The revolutionary enters the private chambers of the commanding officer. He is Captain Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn)—a magnificent name for a man who walks like the Terminator with a case of hemorrhoids. She is Perfidia Beverley Hills (Teyana Taylor), and the gun is in her hands. Oscar Wilde once said that everything is about sex, except sex—“which is about power.” Perfidia has the power now, but not forever. Hers is immediate; his is systemic.

So begins the dance of One Battle After Another, the latest from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, Battle is a movie of many tendrils. The encounter between Perfidia and Lockjaw sets in motion a series of encounters that shape the fates of Perfidia’s rebels. Among them is the munitions enthusiast, Rocketman (Leonardo DiCaprio), who falls for Perfidia and is now raising a daughter with her. But Lockjaw has tracked Perfidia down and convinces her to save herself by sacrificing the rest. She does. Then she skips town on Lockjaw, and Battle jumps ahead 16 years.

The prologue of Battle is set in an America that looks an awful lot like today. Perfidia’s team liberates migrants from detention camps along the Southern border with modern-day weaponry. Ditto for the 16-year time jump the rest of Battle takes place in—there’s nothing near-future about it, just more of the same. It’s a nifty trick on Anderson’s part as the lack of specificity preserves his aim. Perfidia’s insurgents are not the subversive force, but one of many. Everything here, from revolution to oppression, happens in shadow. Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is a reference point. But Anderson takes it one step further. In this future, the revolution won’t even be publicized.

And Lockjaw is forever on the hunt. He still needs to find Perfidia, but this time for admittance to a secret society of white supremacists. Now holding the rank of colonel, Lockjaw has the power to mobilize entire forces to help him do so, including tracking and kidnapping Perfidia’s teenage daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti).

Willa is as resourceful as Rocketman is bumbling. Willa turned out pretty well, proving her father—now living as Bob—to be a loving man if not an aging rebel burnt out. Now, Bob spends his nights getting drunk and high while watching The Battle of Algiers on TV, playacting revolutionary in his mind while looking more comfortable on the couch than on the streets. Others around him, including Willa’s sensei, Sergio (Benicio del Toro), continue the fight. Sergio runs an underground railroad, albeit with a sense of resignation. What once felt like a significant act of defiance has turned into one more battle after another with the same burnout that claimed Bob.

So it goes for the ex-servicemen and bounty hunters populating Battle. Everyone here has that dead-behind-the-eyes behavior of someone overdone. One militant wears body armor as if it’s a pajama top and is so oblivious to the threats around him that he fails to pull his weapon. At one point in his life, he probably pulled his gun on anything that moved and frothed until the threat was obliterated. Now he spends his days shielded in body armor, playing tiddlywinks in a lawn chair. One battle after another can really grind one down.

Not so with Anderson’s movie: Battle never grinds, catches, or slows. It’s electric, pure and simple, and with more material to chew on than can be digested on the first pass. In addition to being informed by a modern world that feels wholly different than, say, Eddington or Civil War, Battle threads the difficult needle of engaging with the world without making the setting so specific that it limits the filmmakers’ scope.

Additional credit also goes to Andy Jurgensen’s kinetic editing, Jonny Greenwood’s dissonant score, and Michael Bauman’s cinematography—filmed in VistaVision, which gives even simple close-ups a quality of the epic. Their work melds so perfectly that Battle breezes through entire acts, and make the 161-minute runtime feel like one long intake of air. And when one character finally relaxes and exhales, you know it’s curtains.

But the battle wages on. Anderson gives his story a dual ending, one that acknowledges the sinister forces at work that can never be vanquished, maybe not even known, while hoping for the resistance to continue. It is one battle after another, after all. And the next one will be fought by those who follow in our footsteps.

One Battle After Another (2025)
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Inspired by the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
Produced by Paul Thomas Anderson, Sara Murphy, Adam Somner
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Wood Harris, Alana Haim, Shayna McHayle
Warner Bros., Rated R, Running time 161 minutes, Opens Sept. 26, 2025

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