Even If It Bombs, One Battle After Another Is The Movie Hollywood Needs Right Now

One Battle After Another opened in theaters this past Friday (26 Sept) and easily topped the weekend box office. Leonardo DiCaprio’s film about a washed-up revolutionary took home over $48 million (as per The Numbers)—making it Warner Bros.’ eighth movie in 2025 to open above the magic $40 million mark. It’s a record-breaking year for Warner Bros. at a time when fewer people than ever are going to the cinema.

So that makes One Battle After Another an unimpeachable triumph, right? Not so fast: the movie cost some $140 million to make, and that’s before you factor in marketing costs. A rule of thumb is that a movie typically needs to recoup around double its budget to break even at the box office, so it has a long way to go.

But even if it never gets there, One Battle After Another has already done a ton of good for Hollywood and for movie lovers everywhere.

One Battle After Another is more of an awards play than a box office play

Best Picture, here we come

These days, movies that make a ton of money at the box office tend to be part of major franchises, made with family audiences in mind, or fall into a recognizable genre. It’s risky to spend a ton of money on a movie like One Battle After Another, which doesn’t check any of those boxes.

With that in mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if One Battle After Another doesn’t turn a profit at the box office, but I think it will make money in the long run. The movie is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the living legend behind classics like Boogie Nights and Magnolia, and grapples with a lot of issues in the news today, including white supremacy and the deepening left-right divide in the United States. It’s gorgeously made, perfectly paced, and splendidly acted. All of this makes it a shoo-in at award shows, where voters tend to reward this kind of thoughtful adult fare even if general audiences don’t.

It’s a well-known fact that Oscar gold raises a movie’s profile and nets it more money, whether at the theater or on streaming. I wouldn’t call One Battle After Another a lock for the Best Picture Oscar, but it has everything it needs to take home the gold, and even nominations will pay dividends down the road as people who missed the movie in cinemas will buy it on demand or stream it on HBO Max to see what the fuss was about.

One Battle After Another is part of Warner Bros.’ bigger attempt to save movie theaters

The studio’s record-breaking lineup this year is giving people reasons to buy movie tickets

During the pandemic, people understandably stopped going to movie theaters; the problem for the industry is that a lot of them stayed away even after restrictions lifted, preferring to stream films at home. And it’s hard to blame them: home-viewing is great. Studios like Netflix, which release movies in theaters only begrudgingly, would probably prefer that theaters die off completely, ushering in an all-streaming future. Knives Out 3 is a great example of how Netflix shoots itself in the foot with this approach.

But that’s not good for anyone. Research from Entertainment Strategy Guy indicates that movies released in theaters are more popular than those released directly to streaming. Releasing movies in theaters gives them a chance to become cultural flashpoints, whereas straight-to-streaming movies tend to get watched (or put on in the background) and then forgotten. If you want your movie to be something people talk about decades from now, it helps to release it on a 30-foot-high screen people watch together in the dark while munching on popcorn. Something about the ritual embeds it in the brain.

This year, Warner Bros. has been fighting to keep the theatrical tradition alive with a remarkable string of hits, including A Minecraft Movie, Sinners, Superman, Weapons, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and more. One Battle After Another is the experimental exclamation point on the end of that run. It’s already more popular than you’d expect an artsy prestige picture like this to be, which I attribute in part to Warner Bros. releasing so many bangers this year that people are willing to take a chance on something a little different. And even if it doesn’t ultimately turn a profit at the box office, the studio has made over $4 billion in 2025 — the first time it has achieved this since before the pandemic — so it can easily absorb the loss.

This is what studios need to do if they want to keep theaters alive: release so many good movies that people have no choice but to leave the house. And Warner Bros. hasn’t just released a set of good movies this year; it’s released a diverse set of good movies, with family-friendly fare mixed in with high-end horror mixed in with superhero action, capped off with One Battle After Another, an auteur-driven flick for film snobs that’s accessible enough to cross over. This is the kind of lineup that both creates new theater-goers and lures back those who have strayed away.

One Battle After Another is really good, which is triumph enough

It didn’t even need a superhero to generate buzz

Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

I’ve talked remarkably little about the movie itself so far, so let’s spare a moment to appreciate it. One Battle After Another is really entertaining. Leonardo DiCaprio is terrific as a paranoid freedom fighter long past his prime, landing jokes and selling the pathos once his daughter (Chase Infiniti) is taken. She’s on the run from a twisted military officer played by Sean Penn, who may turn in the best performance of his career. (Also, whenever he walked, he looked constipated, and it made me laugh every time.) Best of all is Teyana Taylor as DiCaprio’s partner Perfidia Beverly Hills, a firebrand whose presence lingers long after her part in the movie is over.

In One Battle After Another, we get to know both the members of a radical left-wing resistance group and a shady right-wing cabal. The movie taps into topics you hear talked about on the news all the time, but wisely avoids getting too specific. It pokes fun at these themes while also taking them seriously, which provides a comfortable space for discussion.

Then there’s the filmmaking itself, which is pristine. The highest compliment I can give the movie is that, despite its nearly three-hour runtime, it doesn’t feel long at all. It’s that compelling.

Having it all

One Battle After Another is a drama/comedy/thriller/action movie/political satire. That kind of multi-hyphenate approach is rare at the movies these days, and when one does come along, it’s almost never given a budget this big. I applaud Warner Bros. for taking a huge swing on One Battle After Another and hope it does really well at the box office so studios will be encouraged to follow its example. But even if it doesn’t come close to making back its budget, it will have been worth it.

One Battle After Another is in theaters now. If Warner Bros. sticks to its usual schedule, it’ll probably turn up on HBO Max near the end of the year.