Scorsese and Spielberg Lead Hollywood’s Raves for PTA’s One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson rolled out One Battle After Another and the old guard showed up with receipts. We’re talking the New Hollywood heavyweights actually watching the thing and sounding off, and some of this praise is as loud as it gets. A couple of the takes are messy in that very filmmaker way (you’ll see), but the throughline is clear: this one hit a nerve.

Scorsese: short, sharp, and basically a standing ovation

At a recent Q&A, Martin Scorsese did the blurb thing and kept it simple, but the sentiment is huge:

"a fascinating and extraordinarily made film [with] extraordinary performances everywhere."

Translation: craft on lock, actors cooking. When Marty calls out performances, he means it.

Spielberg: breathless, hyped, and a little inside baseball

Steven Spielberg went full kid-in-a-candy-store, which is fun in itself. He also has a recent history with PTA and Scorsese on the Turner Classic Movies revitalization effort, so this rave plays like one titan appreciating another in public.

"What an insane movie, oh my God. There is more action in the first hour of this than every other film you've ever directed put together. Everything, it is really incredible. This is such a concoction of things that are so bizarre and at the same time so relevant, that I think have become increasingly more relevant than perhaps even when you finished the screenplay and assembled your cast and crew and began production. What was it about the Thomas Pynchon book that first sort of set you off?"

That last question is a curveball: Spielberg specifically brings up a Thomas Pynchon book as the spark. Make of that what you will, but it’s a chewy little nugget for PTA watchers.

Paul Schrader: rapt by the filmmaking, ruthless on the characters

Schrader took to Facebook and did what Schrader does: praise the craft, then swing a bat at your empathy. He zeroed in on Sean Penn (who plays Colonel Lockjaw) and still managed to sound impressed even while wishing the characters ill.

"ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER. FB friends have asked my opinion. Filmmaking at level A+, but try as a might I couldn't muster up an ounce of empathy for Leo D'Caprio or Sean Penn. I kept waitng for them to die. (Penn's performance , however, is a masterclass in peacock acting.) What held me in my seat for the better part of two hours was PT Anderson's Joy of Filmmaing."

That’s the most Schrader review possible: A+ cinema, zero cuddles.

Francis Ford Coppola: intrigued, confused, and already planning a rewatch

Coppola posted a long, thoughtful take on Instagram. He loves PTA’s work overall, but this one clearly put him through it on first pass, partly due to a narrative swerve and partly, by his own admission, some hearing issues. He also calls out the ensemble by name: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Tony Goldwyn, and Chase Infiniti.

"For me, after one audience viewing, I felt that just as things were getting going, there came a 16-year pause. Although now that I know that, for subsequent viewings, I will be able to enjoy focusing on the characters and all the memorable performances of Leo, Sean, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Tony Goldwyn and Chase Infiniti. It's a film I want to see a second time: the problem with my hearing no doubt played a part in my confusion on certain things, but then the film emerged into the love story that it is; father and his one daughter, and as you can imagine, very moving to me."

Key takeaway: he’s calling it a father-daughter love story at its core and wants another run at it, now that he knows where the time jump lands.

So where does that leave One Battle After Another?

When your film prompts this spectrum of reactions from Scorsese, Spielberg, Schrader, and Coppola, you’re living rent-free in the canon already. The buzz about this being one of the decade’s most-acclaimed releases doesn’t feel like hyperbole; the directors who built American moviemaking’s modern reputation are basically co-signing.

Whether you’re here for the A+ formal flex, the actors going big, or the father-daughter thread that sneaks up on you after a 16-year narrative detour, it sounds like PTA gave everyone something to argue about on the car ride home — and for some of these guys, that’s the highest compliment.