Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘One Battle After Another’: What the Critics Are Saying

Paul Thomas Anderson‘s hotly anticipated One Battle After Another officially hits theaters on Sept. 26, but the reviews from critics are already pouring in.

The Warner Bros. Pictures film, which is loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 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, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro, as well as Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti, and had its premiere in Los Angeles on Sept. 8.

The Hollywood Reporter previously reported that One Battle After Another carries a hefty production budget north of $130 million, making it Anderson’s most expensive film to date. When news of the film’s budget broke, Warners’ 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 — A Minecraft Movie, Sinners, Final Destination: Bloodlines, F1: The Movie, Superman, Weapons and The Conjuring: Last Rites — all opening to more than $40 million at the North American box office.

Despite 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. Given the ecstatic response from critics, thus far, to One Battle After Another, De Luca and Abdy would be mad not to.

The 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.

Below, see what leading critics are saying about the film.

In his rave review for THR, Richard Lawson described One Battle After Another as “a bracingly timely film,” in which Anderson situates us “in our dismayingly recognizable era of fascist creep.” “It 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,” Lawson writes. He adds, “One Battle After Another is the rare American film released in these benighted times of ours — with the backing of a major studio, no less — to be clear and insistent in the target of its anger, its despair and its prescriptions for what might make things better.”

In the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw awarded One Battle After Another 5 stars, and described the film as “partly a freaky-Freudian diagnosis of father-daughter dysfunction – juxtaposed with the separation of migrant children and parents at the US-Mexico border – and a very serious, relevant response to the US’s secretive ruling class and its insidiously normalised Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups: the toxic new Vichyite Trump enthusiasm.” Bradshaw writes that, “One Battle After Another is at once serious and unserious, exciting and baffling, a tonal fusion sending that crazy fizz across the VistaVision screen – an acquired taste, yes, but addictive.”

Empire‘s Alex Godfrey also gave One Battle After Another 5 stars, writing that, “In years to come, when this appears on TV late at night, it’ll be impossible to switch off. It’s just one of those films. A stone-cold, instant classic.” Godfrey is full of praise for Anderson pulling off the wealth of characters and plot points, writing that “there is a lot going on, and not an ounce of fat on it.” “One 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 rollercoaster ride, the landscape itself signalling death. It’s a real thrill, cinema absolutely harnessed. Everything is here.”

Vulture‘s critic Alison Willmore was also effusive, describing One Battle After Another as “top-tier Paul Thomas Anderson.” Willmore praises Anderson for his adaptation of Pynchon’s novel and for dragging the work into the 21st century, as well as the action in the film, comparing it to Terminator 2. “For all that the film revels in satire — a powerful white-nationalist secret society is Christmas themed, and its members greet one another with “Hail, St. Nick!” — it’s 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.”

Writing for the BBC, Caryn James praises Anderson for creating a film where “drama and comedy co-exist with remarkable, virtuosic ease.” “The 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,” writes James adding that “it’s rare to see such an ambitious film work so smoothly, but then, one of Anderson’s signatures is his ability to coolly control raucous, sprawling stories.”

In his gushing review for IGN, Michael Calabro described One Battle After Another as a “masterpiece,” and that “Anderson has hit another high point of his career.” Calabro was blown away by the performances, in particular Teyana Taylor playing Perfidia Beverly Hills: “The end of One Battle – and how it tugs on your heartstrings – wouldn’t be nearly as effective if it weren’t for Taylor’s performance.” But Calabro reserves most of his praise for the director, writing, “To be blunt, I’m still in awe that this film actually exists. It’s 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’s 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.”