Weighted from a 9.7 average · Why?
Anderson's boldest political work, blending comedy and tragedy with rare urgency.
Verdict tier Exceptional, critics broadly rave, on a scale of Unfavorable, Mixed, Recommended, Exceptional.
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Critic consensus
Critical reception for One Battle After Another is overwhelmingly positive, with most reviewers calling it a bold, emotionally resonant, and timely political work from Paul Thomas Anderson. Critics most frequently praised its tonal ambition — blending comedy, thriller, and tragedy — its political urgency, and the performances of its leads. Several reviewers invoked the word 'masterpiece,' though at least one noted it falls short of Anderson's finest prior work, and one critic found the film's sprawling ambition ultimately unsuccessful.
7 not-rated reviews aren't plotted
The Monk Score is weighted from a plain average of 9.7 · how scores work
Positive = 6.5/10 and up · negative = below 5/10
AI-generated summary of 10 critic reviews · may contain errors
Report inaccuracyFrom the papers
Top critics first, then by score · not-rated last · updated
Top critic
Film review
Paul Thomas Anderson's vision is unsparing, for both sides in this apparently eternal face-off between the rebels and the system — even as life carries on, unironically. The irony of these real and imagined borders renting America is captured by Anderson in all its fullness – from its absurdity to its tragedy.
Top critic
Film review
The film is flat-out fantastic. I won't lie that it's PTA's masterpiece. That evaluation will depend on taste, and for me his masterpieces are The Master, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood.
Film review ·
A remarkably propulsive, fun, and eventually moving piece of work about the human beings caught up in the chaotic machine.
Film review ·
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. These ideas are very unfashionable in the US right now, which only makes this film more interesting: it is about dissent and discontent, and the lonely heroism of not fitting in.
Film review ·
This is an extraordinary crackerjack hell of a film that has met its time. Mindbending brilliance doesn't begin to describe it. If you think you have seen anything remotely like this masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson, think again.
Film review ·
Paul Thomas Anderson's paranoid comedy-thriller epic is the first movie of its size to fully crystallize how insane it feels to be alive right now.
Film review ·
One Battle After Another is rife with big ideas, but it's never didactic; it's too committed to emotionally investing the audience. The whole movie is similarly daunted by how dark our current political battles have become, yet it strains for optimism throughout. More often than not, they succeed. So, too, does the film: It's an emotional, visceral triumph.
Film review ·
One Battle After Another is a furious film, a richly engaging and persuasive polemic from a filmmaker who has never shied from provocation but who has not before spoken so directly to his audience. Anderson does not operate with blinkered hope; his movie pays sober reverence to the brutal losses suffered already and to those inevitably to come. But he insists, in his film's glorious and just-shy-of-corny final seconds, that there is still something like a future out there, past the smoke and ruin, worth struggling toward, inch by agonizing inch.
Film review ·
Paul Thomas Anderson's nearly three-hour political tragi-farce tries to do everything, but stops short of success.
Film review ·
Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn Are Brilliant in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Mesmerizing Vision of a Police-State America
Credits
Leonardo DiCaprioBob
Sean PennCol. Steven J. Lockjaw
Chase InfinitiWilla
Benicio del ToroSensei Sergio St. Carlos
Regina HallDeandra
Teyana TaylorPerfidia
Wood HarrisLaredo
Tony GoldwynVirgil Throckmorton
D.W. MoffettBill Desmond
Paul GrimstadSommerville
DijonTalleyrand
Kevin TigheRoy More
John HoogenakkerTim Smith
Eric SchweigAvanti
April GraceSister Rochelle
Jim DowneySandy Irvine
Alana HaimMae West
Shayna McHayleJunglepussy
Brooklyn DemmeSober Rick
Starletta DuPoisGrandma Minnie
Steven KnollMilitary Man
Mickey GiacomazziDeandra's Van Driver
Jena MaloneGreeting Code (voice)
Dan CharitonComrade Josh
Jon Beavers1776 James
Anthony Xzavier EstradaThief (uncredited)
Juandi AiresYoung ImmigrantEnglish films like One Battle After Another
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