“American Psycho” author Bret Easton Ellis has called out critical response to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which currently has a 95 score on Metacritic and is the highest-rated film of 2025. While Ellis is a big fan of Anderson (for example, he said There Will Be Blood “might be the best movie of the century”), the author argued that critics are raving about One Battle After Another because the film’s politics align with the left.
“It’s kind of shocking to see praise like this because of the political ideology – sorry, it’s not a very good movie – and obviously they’re reacting to that,” Ellis said on the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast (via MovieMaker) about the critical response to Anderson’s latest film. “The reason it’s considered a masterpiece, the best movie of the decade, the best movie ever made, is because it really aligns with this kind of left-wing sensibility.”
Ellis predicted that the film would soon be seen as “a kind of musty relic of the post-Kamala Harris era.” That thing where everyone gets together and pretends to be so great and great when it really isn’t, mind you… there’s an unhinged mustiness to this movie that already feels very dated in October 2025. Very outdated. And it just doesn’t read the room. I’m reading a little corner of the room, but I’m not reading what’s what. Go, continue in America. ”
When asked by a film critic who called One Battle After Another an “important” film, Ellis replied, “No, it’s not. You really don’t read the atmosphere. You don’t read the atmosphere 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 washed-up revolutionary who is forced to come out of hiding when his nemesis becomes interested in finding his daughter (high-profile newcomer Chase Infinity). The cast includes Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor, all of whom are garnering Oscar buzz, along with DiCaprio, Infinity, and Anderson, who are garnering rave reviews.
Owen Gleiberman of Variety praised the film in his review, calling it “a mesmerizing vision of police state America.”
“‘One Battle After Another’ is a film that taps into the ferocious urgency of our present moment. It’s a chilling work that’s also a wake-up call… It’s a visionary story about the dangers and anxieties of our time, but it’s also a thoroughly grounded and relatable drama,” Gleiberman wrote. “One Battle After Another is a vision of a society imprisoned, but it’s a film that never loses its pulse of humanity.”
Since its theatrical release on September 26, “One Battle After Another” has earned $114 million and set box office records around the world. It was Anderson’s first film to surpass $100 million.
