Why People Love This Movie
There are numerous factors that have contributed to the effusive praise this film has been receiving. For starters, it’s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA), the beloved filmmaker behind such modern classics as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Phantom Thread. PTA has a niche but vocal fan base of cinephiles in his corner that buzzes with glee every time he’s made a new film. Moreover, Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the last movie stars working in the industry. With One Battle After Another, DiCaprio has officially opened at least one #1 film at the box office across four different decades. Thanks to the pull these two names offer, the film had a foundational audience of regular moviegoers, even before the snarkiest of Letterbox reviews were authored.
At a runtime of nearly three hours, One Battle After Another is an engrossing epic filled with social commentary, satirical humor, and thrilling action sequences. Even among film lovers who are quick to pick movies apart on Twitter and Letterboxd, this film has managed to transcend the ease of impulse to dislike something. Why? Well, it’s hard to critique a film where the director is so in command of every aspect of the storytelling, from plot to characterization to pacing; everything is meticulously honed to serve its purpose in the narrative. Even the most apathetic viewer couldn’t call this film too long because of how well PTA fills that runtime.
Furthermore, One Battle After Another has something to offer for different kinds of people. It attracts an intellectual audience, one that seeks to draw parallels between the hostile world of the film and our contemporary climate. At the same time, it draws pure lovers of well-orchestrated action. An instantly iconic car chase in this film, which manages to be both simple and revolutionary, is one of those gripping sequences. The coexistence of cerebral storytelling and broad-appealing entertainment value is almost unheard of in a fiercely divided landscape that tends to pit comic book movies, sequels, and reboots against underseen, critically acclaimed independent films. In that sense, One Battle After Another harkens back to an era of movies when quality and scale were not mutually exclusive. The fact that it achieves this goal with such a strong reception makes the film a hit in the cultural zeitgeist… well, at least in the film world.
Why PTA’s Film is a Hit Among Audiences, But Not a Hit in the Broader Sense
One Battle After Another debuted at #1 at the box office this past weekend with a domestic total of $22 million. While that aligns with industry projections ahead of the film’s premiere, this performance further proves that, although PTA’s movie may conjure a different era of cinema, contemporary pop culture is upsettingly less interested in movies as a whole. Yes, we are living in a time when a film can be this much of a crowd-pleasing hit among its audience and become a true modern classic, while also not being a “hit” marked in the broader sense, doomed to be but a drop in an ocean of AI slop and lost in the schism of algorithmically divergent pop-cultural experiences.
Still, the ambitious efforts here are admirable, and that might be the final contributing factor to One Battle After Another’s universal acclaim. This is a film that dares to unite a divided industry and a fractured culture, and film lovers are coming together to encourage more people to see it on the big screen. Opening at $22 million might be the glass ceiling for a movie like this nowadays, but all this audience enthusiasm bodes well for its long-term impact on the broader zeitgeist. After all, an “A” CinemaScore tends to be an indicator for how “word of mouth” might benefit a film for the remainder of its theatrical run. Additionally, awards can also cement a film’s legacy, and those reviews immediately propelled One Battle After Another to become a frontrunner in the upcoming Best Picture race.
For a big-budget epic that is neither a franchise entry nor a children’s film, that’s pretty impressive. Furthermore, the film community can be a toxic place online. It’s almost just as prone to “stan culture” as the pop music landscape—ok, it’s not quite that bad. That being said, to see cinephiles agreeing that this is an important movie for “normie” audiences to consume is a rarity, and the effect of that united front might actually work. This might be the biggest takeaway for cinephiles here. If film lovers want movies to penetrate the entire zeitgeist again, they need to continue to unify and promote films like One Battle After Another, ones that are original, intelligent, and entertaining.