Hollywood is crowning Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another as the “best movie of the year,” and the awards chatter is deafening — but hardworking Americans should smell a rat. Critics and industry insiders are already treating it like the frontrunner for every major prize, hyping its political urgency and artistic depth while pretending obvious messaging is just “timely storytelling.”
Look past the glossy reviews and the auteur worship: the movie follows a band of revolutionary militants and frames violent resistance against authority as noble, complex, and even romantic. That plot choice is no accident; it’s a conscious decision to normalize radical action and to cast law-and-order institutions as the villains in a story set against a thinly veiled version of contemporary America.
The critics have rewarded the film with sky-high scores and breathless takes, crowning it among the year’s best and pushing it into awards season conversations. When the trend in the culture is to hand trophies and prestige to projects that preach a leftist worldview, it’s no surprise that the most celebrated pictures double as political manifestos rather than pure entertainment.
Conservative voices — including prominent commentators who watch culture as closely as they watch policy — have rightly pushed back, warning that the film’s “prophetic” label is less about art and more about amplifying an agenda. This isn’t a blind swipe at creativity; it’s a call-out of an industry that too often conflates activism with excellence and uses prestige to mainstream dangerous romanticism of unrest.
Americans who love country, freedom, and the rule of law deserve stories that celebrate resilience, not narratives that sanitize and glamorize political violence. If the academy and the press first reward films for how loudly they virtue-signal, rather than how well they tell a balanced story, then the cultural gatekeepers have already chosen a side in our national argument.
Patriots should ask themselves whether the entertainment industry is reflecting the country or trying to remake it. Support filmmakers who respect American institutions and everyday sacrifices instead of elevating agitprop dressed as prestige cinema, and don’t let Hollywood’s applause become the final word on what counts as great art.
