InCinemas SG

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DIGITAL

IMAX

Opening Date

25 Sep 2025

Rating

M18 Coarse Language

Runtime

162 mins

Language

English with English & Chinese subtitles

Genre

Drama, Thriller

Director

Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast

Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Wood Harris, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Alana Haim, Chase Infiniti

Synopsis

From Warner Bros. Pictures comes One Battle After Another, written, directed and produced by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Academy Award and BAFTA winners Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro, and Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti.

Washed-up revolutionary Bob (DiCaprio) exists in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited, self-reliant daughter, Willa (Infiniti). When his evil nemesis (Penn) resurfaces after 16 years and she goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her, father and daughter both battling the consequences of his past.

Reviews

By InCinemas 24 Sep 2025

Viva la revolución!

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Long has Paul Thomas Anderson poured his all into his work – priding in his multi-hyphenated role as writer-director-producer for nearly every film he’s done in the past three decades, no two alike, varying like fingerprints on one man’s hand.

Now, four years since his critically-acclaimed coming-of-age film Licorice Pizza, he returns with epic action thriller One Battle After Another, starring an ensemble cast of Leonardo Dicaprio, Sean Penn, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro, and Chase Infiniti making her feature film debut.

One Battle After Another starts off guns ablazing with revolutionary group, the French 75, freeing imprisoned migrants by the Mexican border. Led by a fiery Perfidia Beverly Hills (a magnetic Taylor), the revolution also includes Mae (Haim), Deandra (Hall) and more, but most importantly Perfidia’s eventual lover “Ghetto Pat" (DiCaprio). Perfidia confronts an incellous Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Penn) in his office at the internment camp, an encounter that throws them into an immediate dance of power play that’s both perplexing and amusing.

Cut to Perfidia and Ghetto Pat’s blossoming romance that leads to a pregnancy. The former is unbothered by the French 75’s activities potentially harming her baby, an unfortunately telling characteristic of hers that eventually leaves Ghetto Pat to raise their daughter Charlene as a single dad, assuming the identities of Bob and Willa Ferguson.

16 years later, Bob is now a paranoid drunk stoner with a teenage daughter (Infiniti) he worries over (because raising a child in this messed up world will do that to ya.) Thankfully for him, he’s taught her well – not so much “never talk to strangers” but more “trust a stranger with your life if they recite a secret code to you”. This comes in handy when Deandra shows up at Willa’s school dance to whisk her to safety as Lockjaw and his men are hot in pursuit of the latter.

Turns out there’s a possibilty of Lockjaw having fathered Willa so he’s on a mission to erase any evidence of it for the sake of being in the good graces of the Christmas Adventurers Club – a secret society of white supremacists that’s one alphabet away from being an obvious stand-in for the triple K – because Santa forbid he has intercourse with a Black woman!

There’s many facets and layers to One Battle After Another. Is it a film about the revolution? A social commentary on the fascist white supremacy? Or a stirring father-daughter journey in life? It’s all of the above and more, making sense of its name when these come into play. What makes the film work like a dream is Anderson’s indisputably clear vision that binds them all seamlessly. The film’s aesthetic is so specific, it’s one of the grounding factors that allow Jonny Greenwood’s manic score and Michael Bauman’s cinematography to shine.

On the acting front, DiCaprio turns in a stellar performance as the hobo-esque Bob – possibly the most frantic and dishevelled we’ve seen him since The Revenant (2015) – not because he’s a drunk but because he’s a father worried sick for his only child (he may have forgotten the secret codes but the teachings of the revolution has stayed with him.) Matching that energy in his own way is Penn’s stoic yet unhinged take on Lockjaw, making for the most laughs in this otherwise dramatic action thriller. The comedy is clever, quick, and never forced – a true testament to Anderson’s knack for these things and his talented cast.

One Battle After Another is as much a film about a revolution as Licorice Pizza was about the oil crisis. A point significant enough to impact the film’s narrative and highlight contemporary problems without being too apparent. The humour may be aplenty but it never draws focus from the real-ife issues at hand – it’s all fun and games but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, there is sincerity in bringing to light more pressing matters which is done coherently well here. One Battle After Another is a riot and a half worth experienced on the big screen. Viva la revolución!
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