After working on the script for roughly 20 years, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (Punch-Drunk Love; Boogie Nights) finally cracked his vision to adapt author Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland and, if one’s been following the awards circuit, the resultant film, One Battle After Another (2025), appears to be a success. The satirical comedy has its supporters and its detractors, with both exceptionally valid responses as the work is filled with material that is either densely packed or atrociously conceived based on your point of view. In the cacophony of critical analysis and general audience chatter, the intention of the film is constantly under examination, which is its own delicious reward, regardless of how one feels about the work. One Battle After Another is provocative with audiences (ideally) exploring themselves and their perspectives as a result of their reaction to the work. With the film on home video, one would hope that this would mean home viewers could hear directly from Anderson, the cast, or even the crew on the making of this award-winning title but, alas, the initial home release offers nothing but the echoes of past revolutions.
To learn about One Battle After Another (OBAA) in a spoiler-free context, head over to EoM Founder Douglas Davidson’s initial theatrical release review. Moving forward, specific narrative details may be discussed in full.
Some years after violent revolutionaries Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), the leader of resistance group French 75, and her explosives expert beau, Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio), each left the organization under threat of death by Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn), Lockjaw returns in a personal effort to track down Willa Ferguson (Chase Infiniti), Perfidia and Pat’s daughter. With pressure high on Lockjaw, he upturns as much of Perfidia and Pat’s old life as possible, tracking down their old colleagues and discovering Pat’s new identity as Bob Ferguson. Realizing too late that Lockjaw has returned, the now-burned out Bob has to recall his old revolutionary training in order to get back his daughter before Lockjaw completes his mission and failure is not an option for anyone.
Once more, I encourage curious readers to track down critical writings by Robert Daniels, Jourdain Searies, DarkSkyLady, and Candice Frederick who can better speak to the viewpoints within OBAA that I cannot.
In the initial review, I laid out my thoughts on OBAA pretty clearly in regard to what my view of its intention is regarding revolution and legacy. Anderson uses the language, style, and history of real world revolutionaries (the Weather Underground, for instance) to create the French 75 and that rightfully rankles many viewers because it appears like artifice. When one considers that he named his lead character Perfidia, a term meaning “treachery” or “betrayal,” audiences shouldn’t be entirely shocked that Perfidia sells out the French 75 in an effort to save herself while also abandoning her child. However, the fact that several beats in Perfidia’s story align with those of real Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur, up to and including borrowing lines from an actual letter that Shakur wrote to her own daughter for use by Perfidia to Willa, one can certainly appreciate the frustration of audiences who find Anderson’s invocation of revolution to be frustrating (at minimum), appropriative (at best), but certainly trauma-driven and insulting. Much in the same way that audiences who are aware of the real-life P.T. Barnum and, therefore, struggle with the neat-and-clean The Greatest Showman (2017), had Anderson not borrowed quite so heavily from the real world to construct this satire, the criticisms that fall upon it might not build such a convincing foundation for dismissing the film as a whole. Certainly, the more one learns about the truth within OBAA, cracks do form. However, the one item that cannot be disintegrated is the film’s message regarding the necessity for revolution and the effectiveness of it when done quietly: here enters Sensei.
From the opening of the film, OBAA centers Perfidia who is walking toward a detention center that she and the French 75 (including Pat-not-yet-Bob) are going to liberate — meeting Lockjaw in the process. In all the time the film spends in this opening section, Perfidia and the French 75 do a great many things, blowing up quite a bit of infrastructure, robbing banks, and generally being depicted as causing mayhem. We don’t, however, know what or who they are fighting. Likewise, the organization that Lockjaw is interested in joining and is the reason for his desperate desire to track down Willa, the Christmas Adventurers Club (a non-masked white supremacist network deeply-linked to government and business), is hardly explored, but we get enough from the members’ dialogue to get a gist of their intention. In both cases — Perfidia and Lockjaw — their version of action is bombastic, violent, and unsubtle. Their mission may be righteous to them, but they bask in the personal glory it affords them, removing them from the position of martyr that a purer approach to revolution might grant. Portrayed by Benicio Del Toro (The Phoenician Scheme; The Usual Suspects), Sensei is introduced as Willa’s martial arts instructor and then, later, when Bob’s in crisis as he searches for Willa upon Lockjaw’s return, is revealed to be the leader of a group who helps refugees and immigrants to settle into America. His work is quiet, intentional, and rooted in the community that he lives in. We don’t know who Sensei was before this story and his exit is swift and memorable (“ocean waves;” “a few small beers”). What we do know is that, in comparison to the tactics of the French 75 and Lockjaw, Sensei’s are far more impactful and lasting, the evidence being the number of individuals we see him communicate with, the way in which his comrades react to situations and listen to him when he speaks, as well as the casual nature Sensei exhibits upon Lockjaw’s military arrival in his town. Granted, in my initial review I wrote at length about how the film seems to be about the failure of past generations to complete the battles they fought and, therefore, have left them to the next generation (an idea inspired by the way Willa takes up the fight at the end of the film with her friends while Bob reclines on a couch with a joint); however, through Sensei, there’s also commentary on how revolutions don’t require manifestos, capitalistic takedowns, or violent hardware, sometimes they just require citizens to stand up for each other in everyday ways.
Now, as with any critical analysis, this is conjecture based on a personal read of the film within my own limited scope of knowledge. This is where supplemental features on a home release often aid a viewer in better understanding the intention of the filmmaker, writer, cast, and crew. Unfortunately, for reasons defying understanding, the initial physical release of OBAA includes zero materials but a second physical release via collectible steelbook is announced for Spring 2026. Past WB Pictures awards darling Dune (2021) released on home video in January of 2022 and it came packed with supplemental materials offering insights into set design, VFX work, art design, costuming, and more. It makes no sense, beyond capitalistic reasons, to release a separate steelbook edition later in 2026 that includes bonus materials. Especially as OBAA continues to garner awards at various events, why would you want to prevent home viewers from better understanding the thought process of the filmmaker? Maybe it’s because since the first release of OBAA in the Summer of 2025, Anderson, et. al., have been on tour with the film, doing countless press events that they feel like there’s no opportunity to cut bonus features, but, when one considers the already online available behind-the-scenes pieces that imply stuff was shot during or after production, the release of a limited edition with bonus features, frankly, feels more like a cash grab. Hungry fans will double dip, whether it’s digital first and then the later steelbook or physical for both. The truly aggravating thing about being both a physical media advocate and fan of OBAA is that the inclusion of bonus features on *only* the collectible steelbook leans toward capitalistic malfeasance instead of making the bonus features available to all. Why? Because the steelbook isn’t widely available and is selling out just about everywhere with its preorders. It’s the Hunger Games out there with access relegated to those who can (a) find it and (b) afford the higher-priced steelbook. I’m not against steelbooks or limited editions, but bonus features shouldn’t be gate-kept by format. Maybe I’m yelling at clouds here, but there’s a big difference between initial home video releases and boutique releases with their edition-specific features. I’m not going to get mad that my Arrow Video edition of Crimson Peak (2015) has different features than the Universal Pictures home edition, but if WB is releasing a title itself for the first time and locks the supplemental materials to a later limited edition, yeah — it’s going to shake my fist at it.
L-R: Director/Writer/Producer Paul Thomas Anderson and actors Leonardo Di Caprio and Benicio Del Toro on the set of ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER. Photo Credit: Merrick Morton. A Warner Bros. Pictures Release.
One Battle After Another is imperfect and, despite those imperfections (or because of them), compelling. Surprisingly so. The performances from its cast, specifically Taylor (A Thousand and One), lean into the unsaid quite a bit, requiring the audience to do more work to process Anderson’s intention. This may frustrate a lot of viewers who want their hands held in their entertainment and/or just don’t push to examine it further than the dermis, but it’s that subdermal layer that makes OBAA one of the meatier cinematic tales of 2025. Certainly, Del Toro steals the show with his mediative vocal and physical delivery, as does the remarkably tense car chase at the climax, but it’s what’s underneath the comedy and drama that makes the film, warts and all, so rich that viewers keep coming back to it.
Available on VOD and digital November 14th, 2025.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD January 20th, 2026.
Available on collectible 4K UHD Blu-ray steelbook Spring 2026.
For more information, head to the official One Battle After Another website.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Recommendation
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