Film Review: One Battle After Another (2025)

One of my top five films of all time is There Will Be Blood, also directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. This new one comes real close, honestly, it might have topped it if Daniel Day-Lewis was in it.

PTA’s films are always an event. They’re not just movies, they’re a reason to celebrate cinema to be hones. And with this one, he’s really outdone himself.

What makes it so powerful is how much it mirrors the world we live in today. Not just in the US, but everywhere. Think about it: life now feels like constant conflict. We’re battling with ourselves, with our jobs, our expectations, our relationships, our bosses, our kids, even the dog. It’s one battle after another, never-ending. The film captures that feeling perfectly.

Trying to explain the whole plot would take me a few thousand words, which is a compliment in itself, but here’s the setup. The story follows a revolutionary group in the US rebelling against abuses of power on issues like immigration, abortion, white nationalism and corruption. Among the rebels is Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) an amateur arsonist/bomb-maker who’s desperate to prove himself. Early on he succeeds, impressing the group and catching the eye of Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), an eruptive, natural survivor that brims with energy and revolt. They fall in and out of love within a couple of scenes, and before long they have a daughter. Bob wants Perfidia to give up her dangerous life, but she just can’t.

Jump ahead fifteen years, and we find Bob trying to be a good father to his teenage daughter Charlene, played brilliantly by newcomer Chase Infiniti as the maniacal and severely deranged colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn, also in the performance of his career) closing in fast.

That’s where the film really shines: there’s a constant sense of running. Not just the edge-of-your-seat car chases, some of the most intense I’ve seen, but also in the relationships. Father and daughter, teacher and student, criminal and lawman. Everyone feels like they’re one step away from collapse.

And as always with PTA, the acting is next level. He has this gift of pulling the best performances out of his cast, eight Oscar nominations across his films prove that. DiCaprio is phenomenal here, playing Bob as a paranoid, weed-infused ex-revolutionary who knows he’s losing grip on reality. But it’s Chase Infiniti who steals the scene more than once. She’s magnetic, standing toe-to-toe with DiCaprio. And Sean Penn? His Colonel Lockjaw isn’t just a villain, he’s a symbol of everything rotten in the military: conspiracy, racism, generational paranoia. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t end up with at least a supporting actor nomination.

Another highlight? Jonny Greenwood’s score. He’s back, just like in There Will Be Blood, and the music evolves right along with the characters, always in tune with the tension and emotion.

Put all that together and you’ve got a film that feels timeless. The kind you’ll stumble across years from now while channel-surfing, and no matter where it’s at, you’ll stop and watch.

A must see.