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One Battle After Another
Movie

One Battle After Another

2025 • Action, Crime, Drama

Woke Score
8.5
out of 10

Plot

When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own.

Overall Series Review

One Battle After Another is an unreservedly political film, widely interpreted as a cinematic polemic that romanticizes a violent, anti-government, revolutionary group while demonizing all forms of U.S. authority. The core conflict is a clear-cut culture war allegory: a strong, Black, female revolutionary leader (Perfidia) and her daughter are hunted by a villainous, racist, White male military officer (Lockjaw), who leads a 'white supremacist secret society.' This framework immediately centers race and identity as the primary drivers of the narrative. The film strongly de-centers the White male perspective, depicting the main male hero as an incompetent, stoner 'loser' who is inferior to his female revolutionary counterpart. By depicting the 'heroes' as activists who commit violence to free immigrants from a government detention center, the film frames Western institutional structures (military, border security) as fundamentally corrupt and evil, earning high scores for Identity Politics, Oikophobia, and Feminism. Due to a near-total absence of explicit anti-theist or central LGBTQ+ themes, those scores remain low, but the film's ideological core is overwhelmingly 'woke' in its construction of heroes, villains, and moral conflict.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics9/10

The plot is entirely built upon an intersectional hierarchy. The heroes are a Black female revolutionary leader (Perfidia) and her mixed-race daughter, who is saved by 'myriad POCs.' The villain, Colonel Lockjaw, is a racist, authoritarian White male who leads a 'white supremacist secret society.' The White male protagonist, Pat/Bob, is rendered a 'grumpy, boozy, dishevelled loser' and 'incompetent,' whose role is de-centered, confirming the 'White male incompetent/evil' trope.

Oikophobia9/10

The film's premise is hostile toward U.S. civilizational structures. The heroes are 'leftist radicals' who commit violent acts, including an operation to attack and free detained immigrants from a government center on the U.S.-Mexico border. The entire apparatus of government and law enforcement is 'demonized at every conceivable turn,' framing the American state as a 'fascist police state' under occupation.

Feminism9/10

Perfidia Beverly Hills is the charismatic 'Girl Boss' leader of the French 75 revolutionary group, who is explicitly contrasted with her 'inept' male partner. She is portrayed as superior and more dedicated to the 'cause.' Critically, she 'abandons' her partner and child to continue her 'violent activities' and revolutionary career, strongly promoting an anti-natalist and anti-family message where activism is the ultimate fulfillment.

LGBTQ+3/10

This theme is not central to the plot. One commentary notes the presence of the daughter's 'oddball biracial, nonbinary friends' who are 'briefly caricatured.' While this confirms the presence of gender identity outside the traditional binary, it is a peripheral element and is not the focus of the narrative or a vector for overt lecturing.

Anti-Theism2/10

The core conflict is political and cultural, not spiritual. The antagonists are the military/government and a white supremacist political group ('Christmas Adventurers Club'), not a religious institution. The film's fight against 'cruelty and despotism' implies a secular objective moral standard rather than a promotion of moral relativism or hostility toward organized faith.