One Battle After Another
One Battle After Another is a 2025 American dark comedy action-thriller film produced, written, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It is inspired by the 1990 novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. The film's ensemble cast is led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti. The story follows an ex-revolutionary who is forced back into his former combative lifestyle when he and his daughter are pursued by a corrupt military officer.
Anderson had wanted to adapt Vineland since the early 2000s and, eventually, incorporated his own stories into the narrative while writing the screenplay. Principal photography took place in California from January to June 2024 using VistaVision, becoming one of the first films to use the format since the 1960s. Following its premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on September 8, 2025, One Battle After Another was released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on September 26. With a budget of $130–175million, it is the most expensive film of Anderson's career. It grossed $208million worldwide, underperforming at the box office but emerging as Anderson's highest-grossing release.
One Battle After Another garnered widespread acclaim and numerous accolades. These include three wins at the 31st Critics' Choice Awards, four wins at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards, a record seven nominations at the 32nd Actor Awards, 14 nominations at the 79th British Academy Film Awards, and 13 nominations at the 98th Academy Awards. It also won a record five awards from the National Board of Review and was listed by the American Film Institute as one of the top ten films of 2025.
Plot
"Ghetto" Pat Calhoun and Perfidia Beverly Hills are lovers and members of a far-left revolutionary group, the French75. While breaking out detained immigrants from Otay Mesa Detention Center, Perfidia sexually humiliates the commanding officer, Steven Lockjaw, who becomes obsessed with her. When Lockjaw catches Perfidia planting a bomb, he lets her go after she agrees to his demand to later meet him for sex.After Perfidia gives birth to a girl named Charlene, Pat tries to persuade her to settle down, but she instead abandons Pat and Charlene to continue her revolutionary activities. She is arrested after murdering a security guard during an armed bank robbery. Lockjaw arranges for her to avoid prison in exchange for details on key French75 members. Perfidia enters witness protection, while Lockjaw uses the information she provided to hunt down and summarily execute her comrades. French75 member Howard Somerville gives Pat and Charlene stolen identities as Bob and Willa Ferguson, while Perfidia flees witness protection for Mexico.
Sixteen years later, living off-the-grid in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross, California, Bob has become a paranoid stoner. He is protective of Willa, now a free-spirited teenager who resents his substance abuse, and he has led her to believe Perfidia was a hero. Through his anti-immigration efforts, Lockjaw has become a colonel and a prominent figure within the U.S. security agencies. When Lockjaw is invited to become a member of the Christmas Adventurers Club, a white supremacist secret society, he seeks to kill Willa to hide his past interracial relationship with Perfidia. He hires bounty hunter Avanti Q to capture Howard, causing a distress signal to go out to the French75.
Lockjaw sends troops to Baktan Cross, using an immigration and drug operation as cover. French75 member Deandra rescues Willa before her school dance is raided. At home, Bob is warned by the French75 about Lockjaw, whose men then raid his house. Escaping through a tunnel, Bob tries to coordinate with the resistance over a payphone, but cannot remember their greeting code. Sergio St. Carlos, Willa's karate sensei and a community leader, helps him while evacuating immigrants via a hidden passage. Fleeing with Sergio's students across rooftops, Bob falls and is arrested. Deandra takes Willa to a convent of revolutionary nuns, where she is told the truth about her mother's betrayal of the cause.
The Christmas Adventurers find evidence of Lockjaw's relationship with Perfidia, including the possibility that he had a child with her, and send member Tim Smith to kill him and Willa. Lockjaw locates Willa at the convent, where Deandra is arrested. Holding Willa hostage, he tests their DNA in front of her, confirming she is his daughter. Sergio arranges Bob's escape and drives him to the convent, throwing him out of the car when police begin to pursue them so Bob can get away. Bob steals a car and reaches the convent, unsuccessfully attempting to kill Lockjaw with Sergio's rifle. Lockjaw hires Avanti to kill Willa, but after refusing over her age, Avanti is told to deliver her to a far-right militia instead. Tim tracks down Lockjaw and shoots him in the face, causing his car to crash and leaving him presumed dead. Bob finds the crash site while searching for Willa.
Avanti brings Willa to the militia, but after a change of heart, frees her and is killed in a shootout with the militia. Willa escapes with Avanti's car and pistol, only for Tim to begin tailing her as Bob tries to catch up. Willa lures Tim into a crash by exploiting a blind summit, shooting him dead when he fails to recite the revolutionary countersign. Bob arrives and finds Willa, who demands the countersign at gunpoint, but Bob convinces her to stand down. They tearfully embrace and Bob drives them away, while Lockjaw is revealed to have survived.
Some time later, a severely scarred Lockjaw is seemingly welcomed into the Christmas Adventurers Club, but is fatally gassed and cremated shortly afterward. Returning home with Willa, Bob gives her a letter from Perfidia, in which she apologizes and vows to some day reunite with her family. Later, Bob gives Willa his blessing as she departs for a protest in Oakland.
Cast
Production
Development
had considered adapting the 1990 novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon since the early 2000s, but struggled, believing his love for the novel would get in the way of his ability to fairly rework it. Instead, he set aside working on an adaptation, and envisioned two ideas: one about an "action car-chase movie" and one about a "female revolutionary". One Battle After Another emerged as a combination of those two stories with some elements of Vineland, particularly the father-daughter dynamic.Casting
In June 2023, Anderson's next film, rumored to star Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Viggo Mortensen and Joaquin Phoenix, found its home at Warner Bros. Pictures. In January 2024, DiCaprio and Hall were confirmed to star, with Sean Penn joining the cast. In February, Alana Haim, Wood Harris, Chase Infiniti, Shayna McHayle, and Teyana Taylor joined the cast. DiCaprio reportedly received his standard $25million fee for his involvement. Jacob Batalon auditioned for the role of Comrade Josh.Filming
began in California in January 2024. The film had filmed for eleven days across Humboldt County in Arcata, Cutten, Eureka, Kneeland, and Trinidad. Local experts, including the Sisters of the Valley, on which the Sisters of the Brave Beaver in the film was based, were consulted. Anderson and his crew attended the prom at Eureka High School to make observations about music and fashion trends; students were cast as extras for a key scene.On February 3, production moved to Sacramento, with filming at the Sacramento County Administration Building and Sacramento County Courthouse. A homeless encampment was cleared to allow for filming, sparking controversy. The former Sacramento mansion of Governor Ronald Reagan served as exterior shots for the Christmas Adventurers Club's headquarters.
The production took a two-and-a-half-month break from filming because del Toro had a scheduling conflict with Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme. On-location filming also took place in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Borrego Springs in May 2024, and El Paso, Texas, including El Paso Streetcars, in June 2024. Other filming locations included La Purísima Mission, the Westgate Hotel, and the city of San Diego and Otay Mesa near the Mexico–United States border.
Cinematography
The film was shot by Michael Bauman on 35 mm movie film using VistaVision cameras, marking his third collaboration with Anderson, following Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza. Between 75 and 80% of the film was shot on VistaVision.Bauman revealed that Anderson wanted something in the "vein of '70s cinema", pointing to films like The French Connection and The Last Detail, explaining that this "stylistic roughness" was "essential" for Anderson in telling the story. According to Bauman, VistaVision "was a response to television that some of the studios were developing. And instead of it being four-perf vertical, like a normal 35 millimeter camera, this takes the film and puts it eight-perf horizontal, which allows for a much bigger negative space. Each frame is twice the size. And so it's a much richer image". The format was ideal for capturing some of the action sequences in the film, particularly the final car chase sequence. Bauman further admitted that it was a challenge to figure out how to "blend the richness of VistaVision" to make One Battle After Another "look like a '70s type of film that felt like a lot of the scenes out of The French Connection." He pushed VistaVision to its limits while using and testing it, saying, "This camera system hadn't really been used at this quantity of film because we shot about 1.5million feet of film for the project hadn't had that kind of level of film run through it in a long time It really underscores the power of shooting on film and what VistaVision is as far as projecting it. It's really a super resting image that has a strong emotional feel to it. The ability to experience that by going to the theater is really unique."
Regarding the impact and location of the climactic car chase, Bauman said, "The sequence is really a testament to the location being the driving force. When Michael Glazier, the location manager, originally found it, he found it almost like by accident when he was driving after he found the location for the 1776 camp." To figure out how to capture the scene's "dynamic energy", Bauman and his team worked with Allan Padelford, a veteran stunt coordinator and second unit director best known for designing high-octane car-chase action sequences, and his Padelford Camera Car. For the film's color and lighting, Bauman said both he and Anderson referred to the work of Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai and The Silence of the Lambs as inspiration. Bauman also revealed that he and Anderson carried a print of The French Connection with them since they "were always screening film dailies", adding, "Sometimes it was just like, hey, it's time to have a little review, just to make sure your visual palette was in the same direction."
Actor Giovanni Ribisi is thanked in the film's end credits for allowing the production to use VistaVision cameras that he had personally restored.