The Los Angeles Film Critics Association chose “One Battle After Another” as the best film of 2025 Sunday, giving writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s film a boost heading into the Academy Awards nominations, which will be announced next month, and Monday’s Golden Globe nominations.
Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” Anderson’s film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a burned-out revolutionary who fights to retrieve his daughter after she’s kidnapped by his old nemesis, a military officer played by Sean Penn.
In the acting categories, the winners for lead performance were Rose Byrne for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” and Ethan Hawke for “Blue Moon.”
Stellan Skarsgard won best male supporting actor for “Sentimental Value,” and Teyana Taylor won best female supporting performance for “One Battle After Another.”
The best director honor went to LA native Anderson for “One Battle After Another.”
Other winners were:
— Cinematography, Adolpho Veloso for “Train Dreams”;
— Screenplay, Jafar Panahi for “It Was Just an Accident”;
— Production Design, Hannah Beachler for “Sinners”;
— Editing, Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie for “Marty Supreme”;
— Documentary/Nonfiction, “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow”;
— Animation, “Little Amelie or the Character of Rain”;
— Music/Score, Kangding Ray for “Sirat.”
The winners were announced on X, and will be honored during a ceremony on Jan. 10, 2026 at the Biltmore Hotel, when director Philip Kaufman will receive the group’s career achievement award. Kaufman’s films include the 1978 remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” 1983’s “The Right Stuff,” and 1988’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”
Founded in 1975, the LAFCA comprises Los Angeles-based, professional film critics working in print and electronic media. Last year, the group named “The Zone of Interest” the best film of 2023.
On Dec. 2, the New York Film Critics Circle chose “One Battle After Another” as the year’s best film.