One Battle After Another (2025)

This is the movie of the year so far. It opens with the kind of momentum usually reserved for the climax of an action film and barely slows down from there. A revolutionary group known as French 75 is initiating an operation on the Mexico-U.S. border, where they take the officers hostage and release the immigrants awaiting processing. The group is led by Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), a confident force of rageful nature who finds the leader, Colonel Steven J. Lockja, and sexually humiliates him before walking him out of the base. The encounter launches a psychosexual obsession with Perfidia, someone whom he sees as beneath him because he’s a racist monster, but someone who he also wants to sexually control him. He essentially stalks Perfidia as she continues to lead the resistance with her partner Bob Ferguson. When the two eventually have a child named Willa, Bob sees that they have to get out to protect the baby and Perfidia instead stays, gets caught, and burns everybody after Bob is safely put away in a small town. Cut to 16 years later, Willa is a teenager, and Bob is a single father, still doing what he can for the revolution but equally worried about taking care of his daughter. Lockjaw remains obsessed with the pair, initiating a series of raids and operations on French 75 members that forces Perfidia’s former ally Deandra into action, exfiltrating Willa from a high school dance. The end becomes a kind of chase scene, with excellent cinematography and a score to match. There is a lot to unpack here in terms of the culture clashes in present day, which seem remarkably similar to the days of old, and it is very well done.