“One Battle after Another” is a timeless depiction of right-wing vs. left-wing conflict, and mirrors many aspects of today’s battle between these two political directions.
“One Battle after Another” is one of the best 2025 films now available for streaming (Max/HBO)–two critics for one prominent newspaper list it as number one and two on their top 10 list for 2025. It is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who has done likewise for many other acclaimed films such as “There Will Be Blood” (2007), which in 2017 two New York Times film critics called the "Best Film of the 21st Century So Far."
Not only is the movie directed by a leading director, but its cast is also outstanding, with Sean Penn as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw giving an especially riveting performance as a dogmatic right-wing lawman. At one stage, the filmscript states that “the ICE [U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] arrived and they took everyone from the gas station.” And Lockjaw is one of the leaders of this group, who are usually dressed in fatigues, sporting “Police” identification.
Other lead actors are Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, Teyana Taylor as Perfidia Beverly Hills, Regina Hall as Deandra, Benicio del Toro as Sergio St. Carlos, and Chase Infiniti as a teenaged Willa, daughter of Perfidia. Except for the right-wing Lockjaw and daughter Willa, all the other characters are or were members or (in the case of St. Carlos) aiders of the leftist revolutionary group French 75. And although Bob brings Willa up, it is Lockjaw who is strange circumstances impregnated Perfidia.
Although ICE was only founded in 2003, the film borrows heavily from Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland, which itself reflected leftist revolutionary actions of the 1960s. Thus, “One Battle after Another” is a timeless depiction of right-wing vs. left-wing conflict, and mirrors many aspects of today’s battle between these two political directions.
We see this right at the film’s beginning when members of French 75, including Perfidia and Bob, raid a Mexican-U.S. border processing center, free immigrants, and take officers hostage.
We also see it in Lockjaw’s efforts to join a white supremacist club. One of their leaders says to him, “Well, if you want to save the planet, you start with immigration.” And soon adds, “Colonel, I don’t think I’m being immodest when I say that joining the Christmas Adventurers Club means that you are a superior man. No, not the best man, not the most intelligent, the most sophisticated, or the wisest. It just means that you are superior to other human beings and you shall never want for riches the greatest of friends. Now, we report to ourselves for the freedom to be creative and cut through layers of bureaucracy. We live by the Golden Rule, in a network of likeminded men and women dedicated to making the world safe and pure.”
We later learn that this racist club will employ various methods to achieve its aims, including murder. (And we can only hope that our present political divisions don’t make the use of such tactics commonplace.)
Speaking of divisions, in the later part of this long film (162 minutes), daughter Willa, with the aid of Deandra, hides from Lockjaw and his armed men at a Catholic nuns’outpost. Thus, once again, director Anderson mirrors present realities, where most Catholic clergy, especially U. S. bishops, and nuns sympathize with the plight of immigrants–see, e.g., Pope Francis on Trump's Immigration Plans: “A Disgrace” and "Trump Declares War on ICE-Fearing Catholics."
Despite its length and reflection of present-day political realities, “One Battle After Another” (in the words of Brian Tallerico at the Roger Ebert site) “never feels like a polemic. It is rooted in character and grounded in the filmmaking language of action directors. It hums and moves in ways that movies too rarely do, embedding any timely commentary one wants to read in it in entertainment.”
