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December 19, 2025
Best movies of 2025 in the US: No 1
Leonardo DiCaprio is a former revolutionary searching for his daughter in Paul Thomas Anderson’s exhilaratingly audacious counterculture epic The best movies of 2025 in the US More on the best culture of 2025

TL;DR
- The film is a formal enigma, inspired by Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland", and has been met with mixed interpretations.
- Screenwriter Paul Schrader praised the filmmaking quality but lacked empathy for the characters.
- The film's lack of empathy for its protagonists contributes to its gripping nature, highlighting their impending disaster.
- The movie's filmmaking is described as elegant and theatrical, with a notable car chase sequence.
- It critiques a petty-tyrannical America and those who resist it.
- The film's setting is intentionally ambiguous, existing between the Obama and Trump years or in an alternate reality.
- Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob, a former revolutionary, and Sean Penn plays Col Steven Lockjaw, an intelligence chief.
- Teyana Taylor plays Perfidia, who manipulates Lockjaw, leading to a paternity crisis involving their daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti).
- The film is described as a protest song against cruelty and despotism, celebrating the heroism of dissent.
- The score by Jonny Greenwood is highlighted as superb.
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