One Battle After Another fended off the late-breaking momentum of Sinners to win Best Picture at the Oscars.
The revolutionary comedy thriller beat Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value and Train Dreams as well as its Warner Bros. peer Sinners to land the win.
It marked the first Best Picture win for one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies with the auteur having previously seen his There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread nominated.
The award went to Anderson, Sara Murphy and Adam Somner, the well-known cinematographer, who died in 2024.
“Getting to make this film with this cast and crew has already been the greatest filmmaking experience,” Murphy said.
Anderson said, “In 1975, the Oscar nominees for Best Picture were Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws, Nashville and Barry Lyndon. There is no best among them. There is just what that mood might be that day. But we’re happy to be part of this a wonderful, wonderful journey with our fellow nominees, our fellow filmmakers, and our fellow filmmakers that even weren’t recognized by the Academy, there were so many great films this year.”
He joked that he “really blew it” when he won his Best Directing Oscar and forgot to thank this cast, which he did with the Best Picture win, particularly calling attention to Chase Infiniti, who he called his “American girl” and the “heart of this movie”.
One Battle was widely considered a lock for the award for the majority of awards season with prediction markets including Polymarket and Kalshi suggesting before the show it had around an 80% chance to topple the vampire rival.
The film follows Leonardo DiCaprio’s washed-up revolutionary, who exists in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited, self-reliant daughter, Willa, played by Chase Infiniti. When his evil nemesis, played by Sean Penn, resurfaces after 16 years and she goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her, father and daughter both battling the consequences of his past. Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall and Teyana Taylor also star.
It was one of a number of awards for the film. Wins included Best Casting for Cassandra Kulukundis, who joked that it was crazy that she won an Oscar before Anderson, Best Supporting Actor for Sean Penn, Best Adapted Screenplay for Anderson (his first ever Oscar), Best Film Editing for Andy Jurgensen and Best Directing for Anderson (his second).
Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, the film landed 13 Oscar nominations with only Infiniti losing out in the Lead Actress category, likely to Song Sung Blue’s Kate Hudson.
Since the Gotham Awards in December, One Battle has dominated awards season, where it almost managed a complete sweep until Sinners won the Outstanding Cast at the Actors Awards (formerly known as the SAG Awards).
The win did make some think back to 2006 when Brokeback Mountain landed the majority of precursor wins but lost to Crash, which surged after a SAG Cast win, which Sinners also did.
In the run up to the Oscars, One Battle After Another won Best Picture at the Critics Choice Awards, Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes and Best Film at the BAFTAs as well as wins at the PGAs and DGAs.
One Battle has also grossed over $200M at the global box office after its premiere in September.
English (US) ·