‘One Battle AFTER ANOTER’ IS OUR NEW OSCAR Front-Runner

Photo: Warner Bros.

This Summer Came and Went with decidedly Few Awards condenders, especially compared to the last few years’ yield of summer oscar at all like Oppenheimer, Barbie, Top Gun: Maverick, and Elvis. Sinners Estabished it case for Oscar Consideration Back in April, But Since That, Anyding with a pedigree – Be it celine song Materialists Or the Tiff People’s Choice Award Winner The Life of Chuck – Revealed itelf to be a nonstarer in the Awards.

Into this relative void steps paul thomas Anderson, whose films have been nominated for 28 Academy awards over the course of His crare. HIS Latest, One Battle AFTER ANOTHERis Loosely Based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 Novel, Vineland, and was described half-jokingly by the director during a post-screening q & a on monday as “an action-comedy with a dash of postpartum depression. The film, which Stars Oscar Winners Leonardo Dicaprio, Benicio del Toro, and Sean Penn, Alongside Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, and Regina Hall, Has Enjoying An Incredibly Effusive Reception from Critics. It Holds A Score of 96/100 on the Review Aggregator Metacritic, Making It The Best-Reviewed Film of 2025 (Tied with Julia Loktev’s Documentary My UndesIrble Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow.) Headlines have touted the film as a masterpiecea triumphand a Wonder. Our Own Alison Willmore Ranks it as top-tier pta, and i’m inclinehed to aggree.

SO: An Academy-Favored Filmmaker has a new film Starring a bunch of oscar winners, and it’s burning up revix in a year Where front-Runners have been hard by. This isn’t advanced calculus. One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Is Our New Best Picture Front-Runner. Right? Well, aside from a general reticiency to hand out trophies in september, i’d point ut that a number of quests and caveats need to be aneswered on the road from the oscar podium.

If i’ve said it Once, i’ve said it a thusand Times: An Oscar Winner in Best Picture Needs a Hook; Preferbly more than one. “JUST GIVE The Award to the Best Movie” Sounds like an Incredibly Simple Task Unil you as Many as two People what they have best movie is. “Paul Thomas Anderson is Due” COULD BE A GREAT HOOK – LOOK WOW IT IT WORKED FOR CRISTOPHER JUST Two Years Ago. But the trickiest Needle to Thread Will Be How The Warner Bros. Team Bebind One Battle AFTER ANOTHER is going to market the movie in relation to the terrifying State of the events in the US Films Eras and References as it follows the members of an anti-fascist gup Called the french 75, Including Bob (Dicaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Taylor), As the Carry Carry 1960s Guerrilla Attacks on 2020s-Style Immigrant-Detection Centers. Meanwhile, the US Government is represent alternately by Macho-Pysychotic Military Types Like Sean Penn’s Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw and an Executive regime lookily purify the Country. This Should All Sound Familiar. If you have notized, things are prepy intense out there, with the trump administration fluffy farother and farter toward Authorian fascism and activists on the groundly resisting ice raids, and that was all before the killing of Charlie kirk. With One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Presenting fascist raids on sanes and the french 75 Presenting as the Kind of Terrorist Outfit Trump Claims Antifa Is, IT’S A SAFE BET THAT THE FILM BE TOUCHING A FEW RAW NERVES.

What Anderson is Saying About This Moment, Howver, Is Bound to Be an Open Question. DOES PTA SUPPORT ARMED Revolution? What DOES IT MEAN WEN HE UNDERCUTS THAT REVOLUTION WITH COMEDY? Are the Villains Depicted Too Broadly? Based on the Q&A after Monday’s Screening – Which Gathered Anderson, DiCaprio, Del Toro, Taylor, and Infiniti – The Answers May Ultimately Be Left to Us. Anderson replied to one quesion about Current by saying by “Details of the World Become Unplayable” closing a film, chooking instead to focus on the motivation and Heart. Dicaprio at Least Twice Reference the “Polarization” in the Current Climate but Went No Further, For Now. That said, if the filmmakers choose to let One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Speak for itself, I think it Speaks Rather Loudly Against White-Supremacist fascism, while not shying away from the Costs of “Doing the Revolution,” As Dicaprio’s Character at One Point Says.

All that said, how far One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Can take it mesage About Our Political Reality Will Likely Be Up to the Awards Voterses. The Last Few Weeks Have Had Many in the mainstream media and general public calling to us down the rhetoric, and you have to wonder if a pervasive wish to de-escalate moving some skittish away a film that depicts active violent resististance.

Regardless of How Current End up Impacting One Battle‘S Awards Chances, It Feels Certain That Several Cast Members Are Going to Wind up in the mix for nominations. Dicaprio ENTERS A BEST Actor breed that isn’t uncrowded, Competing with the Likes of Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), George Clooney (Jay Kelly), Jeremy Allen White (SpringsTeen: Deliver with From Nowhere), Dwayne Johnson (The Smashing Machine), and Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme). AFTER WINNING THE OSCAR FOR The Revenant In 2016, Dicaprio Has Only Been Nominated Once More, for 2019’s Once uppon a time… in Hollywood. That justly lauded performance HOLDS SIMILAR DNA TO WHAT’S DOING IN One Battle, with a performance that pivots freely from paranoid buffoonery to dialed-in emotion. The Lead Performance in the Best Picture Winner has won the best actor or best actress in four of the Last five years, and the academy has gotten a tears reticent to award second (or tired) oscars lately, so i’ll be slotting leo near of my list.

Speaking of Repeat Oscar Winners, Penn Hasn’t Been Oscar nominated Sine and Won HIS SECOND ACTOR TROPHY FOR Milk In 2010. In Fact, Penn Has Been More Notable for GIVING HIS OSCAR STATES AWAY than giving the kind of performance that is could earn Him a third one. Until Now. LockJaw is the Kind of Standout Supporting Villain of which Best Supporting Actor Victories Are Made. Penn’s Personality Has Never Been Cuddly (to put it quite Mildly), and he’s almost Certainly the Most Likely Cast Member to Send the Film’s Oscar Campiaign off Courses with a reckless comment to the press. But he’s also historically been popular Among Actors. And he really is a hoot in the movie, bestowing his character with a ridiculous gait and a maniacal affect that respect very difficult for award voters to resist.

One Downside of a Penn Supporting Actor Campaign is that it was to go Likely Crowd out Benicio del Toro, who is doing quieter but no lesson work as sensei Sergio st. Carlos, A Martial-ARTS Instructor and Community Leader in the Sanctanty City of Bakan Cross. Not only only is decyn to get to getrplay his character a smart and funny counter to the fantic action and paranoid flailing from the likes of Dicaprio, he a great conduit for the film Ideas About Resistance to Government Aggression.

Best Supporting Actress Offers The Most Intriguing Angle On One Battle AFTER ANOTHER and the Oscars, with Taylor, Infiniti, and Hall All Delinary Revenge that deserts to be mentioned Among the year’s best. Taylor Ouns the First Third of the Film with a Righteous Fury that Only Betrays an Inner Vulnerability at the Most Crucial Moments. IT’S A performance that lingers when she’s not onscreen, and the Only Reason She’s Not A Best Actress Contest is Screen Time. In Taylor’s Absence Steps Young Infiniti, Whose Performance Presents initially as softer and quieter, before transforming as the film barrels toward its Climax. My guests is that is that of the Odd Woman Out in this SCENARIO, as her character’s screen time and prominence is more limited, but in those small moments, she shines through with a grit and determination that remarkable gioven how she’s known for her Comedic skills.

Paul Thomas Anderson Has Only Ever Directed Two Movies that were IGNORED Completely by the Academy: His Debut Feature, Hard Eight, and his lamentably overlooked masterpiece Punch-drunk Loven. (And if you’re look for a spare oscar-season narrative, an Adam Sandler Oscar Breakthrough for Jay Kelly Coming in the sun year that paul thomas Anderson might finally win an oscar is a good one.) Despite the fact that he has never won, Anderson is a filmmaker who academy voters pay athenty much every time. And with One Battle AFTER ANOTHERhe”s delivered spreads HIS MEST ACCESSIBLE, AUDIENCE-FRIENDLY FILM SINCE Boogie Nights. IT’S A Straight-Up Action-Comedy That Doesn’t Get Bogged Down in The Excesses of Pynchon’s VinelandInstead Putting a Tight Focus on the Father-Daughter Relationship BetWeen DiCaprio’s and Infiniti’s Characters.

Intensation or swimming, Anderson’s masterpieces have carried with alienating elements, from Magnolia‘s rain of frogs to There will be blood‘s Gory denouement. “Accessible” May Be in the Eye of the Beholder with Pta, but after The master and Inherent vice Pushed as far as he’s ever pushed in the direction of formal and narrative standofffishfish, he’s been inching closer to something Friendlier to Mass audiences. Pantom thread was a romance, after all, howver comedically dark and twisted it was; Hen OPted for Pure Nostalgia with Licorice Pizza. Both Films Picked Up Best Picture and Best Director Nominations for PTA, but Both remained a bit limited in their appeal. If the academy was composed entireled which loved language was poison mushrooms and gree up in the sanry Fernando, Anderson’s Mantle Waul with oscar statues right now.

But Eight for Those Queasy About This Country’s Inexorable Turn Toward fascism, i Think One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Will Prove to be a Crowd-PleaSer: Well-Paced with action and COMEDIC Beats and with a Strong Undergirding of the Kind of Clear Emotional Through-Lines that Award Voters Go For. If i wasn’t already sold on the film’s oscar potential, its ending – which delivers CATHARSIS Over ambiguity in a way i was really expecting – convinced me. Couple that with a Campaign That Emphasizs Anderson’s Nearly Unparalleled Body of Work, and Warner has a ton to work with. YES, IT’S A LONG Road to March 15, and the Last Thing A Studio is to be saddled with the weight of too-early oscar expertations. But in a movie year that’s been yearning to take Shape, One Battle AFTER ANOTHER is what a lot of us have ben waiting for: the film to beat.