One Battle After Another (2025)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti

Have I Seen It Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Clearly, One Battle After Another is one of the best films of the year. It is entertaining, visually interesting, well-acted, and probably most importantly, pointedly timely*. DiCaprio may be giving his best performance here, leaning into his aging persona without feeling the need to make it a punchline, as he occasionally did in Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood (2019). Some of the villains are a little over-wrought. Penn chews scenery regularly, but the masters he serves are funny, although I’ll admit just how amusing they are diminishes as time goes on.

And that’s the only real complaint I have about the film. At times, it feels too long. Themes are visited and re-visited perhaps one too many times. Points are perhaps belabored, distracting from the whole.

But let’s be candid: I’m not going to be the first person to say that this film runs a bit long in places. I’m not going to be the first person to say that Anderson’s films tend to run too long. Not by a long-shot. It may be his signature. What’s more, I can’t imagine that this complaint hasn’t gotten back to him. He’s been making films that felt long for his entire career. We can forgive this when James Cameron does it. We can forgive Martin Scorsese when he does it. We can’t just walk into a Paul Thomas Anderson film, accept that he is going to do it, and then enjoy it despite there being breaks throughout the film where our attention is free to wander? Of course we can do it, and judging by the responses, most people are.

*Good rule of thumb: if the conservative internet ecosphere complains about a film, it is probably worth seeing. If they are focused on one element of a film, doubly so. If the film wasn’t worth watching, they probably wouldn’t cover it in the first place. At the very least, their coverage wouldn’t find its way into your social media feeds.

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Mia Therapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. Brand new.

Did I Like It: At it’s basic level, each new Wes Anderson film—at least after he conclusively proved his mettle with The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)—feels like it could be something new. Animation? Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). An alien invasion story? Asteroid City (2023). A breezy journey through a highbrow magazine? The French Dispatch (2021). So, too, the thought of Anderson bringing his meticulous and distinctive visual style to an espionage story? It suddenly becomes appointment viewing for me.

And unfortunately, I may be of the mind that Anderson is stuck in particular themes and stories, no matter what genre with which a new film might have a tenuous relationship. The style is largely still there, although a few shots towards the end of the film embrace movement that isn’t a tracking shot. Every item—and especially every book—looks to be at least sixty years old (it helps here that the film is meant to take place in 1950). Right angles, quirky line readings, and plaid abound.

I’m not expecting Anderson to abandon everything he holds dear in favor of a new genre, but the themes are the same. A general storybook quality? Check. Awkward love story? Check. Some sort of redemption arc for a distant, larger than life father? Also, check.

I’m not necessarily mad or even disappointed that Anderson gave me exactly what I expected from the film. To the twee, indie film set, he’s as reliable as Michael Bay or McDonalds*. Can we not want more from a filmmaker who made his name initially making surprising choices? Does he not want more from the films he has yet to make?

*Yeah, I get it. That sounds like I’m mad and/or disappointed.

The French Dispatch (2021)

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux

Have I Seen it Before: No… Although I did spend 2021 reading most of every edition printed in that year of The New Yorker, so even before the first frame reached my eyes, the film felt familiar.

Did I Like It: It’s a bit sad to report that—unlike the rest of Anderson’s films—this film is merely equal to the sum of its parts. It is meticulously designed. To receive anything less from Anderson would feel like a betrayal. It is persistently charming, and more than occasionally quite amusing. There are few filmmakers working today who work at every level of the filmmaking process to eschew viewer’s expectations of how a film should be put together.

Beyond his normal bag of tricks, Anderson does reach for new surprises beyond putting out the most singularly twee films ever imagined. Several shots in “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” credibly look like they might have actually been shot in the 1940s. Has any modern director convincingly made a film which feels as if it could have been shot at any other time than the precise moment in which it was produced? A timeless quality will help the film age better than most.

Some might be put off by the aspect ratio, but looking at the shot composition as something akin to the column inches of a publication makes the entire affair fit together like a meticulously crafted work of art, which serves as more evidence that Anderson has once again hit its target.

And yet, not all of the film adds up in a completely satisfying manner. The connective through-line for the film—involving the death of Dispatch publisher Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray, channeling the same understated energy he has brought to a number of Anderson’s films)—is the least engaging main plot of any film in Anderson’s oeuvre. The sudden switch to animation feels jarring. I can’t imagine Anderson didn’t mean to do it that way, but it doesn’t feel as if he did… which does ten to fly in the face of the ethos of the whole film.

And yet, I can’t say I didn’t dislike the film entirely, either. I don’t know if I could stand to read one more word of The New Yorker, but I wouldn’t mind thumbing through an issue or two of the Dispatch. If the slavish homage can outpace the source, then the flaws of either may not matter anymore.