My Thoughts on the Film, One Battle After Another (2025), 2/22/2026….

I have one word for this film: phenomenal.

It’s the kind of film where you are so rapt that you don’t notice the almost three-hour running time pass by. It’s the kind of film where you see the plot developments coming, but don’t care—you are awestruck at what’s unfolding in front of you. It's the kind of film where the emotional payloads punch, where you feel sympathy for all characters (bad and good), where the resolution gives you that unmistakable high that runners get after they cross the finish line.

Again, it’s a phenomenal film.

It’s a topical film, quite topical. It’s about revolutionaries and revolution—armed, violent revolution. Revolution in a day and age where, in this country, peaceful protests are the norm, where law enforcement is more violent than it needs to be, where everyday folk mistake underground movements for city subways. And the themes of this film ring and resound. OBAA is just as critical about both sides of the conflict, exposing—but not condemning—moral ambiguity, and graphically illustrates, without actually damning, modern fascism. This film does not compromise. It raises several questions, but expects no answers.

Paul Thomas Anderson (Inherent Vice)—no stranger to offbeat works—based this script on the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. Having read Pynchon’s works before, I suspect that timeline in OBAA is far more linear than it is in the source material. The novel is next on my TBR, anyway. I look forward to making comparisons between the two. I never would have guessed that any work by this polarizing author would translate easily to film, but PTA makes it look easy.

The Oscar nods hit the mark here. Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic) portrays Bob Ferguson, a far past his prime revolutionary whose desire for family ultimately trumps his extremist leanings. Teyana Taylor (The Rip) plays Perfidia Beverly Hills, a revolutionary unafraid to weaponize her simmering sexuality, who always makes sacrifices for the cause. Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking) delivers another career-defining performance as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, a career law enforcer who is torn between his racist beliefs and his carnal desires.

Do not wait. See this film. Do not follow my poor example of trying to analyze it. Just behold and marvel at what you watch.