Leonardo DiCaprio’s film, One Battle After Another, has stirred controversy among conservative audiences despite being hailed as the most critically acclaimed movie this year.

The expansive 162-minute thriller, helmed by Paul Thomas Anderson, a celebrated director with 11 Oscar nominations to his name, has impressed mainstream critics and garnered accolades from figures like Steven Spielberg and Taylor Swift.

But despite the film’s many accolades, One Battle After Another has struggled to recoup its rumored $175 million budget at the box office so far. 

However, the movie’s progressive storyline has faced criticism, being labeled as ‘woke’ by conservative viewers who argue it’s ‘pro-Antifa’ for featuring a group of radical left-wing activists as the main characters.

One Battle After Another is a politically-charged action-thriller based loosely on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland.

The film sees Leo playing Bob Ferguson, a former member of a far-left revolutionary group who now lives in a state of stoned paranoia off the grid with his daughter Willa, played by Chase Infiniti.

When Willa goes missing, Bob must reunite with his former comrades, which includes his estranged girlfriend Perfidia, played by Teyana Taylor, to take on an evil cabal of white supremacists. 

The film doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to politics, opening with a raid on an ICE detention center to free detainees as government agents shoot at unarmed civilians.

The left-wing slant of One Battle After Another has enraged some conservatives, including Ben Shapiro, who called it ‘an apologia for radical left-wing terrorism.’

He added, ‘The basic suggestion is a conspiracy theory in which the United States is run by white supremacist Christian nationalists and all people of color and a few nice incompetent fellow travelers like [DiCaprio] are going to take on that entire system.’

Conservative podcaster Alec Mouhibian called it ‘pretentious’ and ‘worse than the worst film ever made’, while pro-Trump cultural critic Jack Mason of The Perfume Nationalist blasted director Paul Thomas Anderson over the movie. 

Even right wing firebrand Alex Jones weighed in, accusing the film of ‘fetishizing the liberation of illegal aliens from detention centers via the murder of federal agents.’

While One Battle After Another has already grossed over $100 million at the box office – a career best for Paul Thomas Anderson – it’s unclear if it will be able to make back it’s budget and turn a profit.

David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research told Variety, ‘This movie has a chance of getting to profitability if it lasts long enough in theaters and/or overperforms abroad.

‘It’s going to get a lot of awards nominations, but that’s two to three months away and unlikely to help this immediate release.’ 

Leo previously admitted that he thinks box-office numbers will always be ‘important.’

‘I think there’s just an inundation of content and so much production going on now – which is a good thing, obviously,’ the 50-year-old explained.

‘But I think box office is important because it means people are in the seats going to theatre, going to have that communal experience.’

Despite its box office struggles, One Battle After Another has been lauded with five-star reviews across the board from critics – and it’s even been deemed ‘the defining film of a generation’ by some. 

The Standard’s Nick Howells, awarding the movie five stars, wrote, ‘Anderson has directed the coolest, most consummately masterful movie you’re likely to see all year. And it’s got Oscars glory just oozing out of every frame.’

It’s not only critics raving about the film but also bookmakers, as Ladbrokes has taken the odds of the movie winning the 2026 Academy Award for Best Picture from 12/1 last week, to a remarkable and rare evens. 

Winning praise from the top, Steven Spielberg gushed, ‘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.’

In a five star rating from The Daily Mail, Brian Viner writes: ‘DiCaprio’s is not even the most eye-catching performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s irresistibly funny, thunderously exhilarating film.

‘Sean Penn pinches every scene he’s in as an unhinged army officer, driven first by lust and later by loathing, whose downfall, when it comes, is one of the most startling things you will see in the cinema this year.

‘Anderson has already made one of the best pictures of the 21st century, in 2007’s There Will be Blood. This one, loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, is comparably fine.’

He added: ‘He knows he’s made something special, indeed the next time we hear him might be when he holds aloft an Academy Award.’