One Battle After Another (2025)

Paul Thomas Anderson's first film for Warner Bros., One Battle After Another arrives in 2025 after a decade-long gap since Phantom Thread (2017), making it one of the more anticipated returns in recent American cinema. Anderson adapted the film from Thomas Pynchon's 2023 novel of the same name, continuing a working relationship that previously produced Inherent Vice (2014), itself a Pynchon adaptation. At a reported $175 million, the budget is unusually large for a director whose work tends toward the literary and oblique, suggesting Warner Bros. placed considerable faith in DiCaprio's commercial pull to carry something this unconventional. The film was shot on 35mm, consistent with Anderson's long-standing preference for photochemical formats, and marks a breakthrough leading role for Chase Infiniti as Willa.

Very good, not the 5* masterpiece I've seen so many give it. One Battle After Another is a slick, technically impressive crime thriller that looks and feels like a throwback to 70s character-driven cinema, shot on actual film, no less, with grainy textures, natural lighting, and long takes that showcase both the landscape and the weight on its characters’ faces. Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn are, as expected, phenomenal. DiCaprio brings his signature intensity to a morally ambiguous character caught between loyalty and survival, while Penn struts into his role with quiet menace and lived-in gravitas. The cinematography is stunning, every frame feels deliberate, raw, and grounded, and there are moments where the soundtrack elevates the mood beautifully, blending ambient tension. But other times, the music clashes, feeling intrusive rather than immersive. And while the film builds a strong atmosphere, it never quite delivers on the relentless, pulse-pounding pace it promised. I saw so many comments about a car chase... I booked cinema tickets on the promise of a great car chase. I'm a car chase guy.... It was very underwhelming. Stretching across a flat desert highway with zero turns, surprises, or stakes, it’s more monotonous than thrilling. What should’ve been a standout sequence feels like a missed opportunity. It’s not a bad movie by any means, just one buried under sky-high expectations. It’s moody, well-acted, and visually arresting, but lacks the narrative urgency or set-piece brilliance that would make it unforgettable. Good, not great. A solid crime drama let down by overhype and a few baffling creative choices. Not the masterpiece we were sold.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2025  | Watched: 2025-09-27

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Where to watch (UK)

Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · Sky Go · Now TV Cinema
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK

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