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 Departed (2006)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Any time I hear “Gimme Shelter” I can’t help but think about the film (I was surprised by just how much the Stones tune actually does appear in the film). I heard the song on the radio this morning and it became clear to me just how much I wanted to re-watch the film today.

Only, my DVD—which I probably haven’t watched in fifteen years wouldn’t play. Set aside the horror upon realizing that physical media might one day degrade even if kept in essentially ideal conditions, I was glad a streaming option existed.

Did I Like It: Set aside all of the pointed commentary about how Scorsese’s Oscar win for this film was less about the actual qualities of the film and more about how profoundly he had been robbed in years past. Set aside the fact that at it’s core it is a very basic cops and gangster story, with the requisite byzantine plot that needs the audience’s full attention, meaning it would not be the kind of wide release hit if it were released today*. Set aside the fact that I’m not entirely sure Alec Baldwin didn’t think he was in some kind of broad comedy here.

This is quite likely the last great performance we’re going to get from Jack Nicholson. I’ve written in other reviews that he—more than maybe any other movie star in the history of the moving picture—is able to make objectively reprehensible characters undeniably charismatic, and even likable. If that’s not enough to recommend a film, I don’t know what is.

*That might read as commentary on the eventual awards and financial fate of Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), but its more a commentary on the fact that we so rarely get those kind of adult-oriented action thrillers anymore.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons

Have I Seen it Before: nope, and as I type this, neither have you. I managed to finagle my way into a press screening on Wednesday. I even had a notion to finish the review before the film was officially released on Friday, but…

Did I Like It: I honestly needed a bit of time to really come to a reasonable opinion about the film. The phrase “this is Scorsese’s best movie since Goodfellas (1990)” (including the obligatory citation of the year of the film) kept wandering through my head. One does not want to lean to closely on hyperbole, but:

This is Scorsese’s best movie since Goodfellas (1990). I’ve liked everything he’s done, as he is the only guardian angel left of the movies, it seems. People like to turn their nose up at The Departed (2006), but I loved the hell out of that movie. I’d even be willing to watch the first two-thirds of New York Stories (1989) if the opportunity presented itself, I even enjoyed The Irishman (2019), despite violating the rules of how we were all supposed to take in the film as I watched it in pieces on my phones when I had the time.

Here, too, we are asked for something of a time commitment, as the film clocks in at 3 hours 45 minutes, but there’s not a moment where this feels like it is asking too much from us. The performances are pitch-perfect throughout, with Gladstone and Plemons being revelations. It is unflinching. It is upsetting. There is a stretch (largely after Plemons character enters the film) that it becomes one of film’s greatest absurdist tragicomedies. It all ends in a sequence you will likely never see coming, but from which you will come away thinking it was the absolute perfect way to drive the themes home and to wrap up the storylines.

It’s everything you could want from a Scorsese movie, and it manages to surprise you throughout. Go see it as soon as possible, and do so on the big screen. If for no other reason than there is very little of the year left, I can’t possibly fathom a scenario in which this is not my favorite film of the year.

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Director: Baz Luhrmann

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, Harold Perrineau, John Leguizamo

Have I Seen it Before: I can say with certainty that couple with being alive and conscious in the 1990s, and having HBO for most of that time, I had plenty of opportunities to see the movie. Ultimately, owing probably due to a measure of unavoidable—but able to be shed—adolescent chauvinism, I don’t think I got much of anywhere past the scene where Romeo (DiCaprio) first lays eyes on Juliet (Danes).

Did I Like It: A Shakespeare adaptation is about the easiest thing not to screw up, sort of like the dramatic equivalent of boxed Mac & Cheese in the food world. As such, it can be the purview of the profoundly lazy. Dress everyone up in period-specific attire, don’t futz with the script too much (it’s got to help that Shakespeare can’t bring a case to arbitration with the WGA), and you even get bonus credit if you just copy and paste the full text and make us sit there for four hours.

But really, you should get even more credit for fitting the expansive scope of any one of his plays into a manageable running time.

This would count then, wouldn’t it?

Real credit, though, should be given when a Shakespearean adaptation reaches for the Orson Welles standard and tries to make that text work in a context that feels closer to the audience for which it is intended. One could have just put DiCaprio (who, let’s face it, has more interesting work ahead of him after he could sell an army’s worth of tickets with just his face alone) in the role and called it a day. Actually giving a MTV-obsessed generation some identification with the material, all the way to the point where the various Montagues and Capulets might have been equally at home in a season of The Real World as in Verona (or Verona Beach), would have made Welles—and quite possibly the bard himself—proud.

This doesn’t even begin to cover the delightful, anarchic absurdism at the core of any Luhrmann work, does it?

Titanic (1997)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Bill Paxton, Billy Zane

Have I Seen It Before?: I’m relatively sure I came to the film late. In December 1997, the stink of the massive delays with the movie led me—my analysis of the movie business as a thirteen-year-old were not to be dismissed—to insist that Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) would win the box office that particular opening weekend. I may still owe a school chum a couple of Star Wars CCG cards as recompense for my folly.

I did eventually see the film during its unparalleled run at the box office over the next few months. Everyone did. Girls wanted to see the movie. Now, of course, I ended up seeing the movie by myself, but one did want to be conversant in the vernacular of the age.

Not that I was talking with too terribly many girls either.

Ahem.

Did I like it?: There’s an interesting trend with the writer James Cameron. His tastes are pretty basic*. The Terminator (1984) is essentially just a slasher movie. Aliens (1986) is a war movie. True Lies (1994) is a Bond movie merges with what is essentially a family sitcom. Avatar (2009) is a pulp sci-fi novel. Even Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) is essentially Shane (1953) with robots. So, too, is this film a very basic romance story. In the hands of any other filmmaker, Cameron’s scripts could be a real drag.

Cameron the filmmaker is at or near the top of his field. I hesitate to think of a filmmaker who has been able to more successfully buck the studio system in favor of his gigantic budgets. Even Orson Welles was only able to pull of the trick once. Cameron does it time and time again. Even when he had to work with a shoestring, he knew better than most how to make each shot work in symbiosis with one another. His words may be pedestrian, but the way he speaks the language of cinema are second to none. The cast is fine, although I don’t think I’d be alone in thinking that DiCaprio’s best work still lay ahead of him, after he was sufficiently freed from the burden of being a teen heartthrob. Package that all together with one of James Horner’s finest scores, and you might not even notice that the film runs over three hours, entering that hallowed ground of movies that had to be split up into two VHS tapes (and even had to run on two discs in the here and now).

But let’s get serious. If Jack (DiCaprio) and Rose (Winslet) hadn’t been making out so close to the crow’s nest, then none of us would be still talking about the damned boat, I’d imagine.

*I know. Who am I to judge?

The Aviator (2004)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, Alan Alda

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, but it’s becoming abundantly clear that I may only remember about 10% of movies I saw in the mid-aughts. In some cases, that’s great. In other cases, I wished I only remembered about 10% of everything that happened in the mid-aughts.

Did I Like It: Yes. Way better than the 10% I remembered watching.

On first blush it doesn’t feel like DiCaprio is the right casting for Howard Hughes. He’s too boyish, even now in his middle age. Thus, the film wisely only hints at the broken man the tycoon would eventually become. It also doesn’t opt for a happy, if truncated ending, a la Ed Wood (1994) that leaves their doomed protagonist on top. Hughes is a doomed man here, and that would have to be the essential quality in bringing the character to the screen, something that Warren Beatty never quite captured in his long gestating picture about Hughes, Rules Don’t Apply (2016).

Thus, as the brash young man who needed the last two film cameras in all of Hollywood, DiCaprio is perfectly selected. With the possible exception of Cate Blanchett ably impersonating Katharine Hepburn, the other performances tend to blend into the background. This might read as criticism, especially given the high number of stars that round out the cast, but the electric quality of DiCaprio’s Hughes makes his inevitable fall that much more tragic.

Stylistically, it is an odd film for Scorsese. He embraces the computer tools of the era to display Hughes’ daring flights. It puts the camera where it might otherwise not want to go, but it also ages the proceedings in a way I can’t imagine Scorsese wanted when he set out to make the film. All too often DiCaprio looks like an actor sitting on a soundstage, rather than someone flying a plane only he believes will reach the air.

Gangs of New York (2002)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. I’ve been kind of on a Scorsese jag lately. Thanks, Joker (2019), I guess.

Did I like it?: Yes, but to qualify that statement I will say I watched during spare moments on my phone. Thus, I’m almost entirely sure that I did not watch the film in the way Scorsese intended to take it in, nor can I weigh in as to whether or not the movie is too long.

I’m a bit awestruck that this film ever got released. It is the meeting point of three of the most wildly controlling forces in American cinema, director Scorsese, star Day-Lewis, and producer Harvey Weinstein*. That it was only delayed for a year is something of a small miracle. That most—not all, mind you—of those delays owed to 9/11 is utterly flabbergasting, especially when one considers that there’s only a single shot that could be thematically related to the incident.

Does the end product end up compromised? No, not for the most part. Day-Lewis chews through every scene he has, and as I imagine with every film in which he has appeared, he is allowed to do whatever the hell he wants. The tone of the movie around him, however warbles between the kind of deliberate crime drama Scorsese has made his life’s work, and the kind of four-quadrant easily digestible pablum dressed up in the disguise of prestige drama that was Weinstein’s second favorite hobby. It’s designed so meticulously constructed toward the goal of evoking the history it fictionalizes that one can’t help but admire and often awe at the craft on display. And yet, the music feels so all over the place in a desperate attempt to nab one more nomination for best song for Miramax’s campaign money.

Legend has it that a work print/director’s cut exists and that it allegedly feels more focused. Scorsese insists that the final cut is his director’s cut. This may be one of the only times in his output that I wish for the former, but begrudgingly accept the latter.

*Naturally, Weinstein has plenty of problems other than being a control freak, but I can’t be the first one to tell you that, right?

Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)

Naturally, spoilers for a recent release follow. Read at your own discretion.

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Kurt Russell*

Have I Seen it Before: No. New release, and Tarantino always keeps things fresh within certain parameters, although I’m absolutely certain I’ve seen shots of feet like that before. Damn, does that man love feet. If he does end up making a Star Trek film—as looks to be a strong possibility as his tenth and allegedly final film—be prepared to see some Starfleet officers out of their boots.

Did I Like It: I’m still processing a lot of it, but yeah, what’s not to like with Tarantino?

Every movie of his has been like hanging out with a much cooler older brother who has seen every movie you should. It also helps that he is skilled enough to distill all of those wonderful things into expertly crafted entertainments in their own right.

And it’s that feeling that continues here, but with less emphasis. There are deep dives into the wonders of B+ Spaghetti Westerns and 60s action-adventure TV, and it is all a delight. Tarantino loves the 60s, and through the course of the film I cannot help but share his love. The milieu also does a remarkable job of establishing the kickass bonafides of Cliff Booth (Pitt) by having him drop kick Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) into the side of nearby sedan. It also removes the potential for any future about if Booth or Lee would win in a fight. 

There have been no shortage of hot takes about the level of violence in the film. Most of them somehow have the nerve to sound surprised that Tarantino would deign to feature elevated levels of violence in his films. It’s pretty clear that if these people weren’t born yesterday, they’ve certainly been asleep for the better part of thirty years.

Even so, the violence is different here than anything we’ve seen from Tarantino before. For one thing—along with the language—it is remarkably restrained, until it isn’t. The worst examples of violence are perpetrated against women, which in and of itself is problematic, but at the same time Pitt and DiCaprio viciously murder two of the more unrepentant killers in modern history, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel (along with their companion Charles “Tex” Watson). 

But then again—just like with Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds (2009)—history is turned on its ear, and by the time Manson’s assassins meet their grisly end, they’ve really only broken and entered (that’s the past tense of breaking and entering, right?). 

It’s certainly given me more complex things to think about than the cathartic end of Adolf Hitler in Basterds. 

And all of that leave me with even more interesting things to consider. With Helter Skelter thwarted before it could get off the ground, how does that change the makeup of pop culture? Does Manson (Damon Herriman) and his family pick themselves up, brush themselves off, and start all over again? With Manson’s prophecies fully disproven, does the family unravel, leaving old Charlie a wandering racist vagabond, without his infamy to fuel his hateful ego? Does Sharon Tate become the delightful screen presence that her brief time in front of the camera hinted at, or will she become a side note in cinematic history? That pretty lady who was once married to Roman Polanski?

Could that be the takeaway? Everybody in Hollywood is destined to be a little less famous than they would like to be? I’m content to think that isn’t the thesis, because ultimately this is Tarantino, and his latest film fulfills its promise by being a symphony of strange and unusual things. I could unpack every element, but I would need several thousand more words and at least another screening or two before I could hope to do it justice. It will stick with you long after the director of the Red Apple cigarette commercial calls “cut.” And—assuming you’re into Tarantino—you’ll like it, too.

*It proved more difficult than I might have otherwise thought to come up with a fourth billed actor, as nearly every other actor and character is a cypher throughout the movie. Even Manson, arguably the only catalyst for a plot in the film, appears for maybe a minute, and does precisely nothing. The award has to go to Russell, since he also pulls narration duty.