In the past decade, politically charged films have not been the most popular subgenre in cinema. Some will say that’s because of Hollywood’s underlying left-wing “agendas”, consisting primarily of what those same people call “forced inclusion”. Politics in general have just become something that American citizens simply have to tread carefully around during conversations, because confrontation explodes on a hair trigger these days.
One Battle After Another, the new film by acclaimed writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, explores many of these societal issues, with an emphasis on immigration laws and modern white supremacy. But strangely, it is a politically charged film that manages the difficult task of making a statement without sacrificing entertainment or pandering to any specific crowd. For good reason, many a film fan are calling it one of, if not the best film of 2025.
The film tells the story of ex-revolutionary Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) who lives in seclusion with his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). Bob was a member of the French 75, an organization that operated in the late 90s to the early 2000s, before one of their most devoted members, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) was captured and forced to give up names of members of the group, resulting in their disbanding and many deaths at the hands of Lt. Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Sixteen years later, Lockjaw returns with a vengeance, attempting to find and capture Willa in order to prove her true identity.
Director P.T. Anderson burst onto the filmmaking scene in the late 1990s with films such as Hard Eight (1996) and Boogie Nights (1997). Following in the wake of the Pulp Fiction craze of the latter 90s, Anderson’s early films have a similar feel to same-era Quentin Tarantino: the frequent use of pop music, stacked casts, snappy dialogue, and sudden bursts of violence. But what separates Anderson and Tarantino are the way in which characters are portrayed. Tarantino pays homage to various films to tell impactful stories. Anderson writes grounded, emotional, often-broken characters and manages to make depressing stories entertaining. One Battle After Another has this in spades, but adds action and thriller elements. Part of what makes One Battle such an impressive film is Anderson’s ability to tell a sprawling, epic story, full of big set pieces and action, while never sacrificing realism or the grounded take on characters. While many publications describe One Battle as an action film, it is an action film more on the wavelength of Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario rather than Die Hard, and it works.
While not having an ensemble nearly the size of Boogie Nights, Anderson draws great performances from DiCaprio, Penn, Taylor, Benicio del Toro, and newcomer Chase Infiniti. No scene feels superfluous or unnecessary, and the added focus on certain characters throughout the first, second, and third acts pace the film well. Despite its length, it is never boring. DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson is a far cry from other characters the actor has portrayed, closer to the bumbling Ernest Burkhart from Killers of the Flower Moon than the quick-thinking Cobb from Inception. With the middle hour of the film focusing primarily on his escape from his compound to the streets of Baktan Cross, he manages to be the one the audience roots for while delivering hilarious situational comedy at just the right moments. Sean Penn also delivers a great performance as Lockjaw, a steely military operative harboring a secret from the white supremacist organization he seeks to become a part of. Military villains are often cliched and overused, but Penn brings the same humanity to the character than all of the other characters have. He is not a steeple-fingered villain who has it all planned out, just another regular person who is slugging it out in the muck of the revolution like everyone else. He is not the supreme power in the film, and with the mix of that humanity as well as good writing, the film has a great villain with just as much depth as the lead characters. The supporting performances are equally compelling, namely del Toro, Taylor, and Infiniti, the latter of whom holds her own against three big veteran actors in the film.
One Battle is, at its core, a story about a father and a daughter. It is a relatively simple idea, but set against the backdrop of the revolution, it packs so many more emotions into its runtime, and makes the most of the premise. While the film reaches its climax and resolution as a story about family, that doesn’t remove the fact that the vast majority of the film is told from the perspective of people deeply rooted in both sides of the modern revolution. Given the touchy subject matter, the film could easily burn bridges on both sides with its imagery and messaging. However, Anderson is subtle in his examples. The white supremacist organization, called the “Christmas Adventurers Club”, never state their exact intentions outright, and yet, their intentions are delivered clearly, without the use of provocative dialogue. The opening sequence of the film, set at an ICE detainment facility, is never described as such, but the attentive viewer will know what it is immediately upon seeing it. The film’s use of modern issues is not heavy-handed in its delivery, nor does it feel as if it is spending its time attacking a certain group of people. It sets its backdrop effectively, and uses it to tell a story that is intense, timely, but in the end, not without its (significant) glimmer of hope.
The film leaves viewers off on the note that all of these issues being explored in the film are unlikely to go away, but also that there are usually going to be people who are willing to fight it. That’s the real power of the film. At no point does anyone say “Left good, right bad”, in reference to opposing political factions, rather posing a more objective view of things, portraying white supremacy as something that sounds idiotic and allowing the film’s heroes a victory by the end. The film, by definition, cannot be a purely optimistic film, as it is disturbingly accurate in its depictions of modern events, yet it is not a depressingly pessimistic film hammering humanity’s worst tendencies into the audience’s skull. It balances tension and gritty realism with telling a story that is satisfying and ultimately incredibly entertaining in the end.
To describe One Battle as tone-deaf or poorly-timed would be looking at its themes incorrectly. On one hand, there is no way that PT Anderson could have known that his film would release mere weeks after several major political events throughout the world occurred. On the other hand, however, that is what makes One Battle After Another so powerful, is that it was written at least a year and a half ago, and bursts onto the scene with powerful allegory and commentary on hot events. It is cleverly written, skillfully filmed, shot, and directed, and is just what movies need right now.
This would be prime time to cue the Martin Scorsese “pure cinema” meme, because it works perfectly here. See it on the biggest screen possible.
