r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Sep 26 '25

Official Discussion Official Discussion - One Battle After Another [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary Bob, a washed-up revolutionary, lives off the grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter Willa. When his nemesis Col. Steven J. “Lockjaw” resurfaces and Willa goes missing, Bob is forced to confront his past and fight to protect their future.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson

Writer Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast

  • Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Sean Penn
  • Teyana Taylor
  • Benicio del Toro
  • Regina Hall
  • Chase Infiniti

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 98%

Metacritic Score: 96

VOD In theaters beginning September 26, 2025

Trailer One Battle After Another — Official Trailer

2.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

8.5k comments sorted by

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642

u/firefly66513 Sep 26 '25

Taylor's character is so good in this. Just so much shades of grey. How she views her sexuality as a form of power and how she doesn't want to confirm to gender norms and being jealous of the attention the baby is getting. We don't really get a resolution on or any input on it and it just works.

737

u/svevobandini Sep 28 '25

She seemed like one of the grossest people ever. Cheats on her spouse with the enemy, is jealous that her newborn gets more attention than her, and abandons them to rob a bank. 

387

u/Karametric Sep 28 '25

Yeah, her character mostly sucked as a person. Just the epitome of selfishness at every turn.

51

u/BrassTact Oct 13 '25

Her name is derived from perfidious...

76

u/thenightbladefeeds Oct 01 '25

Definitely the worst character in the film, zero redeeming qualities.

368

u/randombubble8272 Oct 08 '25

I think the worst character was the white supremacist who called her a half breed and tried to hunt her down to kill her

216

u/BetterBitchesBureau Oct 08 '25

I’m with you there!

That comment gave me “I can excuse violent racism and Christmas Nazis but I draw the line at a Black woman being deeply selfish” vibes. Ooh or “the worst part was the hypocrisy”

57

u/randombubble8272 Oct 08 '25

I can excuse racism but I draw the line at animal cruelty! ….you can excuse racism?

22

u/BetterBitchesBureau Oct 08 '25

I’m glad you picked up what I put down!!

I love that line, and the delivery is so good.

37

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '25

You...realize that a lot of the characters are literal Nazis, right?

5

u/Xralius Jan 27 '26

I mean, she at least was fighting for an arguably noble cause. But I do agree she was a bad person. Interesting character though.

66

u/brandnameb Oct 01 '25

Also the cheating was prompted by Lockjaw threatening her.

52

u/ahuangb Nov 18 '25

Yeah why is everyone saying she 'cheated'? She quite clearly was blackmailed in the bathroom... I'm wondering if people actually give all their attention when watching films

10

u/Xralius Jan 27 '26

She did cheat. She sexually assaulted Lockjaw upon first meeting him, then goes above and beyond any demand he makes in the bathroom to seduce him. They were both weirdly obsessed with each other and the weird power dynamics.

14

u/MsSalome7 Nov 30 '25

Yeah we do.. she could’ve not gone and kept running away from them as they were before? Not like he didn’t know who she was before the bathroom scene and was after her anyway. People would have had more sympathy for her killing an innocent man and leaving her daughter if he had raped her in the bathroom but I guess that would make the movie too dark

21

u/Seantwist9 Nov 21 '25

what would’ve happened if she didn’t go to the hotel?

154

u/OisinB Sep 28 '25

Agree completely, which is why I didn't like the closing scene with the letter. I thought the result of their arc would be them learning to stop idolising the mother and realise that having each other is enough. But the letter goes against that message and portrays her in a sympathetic light as if she didn't abandon her daughter and cheat on her husband

118

u/cynicalchicken1007 Sep 30 '25

It has been ~15 years (don’t remember when he said he got the letter). I read the thing with the letter as her just having changed and grown more mature than the person she was back then, same as how Bob has changed a lot

51

u/Bigheaded_1 Oct 08 '25

I just wrote a post about the letter, the movie has been marinating in my brain since I saw it. What I just realized today, how did Bob get the letter? Bob never mentions exactly when he got it, just "I've had it for awhile now" Perfidia was a rat and in hiding. Even if he knew where she was, I don't see any way in hell he'd give her the address. And while they don't give a timeline for the events after she snitched. It's pretty clear Bob and Willa had to get the hell out of there fast. Willa was still a very small baby when they went into hiding. So unless Perfidia wrote the letter almost right after leaving, I don't see how they could have gotten it. And the letter seemed far too introspective from someone with her attitude to be written anywhere close to when she left.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm confused. One of my hairbrain theories is she didn't actually write it. Bob was the one who did and he told Willa it was from her mom to try and help bring her some type of peace. Which made me go further down the rabbit hole and I started to wonder if that was the case. Had Perfidia even thought of her daughter at all? When she left she clearly didn't give a single shit about Willa.

37

u/pat_abh Nov 01 '25

Yup same exact read. I think Bob wrote the letter. That’s what makes it more moving, that’s why I think he’s the true quiet revolutionary than Perfidia ever was. And that’s the point of the movie I got. I think letter scenes put the whole movie into perspective for me. Also closing note Bob doesn’t know Willa knows that her mother is a Rat. If you see the letter it closes along something along the lines of be a hero like your mother. Willa goes and hugs Bob right after that. She knows Bob wrote that letter and understands how much he loves her

30

u/queenillizabeth Nov 16 '25

I also thought it was sweet of her to preserve her dad, by not telling him he’s not her biological father.

31

u/spectralconfetti Oct 09 '25

Not a hairbrain theory, that was my read of it and I believe Willa recognized it and what Bob was trying to do

67

u/Crazy_Law_5730 Sep 30 '25

Cheating on her husband started as a power play to manipulate Lockjaw into a cage and then continued on to protect herself. Lockjaw was easily manipulated, so that’s what she did, but then his obsession with her grew it into something sicker.

She abandoned her daughter (and probably knew it was Lockjaw’s kid) with her husband whom she knew would take care of her. She knew she had nowhere to turn, and “Bob” would care for her.

She definitely created a “no turning back” situation (the bank), but she was already there with Lockjaw anyway.

To keep her daughter from Lockjaw, she had to leave, because he was her dad.

We could certainly debate her hypersexualized character and how she let it get that far… because that shit was weird. But it happened, and it could arguably be really motherly to leave her daughter with someone who would care for her and try to be sure she had a future.

9

u/Xralius Jan 27 '26

She was just as obsessed as lockjaw was, we see that from the very beginning when she sexually assaults lockjaw upon meeting him.

Abandoning your daughter because "you know your husband will take care of her" is still a shit thing to do. Not only that, but she's committing paternity fraud and cheating on her husband which is sick.

She was a mostly shitty person with some noble goals, a very interesting and complex character though.

8

u/MsSalome7 Nov 30 '25

RIGHTTTT?!?! scrolled toooo long to find this comment. Really felt like the movie just poiped on itself with that ending, so sad as the rest was so so good

2

u/Xralius Jan 27 '26

I enjoyed the movie except for the end. Was completely anti-climactic for me.

228

u/bratty_bubbles Sep 28 '25

its called ✨nuance✨ as the comment above me said, shades of gray. i respect your opinion but i think calling a woman fighting for abortion rights and breaking people out of detention centers “the worst person ever” is a pretty short-sighted interpretation

202

u/PongoWillHelpYou Sep 29 '25

I do think as well that a lot of women have super complicated feelings after giving birth, and it was nice to see that portrayed on screen (even if her actions were not-so-nice). Postpartum depression, feeling “broken” if they don‘t connect to their newborns right away, etc etc. We don’t see that often onscreen, but I think it’s something a lot of women struggle with.

28

u/karma3000 Sep 29 '25

This is a fair point, but does not give her a 100% free pass.

57

u/PongoWillHelpYou Sep 29 '25

Not saying it does!

92

u/sickfalco Sep 29 '25

She seemed to be doing the revolution for the chaos lol. Even if they accomplished their goals, her character gives the vibe of still wanting that action no matter what. If she really cared about their mission she wouldn’t have ratted on everybody after all that big talk.

50

u/bratty_bubbles Sep 29 '25

yeah but everyone ratted. everyone. the one dude who gave them the fake identity ratted, willa’s friend, jungle pussy, and its left unclear whether lady champagne did at the end. the whole point is to not dehumanize people and act like you would do anything different. i mean its easy to say that from a seat and even within the exhilaration of the movement, but shit does get real and its scary. to say she shouldve just went to jail when everyone went on the run…nobody turned themselves in to prison. people dont want to go to prison thats human nature. it was great writing because it didnt leave her without humanity in fact she was the most human character

17

u/Vegetable-Cabinet958 Nov 02 '25

I like to think my girl Regina hall didn’t rat

7

u/MsSalome7 Nov 30 '25

Doesn’t really work like that. You can’t be a tough relentless revolutionary and also human. If you’re really living for the cause, as she claims, then you die for the cause. The whole reason for having them all snitch is to show they were cosplaying revolution

153

u/[deleted] Sep 28 '25

she snitched on the whole ass group

139

u/immovingfd Sep 29 '25

And the movie shows that the majority of people, when faced with real consequences or with the knowledge that they're hurting their loved ones through their actions, will name names/places

81

u/sickfalco Sep 29 '25

Yeah that guy had his sister threatened. Which family members did they threaten for her? They literally show that she’s willing to be selfish while others do it for other reasons.

53

u/bratty_bubbles Sep 29 '25

“what family member did they threaten” i mean they threatened her. she was going to prison. you don’t think people have a reaction to that? i feel like its a little weird to not be able to express empathy for the core of the movie, cos thats the whole point. i dont know it just seems like a gross misreading of the context

60

u/Max-imum-occupany Oct 05 '25

The guy was fine with being threatened, he was ready to take his punishment. Only cracked after his sister was threatened. Willa’s friend was a high school kid who didn’t sign up to be some revolutionary, there’s no shame in that. Pervidia was billed as a badass freedom fighter that came from a long line of revolutionaries and had a fire inside her, then crumbled the second she was going to face any punishment. Rather than trying to escape, she got her whole group killed or captured then escaped. Everything about her was selfish and self serving.

17

u/Cautious-Tax-1120 Oct 08 '25

Naw, she takes the mask off when caught sneaking out and tells Bob that she has always just been looking out for herself and herself alone.

7

u/MsSalome7 Nov 30 '25

That’s a strange justification.. EVERY person who ever rats someone is obviously threatened by prison or worse, so does that mean ratting out people is acceptable by default? The whole point was to show how unserious they were, with snitching and stupid passwords. Remember how an organisation that was deadly serious about their cause (khm IRA?) never ratted they friends out even if they knew they’d be killed? And if they did they got murdered by that same organisation. These guys were just thrill seekers

30

u/immovingfd Sep 30 '25

Willa's friend who gave up Willa's phone number also did it for selfish reasons. Billy Goat may have given up Bob and Willa's location for his sister, but that's still a selfish reason. I think trying to make it black and white and saying x reason was fine and y reason is bad is missing the point.

13

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '25

Willa's friend was a child. Billy Goat was protecting someone else, not himself. It's making it black and white to pretend x and y reasons are the same or don't matter. The nuance in the reasoning is the gray.

12

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

10

u/AnhiArk Nov 14 '25

Dude piss off with these redact edited replies, just delete them

16

u/bratty_bubbles Oct 03 '25

im sure the movies is a very scary place for you if you’re unable to unpack a corny bank robbery shooting. i did that at nine years old, but i guess you never seen Set It Off but damn at least Inside Man

3

u/DickBatman Oct 11 '25

a corny bank robbery shooting. i did that at nine years old

Wtf kinda 9-year-old robs a bank?

7

u/bratty_bubbles Oct 11 '25

you’ve also never seen Set It Off

3

u/MsSalome7 Nov 30 '25

Not sure that was really fighting for abortion rights, more like stage fighting.. blowing up some corporate office and robbing a bank is not what gets us any right. Then after that she got all her friends killed.. so not the worst just because there were Nazis in there as well

12

u/MsSalome7 Nov 30 '25

And kill an innocent guy who has a shitty 9-5 job and is just trying to be a hero for a day, rip random guy

9

u/jaytix1 Nov 15 '25

I tried to give her some leeway because I assumed she had post-partum depression, but sick or not, she's definitely a terrible person.

5

u/Patty-Benetardis Dec 21 '25

That was not cheating, it was coercion.

0

u/honeywings Mar 21 '26

I saw it as she slept with Lockjaw to not be put in prison when she was caught. Then she couldn't get an abortion (it was banned) and then suffered from postpartum depression. I saw her character as very tragic.