- 18 hours ago
PTA's moment has finally arrived! Join us as we examine why Paul Thomas Anderson's epic "One Battle After Another" deserves Oscar gold. From Leonardo DiCaprio's transformative performance to the film's masterful tonal balance, this American epic delivers spectacle and substance while wrapping revolution around a touching father-daughter story.
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00:00There are no hands on the clock.
00:02Why?
00:03Because they're not needed.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo!
00:07And today we're counting down our picks for the reasons that Paul Thomas Anderson's epic action thriller,
00:12One Battle After Another, deserves to take home the Oscars' biggest prize.
00:16VIVA LA REVOLUTION!
00:19Number 10. The Rebirth of the Grand American Epic.
00:23Next thing we know, Colonel Lockjaw's mobilized his task force into Bakhtan Cross
00:27and conducted a Class A raid on the chicken-licking frozen farm.
00:32Oh no, I love their nuggets.
00:36Well, this could mean a nugget shortage.
00:39Every few years, a film comes along that feels like it's taking a big swing at what America is and what it wants to be.
00:45One battle after another is that movie.
00:47It's loud, funny, angry, hopeful, and sprawling in a way studio movies rarely are anymore.
00:52A $130 million gamble that refuses to choose between spectacle and substance.
00:57Anderson uses the wide canvas to dig into the American dream and all the ways it gets twisted or remixed across generations.
01:04History class?
01:05Mhm.
01:10Teaching the right kind of history, I hope.
01:12Yet underneath all the fireworks, the film believes in possibility.
01:15That optimism, earned not cheap, is catnip for Academy voters.
01:19This is a movie that feels like it belongs in the history books, not just on playlists.
01:23It's big, bold, and built to last.
01:26Here's your restroom, okay?
01:27Let's check your sugar.
01:31You are gonna go through the bathroom, straight down the hall to the right, to the fire escape right now.
01:38Number nine, score and editing.
01:41Hi!
01:42Who's this?
01:43Who's this?
01:44Who's this?
01:45Who's this?
01:46This is Bob Ferguson.
01:47Ooh, who's this?
01:48My brother.
01:49Who's this?
01:50It's your man Tally Rand.
01:51Tally.
01:52Tally, my brother.
01:53My brother, listen man, you gotta help me out, man.
01:56Award seasons tend to reward movies where every piece fires in sync, and this one hums.
02:01Penny Greenwood's score is the film's secret engine.
02:03Buzzing, pounding, chirping into psychedelic crescendos, then sighing into melancholy.
02:08It sells the action, deepens the emotion, and stitches together all the genre pivots.
02:12Meanwhile, the editing syncs with that pulse.
02:15At 162 minutes, this should drag.
02:17It doesn't.
02:18Was she a rat?
02:24Yeah, she was.
02:29My dad told me she was a hero.
02:33Hey, stop banging your head.
02:34Stop banging your head.
02:37Stop banging your head on that.
02:38Okay.
02:39Sir, do you know your last name?
02:40No.
02:41The pace is quick, confident, and constantly throwing something new at the viewer.
02:45Big chase sequences stay readable.
02:47Jokes land cleanly.
02:48Emotional scenes linger just long enough.
02:50Add in muscular sound design that puts you in spinning cars and screaming streets,
02:54and you have a film where the craft isn't just invisible.
02:56It's unforgettable.
02:57Best picture voters love that.
02:59You're dragging in that wagon.
03:01Listen, I got HMEs.
03:03I got mortars.
03:04I got tear gas.
03:05I got whatever you guys need.
03:06But I'm unclear as to what the plan is.
03:08I'm in some direction.
03:10Don't be unclear.
03:11I got a plan for us.
03:13What is it?
03:14You're going to create a diversion?
03:15I'm going to blow something up.
03:16You know what?
03:17I want you to create a show, Pat.
03:21Number nine.
03:22Critics' consensus and awards trajectory.
03:24The critics' choice is one battle after another.
03:28Accepting on behalf of one battle after another is writer, producer, and director, Paul Thomas Anderson.
03:43You can't fake momentum, and Anderson's latest has been collecting it like loose change.
03:48Early screenings triggered raves, critics' groups planted their flags, and soon it was
03:52topping best of year lists from coast to coast.
03:54That rare mid-90s Metacritic score tells you everything.
03:57Critics with completely different taste profiles suddenly agreed on the same thing.
04:01That almost never happens anymore.
04:03More importantly, the industry is behind it.
04:18Directors love its ambition.
04:20Trades keep calling it the one to beat.
04:22PTA has the warmest reputation of his career, and voters lean toward people they want to applaud.
04:27Oscar campaigns are half politics, half art.
04:30Here, both winds are blowing the same direction.
04:32Does anybody have anything that they want to say to save me?
04:35Because, okay, um, um, I'd say this is the best time I ever had making a movie, and I feel like it shows.
04:45It's just a testament to being with people that you love.
04:48Number seven.
04:49A powerful ensemble cast.
04:51Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooderville Junction.
04:56Come on, baby, say it back to me.
04:58Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Hooderville Junction.
05:01Will no longer be so goddamn relevant.
05:03And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane on search for tomorrow.
05:06Because black people will be in the streets.
05:08Looking for a brighter day.
05:10The revolution will not be televised.
05:12This is one of those films where you keep waiting for a weak link and never find one.
05:16Tiana Taylor launches herself into the stratosphere as Perfidia.
05:20Equal parts fearless, funny, and unpredictable.
05:23Sean Penn's military psycho is the rare villain who's both laugh-out-loud ridiculous and genuinely skin-crawling.
05:28A monster who shouldn't be funny, but absolutely is.
05:31Then, Benicio Del Toro and Regina Hall appear to complicate everything with moral knots, loyalties, contradictions, and choices that refuse easy answers.
05:39Is that my weapon?
05:40Hang on.
05:41What's the plan?
05:42We gotta go, man.
05:43We gotta go.
05:44We gotta go.
05:45I'm gonna take him up on the roof.
05:46Across to my car and laugh his alley.
05:47Here are my keys.
05:48You drop him off, you call me.
05:49Latino Heat, come with me.
05:50No, no, no, man.
05:51I'm not going with you.
05:52No, I'm not going with them.
05:53I'm supposed to go with you.
05:54I need you, brother.
05:55Please, sensei.
05:56Sensei, sensei, please.
05:57Courage, Bob.
05:58Courage.
05:59Even minor roles feel alive.
06:01There's a sense that everyone is making a meal out of their part.
06:04Because the movie itself demands it.
06:06Ensembled Death is one of the quiet ingredients of Best Picture winners.
06:09This one is stacked like a feast.
06:11Their names are Bob and Willie Ferguson.
06:13They're up in Back Tan Cross.
06:17Back Tan Cross.
06:19You made me a reason to deploy in that town.
06:22Drugs and tacos.
06:23Got it.
06:24You get all the intel on the gathering spots.
06:26The hot spots for Teeny Bobbers.
06:28Number 6.
06:29The Heart.
06:30The father-daughter story.
06:31How did you get home?
06:32Well, with my car.
06:33You drove?
06:37So what are you, my babysitter?
06:38What, what, what?
06:39For all its chaos, one battle after another is grounded by something simple and universal.
06:44A dad trying to hold onto his daughter while the world catches fire.
06:47Bob and Willie's dynamic gives the movie stakes that aren't theoretical.
06:51Chase Infinity keeps us tethered to reality.
06:53She's curious, wary, hopeful, and fully aware that her father's past has become her burden.
06:58You got a purse?
06:59This is non-negotiable.
07:01Put it in your purse!
07:02Nobody's coming to get you, Bob.
07:03You know that, right?
07:04That's what you think.
07:05PTA treats their bond as the truth beneath all the noise.
07:09Revolutions crumble, conspiracies fade, heroes fall apart, but family still matters.
07:14The emotional punch sneaks up on you, which is why people stumble out of screenings charged
07:18up, not only from the detonations, but from the messy, tender story of love the chaos is
07:22wrapped around.
07:23Who is that?
07:24Who is that?
07:25Oh, they're just my friends.
07:26And they just, they have a red car like that, just driving a little loud, don't you think?
07:31It's just a car.
07:32And you told them they could do that?
07:33Yes.
07:34Told them to come to the house?
07:35Yes.
07:36Now, who's the one with the lipstick?
07:37What's that, what's that one's name?
07:39Bobo.
07:40Bobo.
07:41Now, is that a he or a she or a they?
07:43Dad, come on.
07:44Number 5.
07:45Technical Mastery on 35mm VistaVision.
07:47Unbelievable.
07:48Do I look just like her?
07:52No, not really.
07:55But you do on the inside, which makes you quite a risk around here.
08:03The daughter of a rat.
08:07Multiple Oscar nominee Paul Thomas Anderson has always been a virtuoso, but nobody expected
08:12him to turn into a full-blown action maestro.
08:14The movie is shot in handsome, old-school VistaVision on 35mm, and it looks gorgeous.
08:20Wide frames filled with grit, texture, and motion.
08:23The chases are tactile and hair-raising, clearly staged in real space with real stunts.
08:28Nothing feels rubbery or weightless.
08:30Best of all, the action always pushes the story instead of smothering it.
08:33In a blockbuster landscape numb with CG sameness, this feels shockingly physical.
08:38It's a wake-up call.
08:39This is what action cinema looks like when the filmmaker brings the same urgency to mayhem
08:44that his characters bring to the revolution.
08:46Perfidia Beverly Hills is a problem that keeps on giving.
08:53This revolution doesn't need another one of her running around.
08:58Shit's hard enough.
09:004.
09:01Leonardo DiCaprio's Performance
09:23Leo could have coasted here.
09:24Instead, the Oscar winner throws himself into one of his loosest, weirdest, and most vulnerable
09:29performances in years.
09:30As ghetto Pat, sorry, Bob Ferguson, he plays a revolutionary who's been passed by history,
09:35oscillating between bluster, comedy, and sudden clarity.
09:38The physical side of the performance is a treat.
09:57Tripping over furniture, scrambling through danger, reacting with silent era brilliance.
10:01But underneath the slapstick is real sadness and fear, especially where Willa is concerned.
10:06DiCaprio threads the needle between being a mess and a father who still wants to do right.
10:11His presence gives the movie star wattage, but his fragility gives it soul.
10:143.
10:33Political and Social Urgency
10:35Do you know where she is right now?
10:37I'm not sure.
10:38When's the last time you saw her?
10:40Uh, I saw her at the dance.
10:44Before you guys came into the dance?
10:46What's her number?
10:48She doesn't have a phone.
10:50Her dad doesn't let her, so.
10:53The only high school girl in America, Willa Ferguson, doesn't have a phone.
10:58This is the rare big budget movie that doesn't skirt the messy stuff.
11:01Power.
11:02Violence.
11:03Inequality.
11:04Racism.
11:05Paranoia.
11:06Immigration.
11:07It's all here.
11:08Not as background wallpaper, but as the engine of the story.
11:10The film picks up threads from 1960s radicalism and yanks them straight into the present,
11:14showing how old fights never really end.
11:16And I'm sorry about everything.
11:18Tranquilo, Bobby, tranquilo.
11:20We've been laid siege for hundreds of years.
11:23You did nothing wrong.
11:25Don't get selfish.
11:27Life.
11:29What makes the film land is that it isn't preachy.
11:32It's frantic, angry, humorous, and alive.
11:35Like we're watching America wrestle itself in real time.
11:37When Hollywood looks back on this moment,
11:39one battle after another is one of the films that feels like it captured something,
11:43instead of merely commenting on it.
11:45Preaching black love.
11:48Preaching black love.
11:51Number two.
11:52It's a masterful high-wire act.
11:54You know, I don't, I don't, I don't remember that part.
11:56All right.
11:57Let's just not nitpick over the password stuff.
11:59Look, this is Bob Ferguson.
12:00All right.
12:01You just called my house.
12:02Let's, let's cut the shit.
12:03I need the rendezvous point.
12:05What time is it?
12:07Look, Steve Lockjaw just attacked my home.
12:10I lost my daughter.
12:11This is Bob Ferguson.
12:13You understand?
12:14I don't remember any more of this.
12:15I don't remember any more of this code speak.
12:17All right.
12:18Let's just get on with what is the rendezvous point?
12:20If this movie had tried to stay tidy, it would have died on the table.
12:23Instead, PTA embraces chaos and turns it into a rhythm.
12:27One second, it's a screwball chase.
12:29The next, it's a paranoid thriller.
12:30Then suddenly, it's raw family drama or political satire.
12:34And yet, it works.
12:35Where is she?
12:36I don't know.
12:37I gotta charge my phone to find out.
12:38Here, use my phone.
12:39I can't.
12:40They'll trace that phone.
12:41I gotta use my phone.
12:42Let's do that at my place.
12:43We gotta go.
12:44Your place?
12:45Yeah.
12:46You got a gun at your place?
12:47I'll get you a gun.
12:48You have a gun, right?
12:49Okay?
12:50Yes.
12:51Okay.
12:52Right now, it's a goddamn roundup.
12:54I gotta deal with this shit.
12:56The shifting tones bring the audience closer in, not shutting them out.
13:00Wild jokes bleed into sharp emotion.
13:02Tension bursts into absurdity.
13:03The story zigs when you expect it to zag.
13:05And the runtime flies by like a fever dream with purpose.
13:08This is a movie that trusts viewers to enjoy complexity rather than fear it.
13:12And voters love when the ambition pays off.
13:14Steve Lockjaw just attacked my home.
13:16I lost my daughter.
13:18This is Bob Ferguson.
13:19You understand?
13:20I don't remember any more of this.
13:22I don't remember any more of this code speak, alright?
13:24Let's just get on with what is the rendezvous point?
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13:41Number one, the overdue narrative for Paul Thomas Anderson.
13:46You guys are being so generous with this affection for me and this film and I'll take it.
13:53I'll take it with the love that it's given.
13:56Let's be honest, this feels like the moment.
13:58PTA has been one of the most respected filmmakers alive for over 25 years.
14:02He's been nominated across eras, genres and phases of American cinema without ever winning the big one.
14:08One battle after another might be his strongest argument yet.
14:11What's in these hills?
14:13Sisters of the Brave Beaver.
14:15Who are they?
14:16They grow weed.
14:18They're nuns.
14:19Is that some kind of sick joke on God?
14:22I'm not joking.
14:23It's ambitious, but accessible.
14:25Political, but personal.
14:26Stylish, but dense and substantial.
14:28It shows growth rather than repetition, proving he's still hungry, still curious, still pushing himself into new lanes.
14:35If the Academy wants to crown a body of work and give best picture to a film that genuinely deserves it, this is their cleanest shot.
14:41No tokenism.
14:42No apology.
14:43Just the right movie at the right time.
14:45And finally, I want to say thank you to Paul Anderson.
14:49It is a privilege and a pleasure to work with you.
14:53I love you.
14:54And I'm so grateful.
14:55Have you seen one battle after another?
14:56If so, what did you think?
14:58Should it take home the Oscars' biggest prize?
14:59Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
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