3 d. ago The revolution will be in VistaVision: what are the politics of One Battle After Another?

Paul Thomas Anderson’s thrilling new film has irked some on the right and galvanised others on the left – but its politics are more complicated than they initially seemAbout two dozen movies have topped the box office in 2025, and it’s safe to say that Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is the only one that depicts its protagonists freeing arrested immigrants from detention centers. The movie doesn’t face much competition for the title of most political weekend-topper of the year; superhero pictures such as Captain America: Brave New World perpetually tell the most anodyne stories possible, even when they’re supposedly about Washington-based conspiracies; Sinners conceals some of its bigger ideas within a crime-and-horror vampire story; even Mickey 17, another riskily expensive Warner Bros movie from a beloved auteur with political overtones, has genre-movie trappings. On the other hand, some rightwing pundits suggested in all seriousness that Warner should have delayed...

Politics

4 d. ago Jezebels, race kink and Cardi B: in One Battle After Another, Black women are still stereotypes

With its hyper-sexualised Black female revolutionary and fetishised depiction of interracial relationships, Paul Thomas Anderson’s much-lauded latest raises questions about how white male directors depict Black womenIt’s hard to watch One Battle After Another in the days following the death of fugitive Black liberation activist, Assata Shakur, and not have some questions about how white male film-makers depict revolutionary Black women on screen. Many words have already been written about the good in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film – some say “masterpiece” – including a five-star review in the Guardian. The electrifying pace of the action; that instant-classic car chase sequence and Benicio del Toro’s heroically chill Sensei Sergio, have all been justly praised. So let’s take this as read.But if a film is worth seeing, then it’s worth taking seriously and in this case that involves asking: dear, revered PTA, what is up with you and Black women? We know Anderson is careful and del...

Events

5 d. ago Leonardo DiCaprio’s One Battle After Another tops box office but divides market analysts

The new Paul Thomas Anderson thriller made $22 million in the US on its opening weekend

Events

7 d. ago The Guide #210: Is One Battle After Another finally Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscars moment?

In this week’s newsletter: The latest from the American virtuoso director is a big, swing-for-the-fences hit that looks certain to be an awards season contenderTruly, it is a hallowed date for cinephiles, Letterboxd addicts, film bros and people who will only watch movies in 70mm. Yes, happy One Battle After Another release day to all who celebrate.For card-carrying members of the tribe (and I’m absolutely one of them), the arrival of a new Paul Thomas Anderson film is an event equal in magnitude to Christmas Day meets the World Cup final meets McDonald’s bringing back the McRib. PTA – as the heads call him – may not be the most famous director of his age (Spielberg, Cameron, Scorsese, Nolan and even namesake Wes Anderson are more recognisable to the average filmgoer), but he is surely the most adored among his fans, a film-maker incapable of making a bad film. Continue reading...

Events

8 d. ago Paul Thomas Anderson's 'One Battle After Another' brings revolution to the (very) big screen

Paul Thomas Anderson has spent about 20 years writing “One Battle After Another.”

Events

8 d. ago Sean Penn ‘not surprised’ by Charlie Kirk shooting: ‘This kind of horror was coming into fashion’

Penn plays a white supremacist in Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie, ‘One Battle After Another’

Events

2 w. ago BRIAN VINER reviews One Battle After Another: Paul Thomas Anderson has made something Academy Award winningly special

Now that he's turned 50 and his baby-faced good looks have faded, Leonardo DiCaprio is becoming an expert at playing middle-aged men gone to seed.

Events

2 w. ago ‘I’m a hustler, a grinder’: Teyana Taylor on music, motherhood and One Battle After Another

She was discovered by Pharrell Williams, signed by Kanye West and worked with Beyoncé – all by her early 20s. Now the star of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film is creating a buzz in HollywoodTeyana Taylor is – as she often says to interviewers – the entertainment equivalent of “a Glade plug-in” air freshener: put her in “any socket” and she will make “every room smell good”. And, at 34, she has the CV to prove it. After kicking off her career at 15 as a choreographer for Beyoncé (she later showcased her own moves to millions in the headline-grabbing video for Kanye West’s 2016 single Fade), the New York native began making her own critically acclaimed, cutting-edge R&B. She has also acted in a slew of movies and TV shows – including an award-winning turn as a mother who kidnaps her son from the care system in 2023’s A Thousand and One – and worked as a creative director for brands and a host of other musicians.But Taylor also likens herself to another household item. “I am a sp...

Events

2 w. ago Leonardo DiCaprio's new movie One Battle After Another receives five

Paul Thomas Anderson's latest movie offering One Battle After Another has won phenomenal praise and garnered Oscar buzz among critics. 

Events

2 w. ago One Battle After Another review – Paul Thomas Anderson’s thrillingly helter

Anderson updates Thomas Pynchon for the era of Ice roundups, pitting shaggy revolutionary Leonardo DiCaprio against cartoonish forces of reactionOne of the great creative bromances has flowered again: Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon. Having adapted Pynchon’s Inherent Vice for the screen in 2015, Anderson has now taken a freer rein with his 1990 novel Vineland, creating a bizarre action thriller driven by pulpy comic-book energy and transformed political indignation, keeping his pedal at all times welded to the metal.It’s a riff on the now recognisable Anderson-Pynchonian idea of counterculture and counter-revolution, absorbing the paranoid style of American politics into a screwball farcical resistance, with a jolting, jangling, nerve-shredding score by Jonny Greenwood. It’s partly a freaky-Freudian diagnosis of father-daughter dysfunction – juxtaposed with the separation of migrant children and parents at the US-Mexico border – and a very serious, relevant response to the U...

Events

2 w. ago One Battle After Another review – Leonardo DiCaprio clowns his way through a ferocious American masterpiece

Paul Thomas Anderson has directed a swaggering, funny and timely action epic, where momentum never lets up and supporting actors Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor steal the show

Events

2 w. ago One Battle After Another review: Leonardo DiCaprio romps through 2025's coolest film

Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and many more are a riotous, chaotic blast in yet another Paul Thomas Anderson masterwork

Events

2 w. ago Teyana Taylor says ‘it’s no time to be shy’ when working with Leonardo DiCaprio

The 34-year-old stars alongside the Oscar winner in One Battle After Another.

Politics

3 w. ago Winter of the Crow review – Lesley Manville commands cold war thriller

Toronto film festival: the Oscar nominee makes for a compelling heroine in a solid and intermittently suspenseful tale of a professor stuck in a nightmareThe specific brilliance of Lesley Manville had been on display for those who knew where to look long before her first Oscar nomination. She’d been part of the enviable Mike Leigh troupe (her first nomination should have been for Another Year) and a permanent small-screen fixture, even if the size of her roles hadn’t correlated to the size of her talent. But after Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s singular magnum opus, Manville has enjoyed a spectacular boom, a long-deserved reward for her and an even bigger one for those of us watching.The role came as she was entering her 60s, a period that can often leave female actors with grimly limited options, but she’s bucked the trend, not just through the sheer amount of work she’s found but also the unusual variety. She’s avoided the post-Book Club subgenre of mostly patronising come...

Events