The first rave reactions for Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio‘s “One Battle After Another” are led by none other than Steven Spielberg, who praised the movie while moderating a Q&A with Anderson at the Director’s Guild of America theater in Los Angeles.
“What an insane movie, oh my God,” Spielberg said (via The Film Stage). “There is more action in the first hour of this than every other film you’ve ever directed put together. Everything, it is really incredible. This is such a concoction of things that are so bizarre and at the same time so relevant, that I think have become increasingly more relevant than perhaps even when you finished the screenplay and assembled your cast and crew and began production.”
Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” “One Battle After Another” casts DiCaprio as a washed-up revolutionary who is forced to save his teenage daughter when an enemy from his past reappears. The supporting cast includes Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti in her film debut.
“I have not seen a movie that is so tonally a relative to Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr. Strangelove,’” Spielberg added in his praise. “This brings a kind of absurdist comedy, taken very seriously, because it’s so much a reflection of what’s happening today, every day, throughout this country. But it takes it to a point where you want to laugh, because if you don’t laugh, you’re going to start screaming, ‘This is too real.’ And so you got that outlet… more than nervously, I had a great time laughing all the way through this. But it’s interesting where you laugh here, where you allow us to laugh, and then when you shut it down.”
On social media platforms, several members of the film press hailed “One Battle After Another” as one of the standout films of 2025. Men’s Health writer Evan Romano called it “my #1 movie of the year,” while film critic and podcast host Brett Arnold similarly wrote it’s “my fav of the year.”
“I laughed out loud throughout, it’s probably Anderson’s funniest movie, and by the end I was so deeply moved I was crying,” Arnold added. “Sean Penn will win an incredibly well-deserved Oscar. And the action! My god. I haven’t stopped thinking about the car chase and what the camera does.”
“One Battle After Another” opens in theaters Sept. 26 from Warner Bros.
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From Variety US