Bret Easton Ellis’ “Battle After Battle” has been praised by liberal critics
“American Psycho” author Bret Easton Ellis delivers the popular critical response to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” the highest-rated film of 2025 on the web. Metacritic So far with a score of 95. While Ellis is a big fan of Anderson (he said There Will Be Blood is “probably the best film of this century,” for example), the author claimed that critics praised “Battle After Battle” because the film’s politics aligned with the left.
“It’s kind of shocking to see this kind of award — I’m sorry, it’s not a very good movie — for its political ideology, and it’s very clear that that’s what they’re responding to,” Ellis said. “Brett Easton Ellis Podcast” (via Filmmaker) on the critical reaction to Anderson’s latest news. “Why it is considered a masterpiece, the greatest film of the decade, the greatest film ever made [is] Because it’s really in keeping with this kind of leftist sensibility.
Ellis predicted that the film will soon be viewed as “a kind of musty relic of the post-Kamala Harris era — that thing that everyone crowds around and pretends it’s so great and so great when it’s really not, just to make a point… There’s a liberal rot to this movie that already feels very old by October 2025. Very old. And it’s not reading the room. You know, it’s reading a little corner of the room, but it’s not reading what’s going on in America.”
In response to a film critic who called Battle After Battle an “important” film, Elise replied: “No, it’s not. He didn’t actually read the room. He didn’t read the room at all about what’s going on in America.”
Loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland,” “One Battle After Another” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a drowning revolutionary who is forced out of hiding when an old enemy takes an interest in locating his daughter (newcomer Chase Infinity). The cast includes Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall and Teyana Taylor, all of whom have won Oscars, as well as DiCaprio, Infinity and Anderson to rave reviews.
Miscellaneous Owen Gleiberman raved about the film in his review, calling it “a mesmerizing vision of a police state in America,” writing: “‘Battle After Battle’ is a film that taps into the intense urgency of the now; it gives you chills that are also a wake-up call… While it speaks with great vision of the danger and anxiety of our moment, it is also a thoroughly grounded and relatable drama… ‘Battle After Battle'” It is a vision of society in captivity, but it is a film that never loses the pulse of its humanity.
Since its release in theaters on September 26, “One Battle After Another” has grossed $114 million and is still counting at the worldwide box office. It is the first film directed by Anderson to cross the $100 million mark.