ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER ON HBO MAX

Paul Thomas Anderson has long been a master of cinematic time travel, dropping audiences into richly detailed past eras. With One Battle After Another, he finally plants his flag in the present — and the result is his most urgent, confrontational film in years. Part political thriller, part dark comedy, the movie opens amid a daring rescue near the U.S.-Mexico border and never lets up.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Pat, an explosives expert turned fugitive, whose radical past with the revolutionary group known as the French 75 comes crashing back into his life. Teyana Taylor is electrifying as Perfidia Beverly Hills, while Sean Penn’s chilling Army colonel fuels a relentless cat-and-mouse chase that spans decades.

Sixteen years later, Pat is a disheveled father on the run, delivering some of DiCaprio’s funniest, most physical work yet. Drawing inspiration from Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, Anderson blends action, satire, and chaos into a bold, fearlessly political film that feels ripped from today’s headlines.