One Battle After Another Main Cast Performances Ranked

Warning: Spoilers ahead for One Battle After AnotherPaul Thomas Anderson’s political action thriller One Battle After Another has already earned plenty of Oscar buzz, most notably for the powerful work of its star-studded cast. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, One Battle After Another follows a has-been revolutionary as he tries to save his daughter from the clutches of a corrupt military officer who used to hunt him and his wife.

One Battle After Another should break Anderson’s box office record with no problem, although profitability is far from a lock given the movie’s rumored $130+ million budget. However, a significant box office return doesn’t even seem to be the main goal for the heavily satirical action drama, especially given that the movie’s unique release strategy may be designed to yield Oscars.

As incredible as Anderson’s work is throughout the movie that he wrote, produced, and directed, the real driving force behind One Battle After Another‘s impact is the layered and complex collective performance of its cast. With so many well-fleshed-out characters in one movie, we thought it worthwhile to rank the portrayals of each member of the main cast, which was an admittedly difficult task.

6

Regina Hall As Deandra

Regina Hall had precious little screen time in One Battle After Another as the soft-spoken but undoubtedly strong Deandra, another member of the French 75 who worked with Bob and Perfidia. As a fellow revolutionary, Deandra shares the same passion for usurping authority, but she isn’t anywhere near as bold and brash as Bob and Perfidia.

Perhaps her most significant scene in the movie involves her rescuing Willa from her high school dance with Lockjaw hot on her trail, utilizing the synchronized harmony scanner that indicates she is a person Willa can trust with her life. Hall’s quiet, calm disposition completely disarms the justifiably suspicious Willa, and offers her with a source of comfort that’s been missing for most of her life.

Hall’s Deandra acts as a glimpse of the motherly care that Willa went without as she grew up, and it’s an important step for her to establish a positive relationship with a revolutionary. Deandra symbolizes the earnest strength of their cause more than her mother’s bravado, and it’s something that Willa can identify with, especially once she learns about her own mother’s betrayal.

Hall’s ranking here is not indicative of the quality of her performance, which is just as excellent as that of any other cast member. She is simply awarded less screen time than her castmates, although her absence is just as powerful a factor as her presence in Willa’s life, and in the movie as a whole.

5

Benicio del Toro As Sergio St. Carlos

Benicio del Toro’s Sergio St. Carlos largely acts as comic relief in the greater dramatic context of One Battle After Another, although his character is very much still an active revolutionary. Bob turns to the man who is Willa’s sensei and a leader who smuggles immigrants through the tunnels under his property, seeking assistance in evading Lockjaw and a weapon.

Benicio del Toro is positively hilarious as St. Carlos, between his absolute lack of urgency and dead-perfect comedic timing. Despite being ready to help Bob at a moment’s notice, no questions asked, his almost apathetic attitude is the perfect foil to Bob’s frantic, still-high combustible mixture of energy.

A common comment on discussion threads surrounding One Battle After Another is that while no sequel or prequel is required, a movie centered around del Toro’s Sergio St. Cloud could be incredible. It’s the kind of unique performance that could absolutely earn del Toro an Oscar nomination, as he manages to steal the middle section of the movie.

4

Teyana Taylor As Perfidia Beverly Hills

Taylor’s role is extremely layered, as she balances the defiant rage of a true revolutionary with the vulnerable self-doubt of a new mother who isn’t sure what comes next. Like Regina Hall’s Deandra, Teyana Taylor’s limited screen time becomes more powerful in her absence, although she is captivating in the first quarter of the movie before exiting the main narrative.

As the boisterous, seductive Perfidia Beverly Hills, Taylor completely commands the screen in every scene she appears in. Her interactions with Sean Penn’s Col. Lockjaw see her radiate with raw power, as she completely dominates their encounters. As intoxicating as that version of her character is, it becomes even more impactful when compared to her performance after Charlene/Willa is born.

Taylor brings the reality of postpartum depression to life as her character struggles with feeling replaced by her daughter in the eyes of her partner. That struggle evolves into anxiety as she attempts to reconcile her responsibilities as a mother with her desire to continue affecting change as a revolutionary.

The character of Perfidia is more potent once she escapes Lockjaw’s custody and flees, never to return to her lover or her daughter. She becomes an ideal for Willa to strive towards, and the phantom that Bob still holds in his heart who is the real reason he has completely pickled his brain since going into hiding. That is all set up by Taylor’s powerful performance, and it won’t be a shock if she also earns an Oscar nom.

3

Leonardo DiCaprio As “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun/Bob Ferguson

Leonardo DiCaprio went into full chameleon mode for One Battle After Another, as he completely disappears into the role of Bob Ferguson. While DiCaprio is more often recognized for his dramatic acting, his mostly comedic turn as an ever-stoned and robe-clad ex-revolutionary is gut-bustingly hilarious at times.

DiCaprio’s impact is felt the most in smaller moments, like his desperation at trying to remember the password to connect with the French 75. He shifts between tear-soaked begging and red-eyed rage on a dime, resulting in a deeply comical bit of acting that earned real laughter in the theater I was in.

As funny as DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson is throughout most of the movie, he still shows just how capable a dramatic actor he is, especially in the interactions with his daughter and in his pursuit of Lockjaw. DiCaprio’s incredible work feels almost like a lock now, as he dominates every movie he stars in with a new and different type of character. His performance in One Battle After Another is simply the latest in a long line of triumphs.

2

Chase Infiniti As Charlene Calhoun/Willa Ferguson

Chase Infiniti’s dynamic performance as Charlene/Willa is even more impressive when you consider that One Battle After Another is her first major film role. In scenes with Leonardo DiCaprio, it was often Infiniti who owned the scene, with her overall confidence driving the variety in her character’s emotions.

Infiniti just as capably plays an embarrassed teenager as she does a terrified kidnapping victim. The sheer rage that pulses from her as she escapes from Lockjaw’s associates with the help of Avanti Q is just as fully realized. The seething combination of anger and fear she exudes as she aims to protect herself from the assassin Tim Smith yields an incredible, tearful collapse when she reunites with Bob in one of the movie’s most intense bits of acting.

It’s difficult to recall a stronger introduction on the grand stage of Hollywood than Infiniti’s debut. She announced her presence with authority by going punch-for-punch with an artist many consider to be one of the greatest living actors, and in some ways outclassing him. An Oscar nomination feels just short of inevitable for Infiniti here.

1

Sean Penn As Col. Steven J. Lockjaw

It’s impossible to understate how important Sean Penn’s performance as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw is to why One Battle After Another works so well. I am a firm believer that a movie is only ever as good as its villain, and in that regard One Battle After Another is an all-timer. Lockjaw is the ideal antagonist for the free-spirited, freedom-loving revolutionaries, and he owns the qualities that make him so perfectly hateable.

What’s most impressive about Penn’s depiction isn’t the stilted, limping white supremacist military officer part of his character, but what he balances against it. When in a position of power, Lockjaw is ruthless and cruel as one would expect from such a character.

However, when he’s not the one in power, he just as easily manages to portray a sniveling, acquiescent hypocrite. His sleazy desire for Perfidia makes him completely submissive in her hands, even when he’s the one holding a gun to her head (literally and figuratively).

When he’s with the Christmas Adventurers seeking membership, he’s the ultimate groveling yes man, which stands in such stark contrast with the Terminator-like survivor of a shotgun blast and car crash that emerges after Willa and Bob reunite on the desert road.

Penn’s performance is beyond convincing, but the complexity he brings to the character is what takes his performance to the next level. I’ll be stunned if Penn doesn’t earn a litany of award nominations for his depiction of the villainous colonel who plagues the heroes of One Battle After Another.

Release Date

September 26, 2025

Runtime

162 minutes

Producers

Adam Somner