A frontrunner film at the 2026 Academy Awards, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another follows a former left-wing revolutionary trying to rescue his daughter from a fictional federal agency against a backdrop of political turmoil. In attempting to critique the political left and right, the film relies heavily on stereotypes and historical references, like to the Black Power Movement, to depict the current political climate of the United States. Yet, the film undercuts its own critiques to the point of being reductive and racist because it offers no exploration of the systemic roots behind the issues it portrays.
Anderson drops us into a world where an unnamed government agency goes around arresting or killing revolutionaries. The film follows former revolutionary of the fictional French 75 Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), who sets out to find his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) when she is taken by federal agent Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who turns out to be her biological father.
Lockjaw wants to join the Christmas Adventurers Club, an exclusive, racist organization, but first, he must kill his mixed-race daughter, Willa. 17 years prior, Lockjaw sexually coerced her mom and leader of the French 75, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). She had to have sexual relations with him or he would destroy the group.
“[The film’s] about how your parents’ actions can trickle down into the child’s life, and how this sort of radical political upbringing could really change the way that your family dynamic is,” Brandon Diaz ’26 said.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Taylor discussed how her sexuality was the only way Perfidia could gain power over Lockjaw. When I watched the film, I found that her sexuality was the focal point of Perfidia’s personality. In addition to Lockjaw, Perfidia was incredibly sexual around Bob. Her sensualness did not gain her any power over Bob, as she already led the French 75. Instead, her overall character is objectified.
Anderson may be trying to emulate the sexual freedom of the revolutionary groups the film is loosely based on, like the Weather Underground. However, in terms of storytelling, it is completely unnecessary to sexualize her with Bob. She also only took sexual control from Lockjaw, so her authority is solely based on her sexuality.
Rather than being a critique of how white men sexualize Black women, as Taylor said in the interview, it is another Hollywood film where a white director unnecessarily sexualizes a Black woman.
photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
During a bank robbery, a member of the French 75 named Junglepussy, played by a rapper of the same name, gets on a table, pointing a gun, and says, “I am what Black power looks like.” I took this as a reference to the Black Power movement, but stripped of its core principles: Black liberation and self-determination. Instead, Anderson dips into the stereotype of Black people as violent.
In the same scene, Perfidia kills a Black security guard, the only person the revolutionaries kill in the entire film. Throughout the film, the French 75 has no clear ideology besides supporting leftist ideologies like abortion or freeing detained immigrants. In reality groups had clear missions, like the Weather Underground, who participated in bombings with a clear anti-war and anti-capitalism message. The little impact the French 75 does make is the killing of one person, emphasizing their lack of driving principles for the French 75. This discredits the ideologies they do support by making them ineffectual.
The lack of character substance extends to Lockjaw. He is a man motivated only by his fetishized obsession and racism. Anderson offers up a caricature of a far-right villain whom almost anyone can hate or disagree with in his portrayal. In this way, Lockjaw and people like him become the issue and drivers of racism in the United States, ignoring the history, laws and institutions that allow for their existence.
“I guess there’s no way of doing this story in the way Paul Thomas Anderson told [it] without stereotyping, which is in itself a problem,” Diaz said.
Another stereotype I found was with the bounty hunter Avanti (Eric Schweig). Hired by Lockjaw to find revolutionaries and later dispose of Willa, the film portrays his character as rarely talking or showing emotion. In the end, he decides to sacrifice himself so Willa can escape being killed by other mercenaries. He perfectly encapsulates the stereotype of the stoic and silent Native American that has been persistent throughout popular media, from The Lone Ranger to the Crying Indian advertisement and now, One Battle After Another.
San Francisco Chronicle Film Writer G. Allen Johnson described these attributes as part of Anderson’s style. “I think that he is a person who delves into the origin and the character of Americans in ways that push the envelope, almost toward caricature,” Johnson said. To me, while Anderson creates controversial characters, he misses the mark here by ignoring the origins of the problems.
The French 75 accomplishes nothing; the rich, racist villains are never threatened and the film ends with Willa driving three hours to protest a government raid. While some might say it ends on a hopeful note, to me, it is defeatist; communicating that systemic change is not possible and that we can only fight the symptoms, like immigration raids. This sentiment completely ignores the impacts of groups at home and abroad, from the Black Panthers to the real revolutionaries that Bob watches with the film The Battle of Algiers.
Despite being praised for its political message and filmmaking craft, I saw One Battle After Another as nothing new in Hollywood. Instead, it is a continuation of old stereotypes surrounded by the message that the government is too powerful to beat or change, and that all we can do is protest and hope for the best.
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