One Battle After Another
One Battle After Another
It may be no great shock that Paul Thomas Anderson directing Leonardo DiCaprio in a movie is turning out to be great, but the level of great here is something else entirely. One Battle After Another is turning out to be one of the best-scored movies in recent history spanning Rotten Tomatoes and especially Metacritic. The reviews aren’t just positively, they are absolute raves.
As it stands, One Battle After Another has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s tied with the mostly-accepted other best film of 2025, Sinners, also at that figure.
But where things diverge is Metacritic. Rotten Tomatoes is calculated based on whether a movie is positive or negative, a 3/5 counts the same as a 5/5. Metacritic takes the score itself into account. This site is most commonly cited in the video game industry, but for movies and TV shows, these numbers skew a lot lower on average. This is why One Battle After Another putting up a 96/100 here is incredible. That represents 31 perfect or near-perfect reviews, brought down by a somewhat baffling 5.5/10 and 5/10 from two outlets that are certainly breaking from the mainstream. In contrast, the Rotten Tomatoes-tied Sinners is at an 84.
One Battle After Another
Metacritic
These reviews are crazy. Here’s a sampling of them:
Flickering Myth – “Masterfully crafted by Paul Thomas Anderson, the amount of suspense sustained over 145 minutes, as electrifyingly, relentlessly high as it is here, is an accomplishment few filmmakers could ever pull off.”MovieWeb – “One Battle After Another is an adrenaline rush that makes the year’s other blockbusters seem pathetically lacking in comparison. Paul Thomas Anderson lobs a cinematic grenade in an unrelenting action-thriller. It is a must-see in IMAX.”HeyUGuys – “One Battle After Another is cinema at its purest—uncompromising, exhilarating, and alive. Here Paul Thomas Anderson has given us a masterpiece that doesn’t just entertain but rattles the bones.”
PT Anderson has never won a Best Picture Oscar, but many are considering this the clear frontrunner at this point with just three months to go in the year. There’s a lot of praise for Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro, obviously, but a whole lot for newcomer Chase Infiniti, the 25 year-old actress who stands tall with some of the most storied legends in cinema.
Oh, well, what’s this about anyway? Here’s the synopsis:
“Bob is a washed-up revolutionary who lives in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter, Willa. When his evil nemesis resurfaces and Willa goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her as both father and daughter battle the consequences of their pasts.”
And here’s the trailer:
The movie is out on September 26, and it’s clearly not one you’re going to want to miss.
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