The revolution has finally arrived. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another opens this weekend, giving audiences a chance to see what critics and pundits have been raving about. Here’s everything you need to know about the movie everyone will be talking about for weeks to come.
WHAT’S THE PLOT?
The official logline reads, “When an enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own.” But as usual, that barely scratches the surface of the plot that unfolds over the course of the nearly three-hour-long film.
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WHO’S IN IT?
Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, One Battle After Another stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, a counterculture radical-turned-pot-addicted recluse, whose life is upended when his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), gets abducted by a revenge-bent, ultra-conservative Army colonel, Steve Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Teyana Taylor plays the revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills, whose romance and Bob’s girlfriend/Willa’s mother; Benicio del Toro as Willa’s sensei. The cast also includes Regina Hall, Alana Haim, and Wood Harris.
WHO’S IN THE CREW?
Anderson amassed his usual murderer’s row of collaborators for the project. The creative team behind the camera includes several frequent creative partners, including co-cinematographer Michael Bauman (who shot the movie with Anderson and previously served as the cinematographer on Licorice Pizza), Oscar-nominated, production designer Florencia Martin, editor Andy Jurgensen (Licorice Pizza and Inherent Vice); four-time Oscar winning costume designer Colleen Atwood (marking her first project with Anderson), casting director Cassandra Kulukundis (who has cast every Anderson movie since Magnolia), and Oscar-nominated composer Jonny Greenwood (There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread).
WHAT ARE THE CRITICS SAYING?
“Top-tier Paul Thomas Anderson.” “A damn good movie.” “A masterpiece.” Critics are nearly unanimous in their praise for PTA’s 10th film, which now ranks at the top of the list of the year’s best reviewed with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 98 percent and Metacritic score of 95.
WHAT ARE ITS OSCAR ODDS?
Anderson is an 11-time Oscar nominee, with five nominations for screenwriting (including one for adapting Pynchon’s Inherent Vice), three for directing, and three for Best Picture as a producer. He’s never won an Academy Award. DiCaprio is a seven-time Oscar nominee, and he won Best Actor for The Revenant in 2016. He was last nominated for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2020 — and was snubbed last year for Killers of the Flower Moon.
Given that, any PTA film already is going to be the awards conversation — but as buzz has built for the film since its premiere earlier this month, it has climbed steadily in our Gold Derby rankings. It’s competitive in all the major races, including Best Picture, Best Director, Lead Actor (DiCaprio), Supporting Actress (Taylor), Supporting Actor (Penn), and Adapted Screenplay. It’s also expected to contend in many below-the-line categories as well, including Best Casting, Best Cinematography (Michael Bauman), Best Film Editing (Andy Jurgensen), Best Score (Jonny Greenwood), and Best Sound.
Best Picture
Contender
Odds
1.
Hamnet
Hamnet
96.7%
2.
Sinners 200
Sinners
96.2%
3.
Sentimental Value
Sentimental Value
95.0%
4.
One Battle After Another
One Battle After Another
93.0%
5.
Wicked For Good
Wicked: For Good
87.4%
6.
Marty Supreme
Marty Supreme
82.8%
7.
Bugonia
Bugonia
64.1%
8.
It Was Just an Accident
It Was Just an Accident
61.9%
9.
A House of Dynamite
A House of Dynamite
48.1%
10.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
46.6%
HOW TO WATCH IT?
That’s the biggest question facing audiences. Anderson shot the film in VistaVision — the same large-screen format Brady Corbet used for last year’s The Brutalist. “It gives you a very deep, rich beautiful image, but it’s not entirely practical — it’s not as easy as shooting with a 35mm camera,” he admits in a video. “You’re going to wonder why does it look like that, and the answer is because of this beautiful, beautiful format.”
Only four theaters in the world can show the film, though, in VistaVision — they are in Los Angeles, New York City, Brookline, Mass., and London — so the other options are 70mm Imax, traditional Imax, 70mm, and 4DX. Warner Bros. has helpfully provided a checklist for those who want to compare the experiences.
THE TRAILERS
Warner Bros has released two trailers to promote the film, the first in March (below) which focuses on DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson’s efforts to find his daughter, Willa.
The studio followed up with a second trailer two months ago which revealed more of the plot, including Teyana Taylor’s revolutionary, Sean Penn’s revenge-bent colonel, and Chase Infiniti’s Willa learning about her mother’s past. “You know what freedom is? No fear, just like Tom Cruise,” says Benicio del Toro’s Sensei.
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