{"id":23706,"date":"2025-09-18T12:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T12:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/23706\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T12:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T12:30:07","slug":"one-battle-after-another-review-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/23706\/","title":{"rendered":"‘One Battle After Another’ Review Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPaul Thomas Anderson<\/a>\u2018s hotly anticipated One Battle After Another<\/a> officially hits theaters Sept. 26, but the reviews from critics are already pouring in.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Warner Bros. Pictures film, which is loosely based on Thomas Pynchon\u2019s 1990 novel Vineland, sees a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own. The film stars Oscar- winners Leonardo DiCaprio<\/a>, Sean Penn<\/a> and Benicio del Toro, as well as Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti, and had its premiere in Los Angeles on Sept. 8.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Hollywood Reporter previously reported<\/a> that One Battle After Another carries a hefty production budget north of $130 million, making it Anderson\u2019s most expensive film to date. When news of the film\u2019s budget broke, Warners\u2019 film studio was facing scrutiny following a string of box office disappointments. Since April, however, the studio has been on something of a hot streak, with seven consecutive movies \u2014 A Minecraft Movie, Sinners, Final Destination: Bloodlines, F1: The Movie, Superman, Weapons and The Conjuring: Last Rites \u2014 all opening to more than $40 million at the North American box office. <\/p>\n

\n\tDespite its budget, Warners is clearly confident One Battle After Another has the potential to maintain the streak, and film studio chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy told THR earlier this month that they plan an awards campaign for the film<\/a>. Given the ecstatic response from critics, thus far, to One Battle After Another, De Luca and Abdy would be mad not to. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe review aggregator sites are high on One Battle After Another, with the film boasting a 97 percent critics score (from 66 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes, a 96 percent critics score on Metacritic and a very early 4.3\/5 score on Letterboxd.<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, see what leading critics are saying about the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his rave review for THR<\/a>, Richard Lawson described One Battle After Another as \u201ca bracingly timely film,\u201d in which Anderson situates us \u201cin our dismayingly recognizable era of fascist creep.\u201d \u201cIt is a frightening and galvanizing vision, Anderson putting away his complicated nostalgia for old (and more easily understood) days to confront, with disarmingly noble purpose, the here and now,\u201d Lawson writes. He adds, \u201cOne Battle After Another is the rare American film released in these benighted times of ours \u2014 with the backing of a major studio, no less \u2014 to be clear and insistent in the target of its anger, its despair and its prescriptions for what might make things better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the Guardian<\/a>, Peter Bradshaw awarded One Battle After Another five stars, and described the film as \u201cpartly a freaky-Freudian diagnosis of father-daughter dysfunction \u2014 juxtaposed with the separation of migrant children and parents at the US-Mexico border \u2014 and a very serious, relevant response to the US\u2019s secretive ruling class and its insidiously normalised Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups: the toxic new Vichyite Trump enthusiasm.\u201d Bradshaw writes that, \u201cOne Battle After Another is at once serious and unserious, exciting and baffling, a tonal fusion sending that crazy fizz across the VistaVision screen \u2014 an acquired taste, yes, but addictive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEmpire\u2018s Alex Godfrey also gave One Battle After Another five stars<\/a>, writing that, \u201cIn years to come, when this appears on TV late at night, it\u2019ll be impossible to switch off. It\u2019s just one of those films. A stone-cold, instant classic.\u201d Godfrey is full of praise for Anderson pulling off the wealth of characters and plot points, writing that \u201cthere is a lot going on, and not an ounce of fat on it.\u201d \u201cOne sequence in particular, involving a horribly tense, sinisterly mannered car-chase, unfolds on rolling desert roads, terrifying blind summits providing omniscient doom, front-and rear-mounted cameras taking us on a sort of haunted roller coaster ride, the landscape itself signalling death. It\u2019s a real thrill, cinema absolutely harnessed. Everything is here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVulture\u2018s critic Alison Willmore<\/a> was also effusive, describing One Battle After Another as \u201ctop-tier Paul Thomas Anderson.\u201d Willmore praises Anderson for his adaptation of Pynchon\u2019s novel and for dragging the work into the 21st century, as well as the action in the film, comparing it to Terminator 2. \u201cFor all that the film revels in satire \u2014 a powerful white-nationalist secret society is Christmas themed, and its members greet one another with \u201cHail, St. Nick!\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s electric when it veers into action, and a chase sequence on a series of cresting hills manages to both reference and stand up to the one in which the T-1000 pursues John Connor into the L.A. River.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWriting for the BBC<\/a>, Caryn James praises Anderson for creating a film where \u201cdrama and comedy co-exist with remarkable, virtuosic ease.\u201d \u201cThe film, which was shot in widescreen VistaVision, has an epic feel throughout, whether it depicts a large military helicopter landing or a ramshackle street in Baktan Cross,\u201d writes James adding that \u201cit\u2019s rare to see such an ambitious film work so smoothly, but then, one of Anderson\u2019s signatures is his ability to coolly control raucous, sprawling stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his gushing review for IGN<\/a>, Michael Calabro described One Battle After Another as a \u201cmasterpiece,\u201d and that \u201cAnderson has hit another high point of his career.\u201d Calabro was blown away by the performances, in particular Teyana Taylor playing Perfidia Beverly Hills: \u201cThe end of One Battle \u2014 and how it tugs on your heartstrings \u2014 wouldn\u2019t be nearly as effective if it weren\u2019t for Taylor\u2019s performance.\u201d But Calabro reserves most of his praise for the director, writing, \u201cTo be blunt, I\u2019m still in awe that this film actually exists. It\u2019s so much fun to watch, while also telling a timeless story about what a father would go through to protect his daughter. And PTA does all this while making an incisive commentary on America\u2019s current political climate. Let us not forget that he does all of this while managing to make his most expensive movie to date, of original-ish IP, no less.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Thomas Anderson\u2018s hotly anticipated One Battle After Another officially hits theaters Sept. 26, but the reviews from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,46,5433,397,5434,5435,7219],"class_list":{"0":"post-23706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-leonardo-dicaprio","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-one-battle-after-another","14":"tag-paul-thomas-anderson","15":"tag-sean-penn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}