violence, but it’s not over the top. There is a LOT of swearing, but words by themselves don’t hurt. It really comes down to how mature your child is - there are questions that can and should be brought up by this movie about the nature of ‘good resistance’ and entrenched power dynamics - if you feel like your twelve year old can handle it, watch it with them.

The Verdict: One Battle After Another is part-political satire, part-dark comedy, part-family drama and part-action film. It hits the ground at a sprint and doesn’t let up for the entire 2 hour and 40 minute runtime. It’s hard to watch, but also incredibly easy to get into. It’s smart and subversive, but the main characters definitely do not take themselves too seriously. It’s a study of contrasts. It’s also one of the best films of 2025 and well worth a watch. 9/10.