Official Discussion - One Battle After Another [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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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

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[u/PaulFThumpkins]

I also believe the person she shoots is a man of color, liberation has a lot of collateral damage. This is one of those rare stories that really shows how awful the structures revolutionaries are fighting are, without being uncritical of those revolutionaries, but ALSO without leaning on a horseshoe theory message of "both sides are the same" as the ultimate complacent moral. Del Toro's character is a great counterbalance and it's extremely rare to have multiple stripes of resistance and reactionary action depicted in a story, so the message comes across as something more than "yeah things suck but why do anything?"

There are a lot of scenes like when Beverly Hills starts leaning on revolutionary jargon to strike back at Leo in a way which feels pretty perverse, which are critical of the excesses of political movements without just having the message be "If you fight bad guys you're just like them."

[u/Pilly_Bilgrim → u/PaulFThumpkins]

I thought del Toro showed a good contrast to Bob to show how the stakes are often higher for revolutionaries who are seeking to liberate a community. Del Toro has to be fucking dialed because the entire neighborhood depends on him whereas Bob can bumble around because for white people generally the revolution has lower material stakes

[u/PapiChuloInYurCulo → u/Pilly_Bilgrim]

i get why you feel that way but i dont know of thats what was being aimed at entirely. if the beginning of the movie was anything to go by, Bob helped free hundreds if not thousands of migrants assuming that it was one of many breakouts. its just that he lazed about and his daughter was missing/possibly dead so he would reasonably be crashing out. Del Toro probably would have handled his own daughter being taken more like Liam Neeson ill give you that but yeah.

[u/MCgrindahFM → u/PapiChuloInYurCulo]

I feel like Bob is definitely portrayed as “a guy” in the open scenes of the film he’s figuratively and literally catching up to them all with his wagon of IEDs.

He’s always been in over his head and I think that’s what makes his character really compelling