Leonardo DiCaprio’s One Battle After Another Praised as ‘Insanely Great’: ‘Cinema at Its Purest’

“It’s a live wire that drops in the first scene, setting off sparks for the next 162 minutes,” writes one critic

Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another (2025).

One Battle After Another is getting some serious buzz.

The upcoming Paul Thomas Anderson-directed action-thriller, based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, sees Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, a former revolutionary figure who is being hunted by Sean Penn’s police character, Steven Lockjaw.

One Battle After Another features a starry supporting cast including Regina Hall, Benicio del Toro and Teyana Taylor — and the film already holds a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Calling it an “insanely great action movie,” Deadline‘s Pete Hammond further praises One Battle After Another as “an extraordinary crackerjack hell of a film that has met its time.”

“Some of it is so absurdly funny it looks like real life and art have somehow merged into the most pertinent of ways for 2025.

Mind-bending brilliance doesn’t begin to describe it,” he also writes, calling the entire cast “sensational” and noting “hilarious scenes” from DiCaprio, 50.

Teyana Taylor and Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another (2025).
In agreement is Linda Marric of HeyUGuys, who writes, “One Battle After Another is cinema at its purest — uncompromising, exhilarating, and alive.

Here Paul Thomas Anderson has given us a masterpiece that doesn’t just entertain but rattles the bones.”

“It’s a live wire that drops in the first scene, setting off sparks for the next 162 minutes,” says Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com, giving the film a 4-star review.

Not all the reviews are positive, though.

As William Bibbiani of TheWrap writes, “It’s possible, maybe even likely, that Paul Thomas Anderson has stuffed so much into one movie that a lot people will find something to take away from it.

All I see is the lack of focus.”

“Paul Thomas Anderson’s dark comedy One Battle After Another turns overreaching into an art form,” adds Keith Uhlich of Slant Magazine.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, DiCaprio compared his character to an action hero who is more equipped to handle dangerous missions.

“He’s trying to raise a daughter, and he doesn’t know how to do it right, when his daughter gets captured,” said the Academy Award winner.

“Why take the bathrobe off? You gotta go.

You gotta go get your girl.”

“It’s like the opposite of Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible.

[Bob] does everything wrong.

And he doesn’t land or stick any of his stunts,” DiCaprio joked.

Hall, 54, told PEOPLE in July that the “genius” of One Battle After Another writer-director Anderson, 55, is that “there’s no part that’s insignificant.”

“Even if they have one line, he’s so deliberate in his filmmaking,” she added at the time.

“And I’m really excited for audiences to experience the film.”

One Battle After Another is in theaters Sept. 26.