One Battle After Another
One Battle After Another
Today marks the release of what some are calling the best movie of the year, or even the past few years, and this is in 2025 where we already heard that about Sinners months ago. The film is P.T. Anderson’s One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and it’s just set a record for the director’s catalogue, which includes a stunning array of classic films.
One Battle After Another now holds the record for the highest critic-scored P.T. Anderson film per Rotten Tomatoes critic scores, and by a solid margin. That’s significant because of the other films this is stacked up against. The list:
One Battle After Another
RT
- One Battle After Another (2025) – 98% critic score
- Boogie Nights (1997) – 91% critic score
- There Will Be Blood (2007) – 91% critic score
- Phantom Thread (2017) – 91% critic score
- Licorice Pizza (2021) – 90% critic score
- Magnolia (1999) – 82%
- Hard Eight (1996) – 82% critic score
- Punch-Drunk Love – 79% critic score
I mean, you can see what I mean. At least half of those are considered some of the best genre films in each category, the highest-profile of which may be There Will Be Blood, but you could certainly make the argument for Boogie Nights as well. Magnolia’s 82% feels a bit off 26 years later, given the status that movie eventually amassed, and it remains one of Tom Cruise’s best performances before he went off to save the world eight times in Mission Impossible movies.
Despite all this, P.T. Anderson has never won Best Picture for any of these movies, nor has he won Best Director, despite several nominations in each category. Daniel Day-Lewis did win an Oscar for Best Actor in There Will Be Blood, but that was beaten out for Best Picture by No Country For Old Men which I mean, fair, honestly. What a year that was.
(L-R) Winners for Best Actor (“There Will Be Blood”) Daniel Day-Lewis, for Best Supporting Actress (“Michael Clayton”) Tilda Swinton, for Best Actress (“La Vie En Rose”) Marion Cotillard and for Best Supporting Actor (“No Country For Old Men”) Javier Bardem pose with their trophies during the 80th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California on February 24, 2008. AFP PHOTO / ROBYN BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
Right now, it seems like One Battle After Another may be squaring off with Sinners for Best Picture this coming year, as it’s hard to think of other films that are quite on the level of either. Sinners, however, was more beloved by audiences with a 96% score and made a huge $366 million worldwide. One Battle After Another will not come close in either category, not that it matters for a prestige award like an Oscar, and P.T. Anderson certainly seems like he’s due.
One Battle After Another is out today, and here’s the synopsis so you can decide for yourself if it sounds interesting:
“Bob is a washed-up revolutionary who lives in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter, Willa. When his evil nemesis resurfaces and Willa goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her as both father and daughter battle the consequences of their pasts.”
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