“DiCaprio reaches a career high and is a dead-cert for an Oscar”
Let’s be clear from the off: ‘One Battle After Another’ is not just the greatest film of this year, but – arguably – the best of this entire decade. Sure, we’ve had a good variation of gems through the ’20s’ to date, with ‘Wicked’, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and ‘Dune: Part Two’ fighting it out for 2024’s crown, and ‘Oppenheimer’ undoubtedly stomping the box office in 2023. But neither they – nor the likes of ‘The Batman (2022)’, ‘No Time To Die (2021)’ and ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)’ could evoke the sense of cinematic wow factor with the same level of grit and admiration for directorial craftsmanship as Paul Thomas Anderson‘s latest flick, which has already grossed a whopping $32m from Box Office receipts in the U.S alone.
This staggering amount is, of course, a hugely successful output for any film to gross in its first week, but unlike the ‘Avengers‘ heydays of the late ‘teenies’, ‘One Battle’ has barely splurged any of the movie’s $115m production budget on marketing or advertising, instead opting to follow the ‘Parasite’ route of allowing the reviews to speak for themselves. And speak, they have. Forbes rightly points out that it is now the highest reviewed movie of this decade on ‘Metacritic’, whilst IGN labels it a ’10/10 masterpiece’ and The Telegraph noted that ‘DiCaprio rivals Jack Nicholson in his prime’. With a glowing 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and an 8.5 on IMDB (putting it among the Top 30 movies EVER made), it’s tough to NOT hone in on the genius of our lead actor…
Leo – who, according to The Times, reaches ‘a career high and is a dead-cert for an Oscar’ is at the very upper echelons of his ‘grumpy old man’ stage throughout ‘One Battle’, reclusing himself into a life of casual drug use reminiscent of his iconic quaalades scene as Jordan Belfort, all whilst channeling his inner-Big Lebowski, wearing an over-sized dressing grown which somehow manages to emit a musty scent of old firewood through the silver screen. Perhaps lesser characterised by his vastly under-rated skills as a comic actor, there are fewer sights more enchanting than a frustrated DiCaprio cursing to himself and bumbling through mishaps with his charismatic energy as the stoned and paranoid ex-revolutionary named Bob Ferguson.
With Director Anderson tapping into Leo‘s gifts for slapstick and middle-aged frustration, DiCaprio now looks increasingly likely to add to his bizarrely scarce Oscar tally of one, the infamous maiden victory coming in 2016 following his work in The Revenant. It is, perhaps, Hollywood’s most inexplicable mystery as to why a man whose career discography included the sensational ‘5 in 5’ run of 2010-2015 when the Californian reeled off ‘Shutter Island’, ‘Inception’, ‘Django Unchained’, ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ hasn’t been more universally recognised by the Academy. Here, DiCaprio not only confirms his place as his generation’s greatest actor, swatting aside the likes of McConaughey, Bale, Pitt, Phoenix, Hanks, and Waltz, but is matched in brilliance by his co-lead, the iconic figure of Sean Penn‘s ‘Steven J. Lockjaw’.
The hugely dislikable Colonel, whose militant dedication his service reaches ‘Terminator‘ levels after a brutal wound, is introduced to ‘One Battle’ viewers in comical circumstances. Experiencing a powerful erection after being held at gunpoint by Bob‘s revolutionary other-half, (‘Perfidia Beverly Hills‘), the disgraced soldier is marched out of his HQ by the tip, hands tied behind his back, before becoming a member of a secret white supremacist society. It is here, where the plot of ‘One Battle’ becomes beautifully entangled between Lockjaw‘s thirst for revenge on Perfidia, a woman he becomes dangerously engrossed with, and the subsequent birth of her daughter, Willa.
Portrayed by newcomer actress Chase Infiniti, the 25-year old from Indiana offers the perfect stark contrast to Lockjaw‘s rigid and blood-thirsty approach, her elegance only further offset by the villain’s ability to cross between both the absurd and abhorrent at all times, making him incredible memorable and exceptionally detestable. Unlike Bob, who bowls around El Paso in shades and a beanie to disguise himself from former glories, Lockjaw couldn’t be more conspicuous, every bulging vein on Penn‘s biceps paying further homage to the physical dedication of the 60-year old, who like DiCaprio, looks a shoe-in for Golden Globe & BAFTA accreditation in 2026.
With Paul Thomas Anderson steering audiences through a perfection in pacing, the almost 3-hour run-time of ‘One Battle’ flies past with ease, each frame feeling like a pleasant slice of unmissable action which will have viewers stapled to their seat and refusing toilet breaks through the fear of missing key scenes. None of which feel more unmissable than the legendary car-chase scene during the film’s finale, which feels like one of THE most iconic scenes in movie history, rivalling The Exorcist‘s spinning head, Rocky Balboa‘s run up the Philadelphia steps, or Leo‘s own ‘King of the World’ moment in Titanic. The choice of setting is crucial—across the desert hills, where drivers can only see the road ahead when they’re right at the top, about to barrel down; A fitting metaphor for a movie that moves at breakneck speed.
“If you put your phone on the dashboard of your car, you realize just how scary that point of view becomes,” says Anderson. “You’re driving 85 miler per hour and you can’t see what’s over that hill, nor can you see what’s behind you for most of the time.” As these drivers approach the hill’s crest, however, the rearview mirror begins reflecting only the sky, the road behind them receding until it disappears out of the frame, handicapping their line of sight yet again. In IMAX, it feels like a rollercoaster simulation with such gorgeous cinematography that some cinema-goers even complained of feeling ‘queasy’ during the 11-minute extract from the Hitchcock playbook.
Sprinkled with era-defining performances throughout (Benicio Del Toro‘s portrayal of the comically immoral Sensei, ‘Sergio St. Carlos‘ is another firm highlight), ‘One Battle‘ delivers on its coy-trailer promise in spades. This is not just THE movie of 2025, but a masterclass lesson in film-making from Paul Thomas Anderson, who has managed to produce a frenetic magnum opus tinged with dark humour, political leanings, and a challenge to social ideologies. ‘One Battle’ is one of the very few releases which can be filed under the pantheon of needing a second, and perhaps third, cinema-watch, such is the bedazzling quality of this 170-minute tour de force.
RATING: 10/10