As we head into award season, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has been one of my most anticipated movies of 2025. This political drama, action comedy, and emotional father-daughter story features major acting heavy-hitters and a setting that feels eerily real, making it a film that sticks with you long after the credits roll.

Leonardo DiCaprio is Bob Ferguson, a washed-up revolutionary who was once the go-to explosives expert for the French 75, a radical group battling non-specific authoritarianism in a world that looks strikingly familiar to us in 2025. 

Sixteen years ago, at the height of the French 75, Bob fell in love with hardcore revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) and the two had a daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti in her feature debut). But soon Perfidia was apprehended, the family was fractured, and Bob was left trying to raise a kid and numbing himself with drugs and booze. 

Now, his old nemesis, Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), is out to find Bob and Willa as part of his quest to join an exclusive white supremacist organization, the Christmas Adventurers Club. 

Things reach a crescendo, and Bob and Willa are separated. In order to find her, he’ll need the help of karate instructor, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro), French 75 friend Deandra (Regina Hall), and a network of allies along the way. 

While One Battle After Another deals with protest, political violence, immigration, fascism, and several topics that feel ripped right out of today’s headlines, the core of the film is the father-daughter narrative as Bob searches for Willa amidst the chaos. 

DiCaprio showed us with The Wolf of Wall Street, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Don’t Look Up that he can expertly walk the line between deep emotion and surprisingly effective physical comedy. Those skills are on full display here as he nails subtle emotional beats and chaotic moments where Bob’s burnout lifestyle jeopardizes everything. The character feels The Dude from The Big Lebowski thrust into the dangerous anarchy from the opening of Beau is Afraid. 

We feel Bob’s emotional vulnerability in a scene where he laments that he never learned to do his biracial daughter’s hair. At the same time, One Battle After Another can give us a darkly hilarious moment when he can’t remember a password to prove his French 75 identity. 

Bob contrasts perfectly with Del Toro’s calm and collected Sensei, a man who is always cool under pressure and seems to have a backup plan for everything. The pairing of Bob’s panic and confusion with Sensei’s calm demeanor gives us some of the funniest moments in the film, but also illustrates just how shattered Bob’s life feels without Willa. 

Newcomer Infiniti makes Willa tough as nails and very mature, but she never lets us forget that she’s just a kid who is scared and trying to figure out what to do. She does a great job of giving us outward strength but also letting us have a peek at her vulnerability, which makes us really empathize with Willa. Taking this on as your first feature had to be very intimidating, and she succeeds with flying colors.

Penn delivers an award-worthy performance, making Lockjaw one of the most fascinating characters in the film. He’s a pathetic, desperate little pervert who wants to be part of a group so badly, but he’s also someone with deeply repressed secrets that make him dangerous and unpredictable. He’s simply magnetic on screen and an absolutely stellar antagonist.  

The political aspects of the One Battle After Another will likely be a talking point for everyone across the spectrum because they feel so incredibly timely, something unusual for Anderson, who is known for period films. An opening sequence at an immigration detention center, a club of racist dorks who secretly control the world, and questions about the necessity or inhumanity of political violence feel very relevant in the current conversation, yet none of these things overshadow the central emotion of the father-daughter bond. 

One Battle After Another clocks in at over two-and-a-half hours, but the pace is so swift that we never feel the runtime. We’re simply too invested in this world and these people for anything to feel like it drags. In fact, some moments ratchet up the tension so much that the film keeps us on the edge of our seats. For example, in a concluding car chase, the hilly road starts to feel like the ocean, with the cars disappearing and reappearing on the asphalt waves, making us hold our breath each time a car dips below the horizon. It’s beautifully shot and tense, but that tension is driven by how much we care about the people in the cars. 

With a combination of filmmaking craft and major talent in front of the camera, One Battle After Another easily lands a place in the top five films of the year. I was captivated for every second of the film, and I can’t wait to see it again.