10 h. ago Chase Infiniti: ‘My parents freaked out more than me when I said I was acting opposite Leonardo DiCaprio’

The breakout star of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (the Guardian’s No 1 film of 2025) on learning karate, her love of car chases – and how she got her name You could hardly ask for a better movie debut than Chase Infiniti’s in One Battle After Another, even if the 24-year-old actor was very much thrown in at the deep end. As Willa, the teenage daughter of former revolutionaries, she was called on to do shoot-outs, car chases, karate, and to hold her own against heavyweights like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Regina King. “My whole life has literally changed in the last six months,” she says.Tell us how you got this role? Was there a giant karate tournament where you had to defeat all your rivals?No, thank God. I did six months of auditioning for the film while I was working on my first project, Presumed Innocent. So I was in California when I sent in my first self-tape. And about a month after that, the casting director called me and was like: ...

Politics

10 h. ago Best films of 2025 in the UK: No 1 – One Battle After Another

Leonardo DiCaprio is a former revolutionary searching for his daughter in Paul Thomas Anderson’s exhilaratingly audacious counterculture epic• The best films of 2025 in the UK• More on the best culture of 2025Paul Thomas Anderson’s countercultural drama-thriller One Battle After Another, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, is a formal enigma that has perplexed, provoked and entranced, and the year ends with no definitive consensus as to its exact meaning. A rare naysayer is screenwriter and film-maker Paul Schrader, who commented tersely online: “Film-making at level A+, but try as I might I couldn’t muster up an ounce of empathy for Leo DiCaprio or Sean Penn. I kept waiting for them to die.”But that’s why the film is gripping: there is indeed no empathy for its two unlovely leading males, and their mortality and vulnerability has a kind of unwinding, entropic energy. They are heading for disaster. And yes, the film-making is A+ or A++; it is supercharged with pleasure at i...

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4 d. ago One Battle After Another defeats rivals in London Critics’ Circle film awards nominations

Paul Thomas Anderson’s counter-culture thriller scores nine nods, ahead of Hamnet and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, with Leonardo DiCaprio in contention for actor of the yearOne Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, has consolidated its place as the awards-season leader in emerging with the most nominations from the London Critics’ Circle film awards.One Battle After Another, a counter-culture thriller loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, picked up nine nominations, including film of the year, director and screenwriter of the year for Anderson, and actor of the year for DiCaprio. Co-stars Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn were nominated in the supporting categories while Chase Infiniti was nominated for breakthrough performer. Continue reading...

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8 d. ago The 15 best films of 2025, from Mickey 17 to One Battle After Another

This was a cinematic year of vampires, clones, restless mothers, maybe-ETs and Leonardo DiCaprio struggling to remember complex revolutionary passwords. Clarisse Loughrey has counted down the very best

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1 week ago Golden Globe nominations: One Battle After Another leads the charge

Sinners, Hamnet and Sentimental Value also key contenders for first major awards ceremony of the season, while Bradley Cooper, Sydney Sweeney and Brendan Fraser amongst those snubbed• The best films of 2025At present, the mantelpiece of Paul Thomas Anderson remains strikingly light on major trophies. Despite being responsible for some of the films widely acknowledged to be the best of the century so far, including There Will Be Blood, The Master and Magnolia, the writer-director is yet to win an Oscar, Golden Globe or more than one Bafta (original screenplay for 2021’s Licorice Pizza).Monday’s Golden Globe nominations suggest this is about to change, with his countercultural epic One Battle After Another leading the pack of nominees with nine mentions on the shortlist, including for best comedy or musical, best director, best original screenplay, leading actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, leading actor for Chase Infinity, supporting actress for Teyana Taylor and two chances to scoop suppo...

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2 w. ago One Battle After Another gains Oscars traction after early awards season wins

Paul Thomas Anderson’s comedy thriller named best film by Gotham awards and New York Film Critics CirclePaul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed comedy thriller One Battle After Another has emerged as an early best picture frontrunner as the awards season kicks off.The Thomas Pynchon adaptation, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as an ex-revolutionary searching for his daughter, was named best feature at Monday’s Gotham awards. “I didn’t expect this, actually,” Anderson said on stage. “I started to think I didn’t know what was going on.” Continue reading...

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