CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 9-26-25
- Sep 27
- 16 min read
[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon!]
My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review five new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, September 26th, 2025.
Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, his tenth feature, is One Battle After Another, loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti in her debut, and it's an action-thriller of a kind PTA has never really made before.
The story begins at full throttle: a radical revolutionary group called French 75 stages a violent, theatrical raid on an immigration detention center at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) humiliates Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), triggering his obsession with her, even as she builds a life and has a daughter, Willa, with fellow revolutionary Bob Ferguson (DiCaprio).
Sixteen years later, the group is fractured, Lockjaw has become a military madman working with a white supremacist cabal called the Christmas Adventurers, and Bob is a faded revolutionary trying to raise his teenage daughter.
When Lockjaw resurfaces, Willa becomes a target, and Bob, along with Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), a sensei and underground shepherd, is forced back into the fight.
The setup promises a mix of revolution, political satire, psychosexual obsession, and father-daughter drama, and Anderson delivers all of it, on a massive scale.
People throw around the term masterpiece too easily. Every other week, some critic calls something "a masterpiece," when really it's just solid or interesting. One Battle After Another is the real deal.
This is a masterpiece in every sense of the word, the best film of 2025, a movie that decades from now will be remembered as one of Paul Thomas Anderson's greats, and one of the most important pieces of American cinema of this era.
It's breathtaking. It's hilarious, sad, deeply political, morally urgent, and also just flat-out entertaining. It's PTA doing something new here; it's an action thriller, complete with car chases, shootouts, raids, and epic set pieces, but filtered through his sensibility. And it works.
Anderson is my favorite filmmaker alive. Ten films in, he has never made a bad one, not even a mediocre one. Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread, Licorice Pizza, Punch-Drunk Love… the list is loaded with masterpieces. He's the most important American filmmaker of his generation, bar none.
Here, you can see his influences: Jonathan Demme, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah. There's even a scene where DiCaprio's Bob sits on a couch, high and drunk, watching The Battle of Algiers, and you realize that film's influence is coursing through this one too.
Shot on 70mm and VistaVision by Michael Bauman (with PTA himself co-shooting, though he doesn't take the credit), this is a visual stunner.
The compositions, the use of widescreen and telephoto lenses, the way action is choreographed, it's all overwhelming. See it in 70mm or IMAX if you can. This is meant for the biggest screen possible.
It also feels like some lost masterpiece from the 1970s, the best decade for film ever, and a movie that would fit right in with classics of that era like The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, The French Connection, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The acting is astonishing.
Leonardo DiCaprio gives one of his funniest, loosest performances ever, clearly inspired by Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski. His Bob is a burnout revolutionary, hilarious and sad, a man trying to protect his daughter while fumbling everything else.
Sean Penn is jaw-droppingly good. This is a grotesque, terrifying, and hysterically funny performance as Lockjaw. The haircut, the ticks, the physical rigidity, it's Oscar-level work, easily the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor.
Teyana Taylor is ferocious. Her opening scenes dominate the movie, and she sets a tone that carries through the rest. She's electric.
Chase Infiniti, in her debut, is remarkable as Willa. She radiates strength and becomes the emotional anchor.
Benicio del Toro as Sergio gives the most subtle, understated performance in the movie; it's dry, witty, and strangely profound. He grounds some of the most chaotic sequences.
The supporting cast is stacked (Regina Hall, D.W. Moffett, Tony Goldwyn, Alana Haim, Wood Harris), all adding depth to the sprawling canvas.
Like all PTA films, this is about more than plot. One Battle After Another is political satire, social critique, and deeply personal drama all at once.
It's about:
Rebellion and resistance — the fight against authoritarianism, militarization, and white supremacy.
History and erasure — DiCaprio has a hilarious scene chatting about Benjamin Franklin and the lies we tell about America's past, while stoned at a parent-teacher conference.
Fatherhood — one of PTA's signature themes. The sins of the father, the desperation to be a good parent, the fragile connection between generations.
Love as resistance — for all its violence, the movie's heart is about fighting with love, keeping connections alive, and finding hope.
And the humor! This is PTA's funniest film since Inherent Vice, but the comedy never undercuts the urgency. It's satire at its sharpest, but also a reminder of what's at stake.
This is Anderson working with his biggest budget ever (over $150 million), and you see it on screen:
The explosive opening raid on the border facility.
The breathtaking mid-film riot sequence.
The desert car chase, one of the most stunning, suspenseful, and beautifully shot action sequences in recent memory.
It's massive, but always intimate. It flies by... 2 hours and 43 minutes that feel like 90.
This is a monumental film. An epic political satire, an action thriller, a father-daughter drama, and a hilarious, furious critique of America in 2025, all in one. It's vital, it's urgent, and it's also one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen.
This is the best movie of 2025, and I don't see anything else topping it. Years from now, people will look back on One Battle After Another as a landmark, as proof of why art matters in times of chaos. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Scarlett Johansson, after years of being one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, finally steps behind the camera with her feature directorial debut, Eleanor the Great.
It's an intimate little dramedy about age, memory, and identity, and it stars the legendary June Squibb, who at 95 years old is still knocking it out of the park.
On paper, this should be a slam dunk: Johansson has a personal connection to the subject matter (her own family history tied to the Holocaust), Squibb is having this incredible late-in-life career renaissance, and the script by Tory Kamen has been floating around for years waiting for someone to bring it to life.
The result? A mixed bag. Sometimes touching, sometimes funny, but also deeply uncomfortable and, at times, tone-deaf.
We meet Eleanor Morgenstein (Squibb) in Florida, living with her best friend Bessie (Rita Zohar), a Holocaust survivor who carries decades of trauma but never tells her story publicly. Eleanor, meanwhile, is sharp-tongued, sarcastic, and has zero filter. She's the kind of old-school character who can turn a grocery store pickle-jar run into a stand-up routine.
When Bessie suddenly dies, Eleanor uproots her life and moves in with her daughter (Jessica Hecht) and grandson in New York City. Lonely and restless, she stumbles into a Holocaust survivor support group and, instead of leaving or listening, starts passing off Bessie's story as her own.
Cue the fallout: a budding friendship with Nina (Erin Kellyman), a 19-year-old journalism student who wants to feature Eleanor's story in an article, and the coincidence-ridden subplot involving Nina's widowed father (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who happens to be Eleanor's old cable-news crush.
From there, it becomes a cocktail of family drama, buddy-movie bonding, and sitcom contrivances, all orbiting around Eleanor's increasingly precarious lie.
Let's start with the good: June Squibb is a national treasure. Ever since her Oscar-nominated turn in Nebraska, she's been on a roll, and if you saw her in Thelma last year, you know she's capable of being hilarious, heartfelt, and deeply moving all at once.
In Eleanor the Great, she's all of that again: funny, biting, sweet, and occasionally outrageous. She makes Eleanor an endlessly watchable presence, even when the script doesn't deserve her. Honestly, Squibb sometimes feels like she's in a different (better) movie than everyone else.
The supporting cast is solid, too. Kellyman has warmth and charm as Nina, Ejiofor does what he can with a pretty thin role, and Hecht nails the long-suffering daughter beats. Scarlett Johansson clearly knows how to direct actors; the performances are uniformly strong.
Here's where it gets messy. The screenplay.
Tory Kamen's script has been described as "character-driven," but it is really a tonal mishmash. On the one hand, it wants to be a charming, crowd-pleasing comedy about a cranky old lady making friends and finding new life in her 90s.
On the other hand, its central dramatic device is… an elderly woman pretending to be a Holocaust survivor. That's not just "quirky complication" territory. That's heavy. That's morally loaded. And instead of grappling with the enormity of that, the movie often treats it like a sitcom setup.
I get that Johansson is personally connected to this history. She's spoken about how members of her family were murdered during the Holocaust. So clearly, her intentions are sincere.
But intent doesn't save execution, and execution here is off. It's queasy to watch such a devastating subject reduced to a background device for punchlines and quirky drama.
There are moments where you're laughing at Squibb's delivery, only to immediately feel the pit in your stomach that the movie is playing Holocaust trauma like a prop. That tonal whiplash is brutal.
And then you've got the contrivances: Roger the news anchor coincidentally being Nina's dad, Eleanor's stories conveniently catching the eye of a budding journalist, etc. It's Screenwriting 101 stuff, and it undercuts any authenticity the film might've earned.
Scarlett Johansson can direct. You can tell she has an actor's eye; every performance is tuned, natural, and believable. Hélène Louvart's cinematography is beautiful, giving Eleanor's journey from sunny Florida to bustling New York City a visual arc that feels alive.
But the film meanders, sometimes grinding to a halt in subplots (Roger's grief, for example) that don't add much. The pacing drifts, and the script never figures out how to balance charm with the gravity of its subject.
At the end of the day, Eleanor the Great is a frustrating experience. On one hand, you've got a showcase for June Squibb, who continues to be one of the great joys of modern cinema.
On the other hand, you've got a screenplay that treats one of the most serious, devastating parts of human history as a quirky character wrinkle. That's a tough ask for an audience.
Some people will be charmed. Others will be offended. I landed somewhere in between: admiring Squibb, respecting Johansson's effort, but feeling uneasy and, frankly, disappointed.
The film is competently made, beautifully acted, and well-intentioned. But its tonal confusion and morally questionable central conceit keep it from landing.
It's a mixed bag, and ultimately, I can't recommend it. - ⭐️⭐️
I honestly don't even know how we got here. I'm dumbfounded that this new Strangers trilogy exists. We already had The Strangers back in 2008, with Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, and Brian Bertino directing, which itself was basically a rip-off of the far superior 2006 French horror film Them (Ils).
That French film is genius: 80 minutes of pure, nail-biting terror, tight, terrifying, relentless. It's the movie that should've ended this entire subgenre because nothing else needs to be said.
But here we are, in 2025, with Renny Harlin of all people delivering The Strangers: Chapter 2, the middle entry in a trilogy that was shot all at once in Slovakia. I'm still scratching my head, wondering: why?
This one picks up right where Chapter 1 left off. Maya (Madelaine Petsch) survives the slaughter of her fiancé, wakes up in a hospital, and is immediately stalked again by the three masked psychos. The hospital is somehow abandoned, because apparently Renny Harlin wanted to do a Halloween II homage??
Maya flees, gets in and out of shady vehicles with people who may or may not be killers, stumbles into the woods, and ends up fighting a CGI wild boar in a scene that had my audience laughing out loud.
Harlin clearly wanted a Revenant-style survival moment, but instead it looks like Syfy Channel on a bad night.
Eventually, Maya limps her way to the third act, which collapses into flashbacks, nonsensical ambulance chases, and, the death knell of this series, giving the killers a backstory. That's right: they decided to explain the Strangers.
Which is insane, because the entire point of these villains is that they're random, motiveless, terrifying because it could be anyone, anywhere. You rob them of their mystique, you rob the movie of everything.
Look, the 2008 Strangers was already a knock-off of Them. At least Bertino's version understood that the horror came from randomness, from the fact that you were home.
Harlin's trilogy: Chapter 1, this Chapter 2, and whatever mess Chapter 3 will be, is trying to pad out that straightforward idea into six hours of material. It doesn't work. The flashbacks, the filler, the "expanded mythology," all of it screams desperation.
And the fact that they went back after Chapter 1 bombed and did reshoots to try to retool this entry? You can feel it. This isn't a story being told because it needs to be told; it's a corporate obligation stretched paper-thin.
Here's what makes this so frustrating: I'm a huge fan of Renny Harlin. I'll defend Prison. I'll sing the praises of Nightmare on Elm Street 4. Die Hard 2, I'll say it, is better than the original. Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and even Mindhunters are all terrific films.
The guy knows how to stage action, build suspense, and shoot with energy. He's a talented craftsman. And you can see flashes of that here. There are sequences that are well-framed, edited with tension, genuinely suspenseful in the moment.
The problem is the script. The script is so dumb, so padded, so illogical that Harlin's talents are wasted. He's sleepwalking through material that doesn't deserve him.
Madelaine Petsch does what she can, but like every horror heroine trapped in a bad script, she's forced to make idiotic decisions. She's watchable, but she deserves better.
Richard Brake pops up because, of course, Richard Brake pops up in horror movies now, and he's always a fun presence. But no one can overcome dialogue and plotting this flimsy.
At the end of the day, The Strangers: Chapter 2 is filler. It's the definition of a middle chapter: all bridge, no payoff. Nothing here justifies the movie's existence.
It's a padded-out, reshot, reheated piece of horror recycling. The wild boar scene is laughable. The killer backstory is unforgivable. And the whole trilogy feels like a six-hour attempt to stretch what should've been a tight 80-minute thriller.
Renny Harlin still has the chops, but this script is a graveyard. And honestly, the biggest crime here is reminding me that the French film Them exists, because Them is everything these movies wish they were: short, scary, suspenseful, unforgettable.
Go back and watch that instead. Forget this trilogy ever happened. - ⭐️1/2
First of all, let's clear something up: Dead of Winter (2025) is not to be confused with the terrific 1987 Roddy McDowall/Mary Steenburgen thriller of the same name. That earlier one is still outstanding, but what we've got here is something entirely different, and surprisingly really good.
Honestly, I wish this had been given a bigger push. It premiered overseas, quietly slid into a few theaters, and the publicity machine has been practically asleep at the wheel. No special press screenings, no buzz, barely a whisper.
Which is a shame, because this is a rock-solid thriller anchored by a killer central performance from Emma Thompson, who continues to prove she can basically do anything.
We meet Barb (Emma Thompson), a Minnesota widow mourning the loss of her husband. She runs a bait-and-tackle shop, and now she's honoring his final wish: scatter his ashes on the frozen lake where they had their first date decades ago.
So she loads up her truck, heads out into the icy wilderness, and finds herself completely alone in this stark, gorgeous, isolated landscape. Or at least she thinks she's alone.
Stopping at a cabin for directions, she runs into a bearded, suspicious man (Marc Menchaca, fantastic as always) who mumbles something about "deer" when she notices blood on the driveway. Not exactly reassuring.
Later, she discovers the truth: a terrified young woman (Laurel Marsden) tied up in the basement. And just like that, this grieving widow morphs into a reluctant action hero, determined to get the girl to safety.
The catch? The true villain here isn't the man, it's his wife, the deranged, lollipop-sucking "Purple Lady," played with absolute gusto by Judy Greer.
From there, it's icy cat-and-mouse mayhem: stalled trucks, scarce bullets, gnarly improvised surgery with a fishhook, and plenty of blood-on-snow suspense.
Let me just say this: Emma Thompson, in her 60s, doing a thick Fargo-style Minnesota accent while kicking ass in the snow, is one of the joys of 2025 cinema.
She's empathetic, funny, physical, and just magnetic to watch. She nails the accent. She handles the action beats like a pro. And she sells the emotional core, which is Barb's grief, her determination, her humanity. She's as good here as she's ever been, and you can tell she's having a blast.
The flashbacks, featuring Thompson's real-life daughter Gaia Wise as young Barb, add some depth. They're a bit literal at times, but the casting touch is lovely, and it helps flesh out the emotional weight behind Barb's journey.
But let's talk about Judy Greer. We've all known her as the quirky best friend in comedies or the grounded mom in Halloween. Here? She's terrifying. Completely unhinged. The Purple Lady is one of the boldest, scariest villain turns of the year.
Greer goes big (wild eyes, manic energy, dangerous unpredictability), but she never tips into parody. Every time she's onscreen, you don't know what's coming next. It's electric. One of the best villain performances of 2025, hands down.
Marc Menchaca, always a reliable character actor (Ozark, The Creator, Sick), brings real complexity to his role. He's menacing, yes, but there's also a strange humanity under the surface.
His devotion to his own wife contrasts with Barb's love for her late husband, giving the film a thematic weight it doesn't always fully explore, but that's still there in the background.
Brian Kirk (who did 21 Bridges and episodes of Penny Dreadful) proves again he knows how to shoot suspense. He stages violence with real impact; when someone gets hurt here, you feel it. The action sequences are tense, brutal, and visceral.
The cinematography is stunning: wide shots of the frozen wilderness, close-ups of Thompson's weathered face, and claustrophobic interiors that ratchet up the danger.
Yes, some of the contrivances are standard stereotypical stuff (dead cell service, trucks that won't start), but Kirk makes them feel urgent instead of lazy. And he captures that icy, isolated atmosphere beautifully.
Dead of Winter is a tight, chilling thriller with everything you want: a great hero, scary villains, memorable set pieces, and a setting that practically becomes its own character.
Emma Thompson is phenomenal, Judy Greer steals the show as one of the year's best villains, and Brian Kirk directs with style and punch.
It's suspenseful, sometimes funny, and often brutal. It deserved a bigger release, and it deserves to be seen. Seek it out, whether on the big screen or when it eventually hits streaming.
You'll get an intense, satisfying thriller that proves Emma Thompson can kick as much ass in the snow as she can in a Shakespeare adaptation. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
So, I am clearly not the target audience for Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie. Not even close. I've never seen a single episode of the Netflix series it's based on, I don't collect dollhouses, I'm not a ten-year-old girl, and I don't live in the world of this franchise.
But here we are, DreamWorks has stretched the show into a 90-minute, live-action/animation hybrid musical adventure, and I sat through it. And you know what? It wasn't torture.
The plot is simple and loud and colorful, exactly what you'd expect from something aimed squarely at kids. Gabby (Laila Lockhart Kraner, returning from the series) goes on a road trip with her grandma GiGi (Gloria Estefan, charming as hell) to Cat Francisco.
Her beloved dollhouse ends up in the clutches of Vera, an eccentric cat lady played by Kristen Wiig. Cue a blend of real-world adventure, animated cat pals, songs, and lots of neon-colored chaos.
Now, here's where the movie actually shines a little bit: the voice cast. Jason Mantzoukas, Thomas Lennon, Melissa Villaseñor, Ego Nwodim, Matty Matheson. That is a stacked group of very funny, very talented people doing wild voices for weird animated characters.
Mantzoukas, in particular, is his usual unhinged self. Thomas Lennon nails the silly deadpan. Melissa Villaseñor has a warm, quirky energy. It's the kind of cast that makes you perk up when you realize, "Oh wait, that's them!"
The animation itself? Fine. Nothing special, nothing you haven't seen before. DreamWorks has been coasting on bright colors and plastic-y CGI for a long time now, and this doesn't change that. But the actors bring energy, and that helps a lot.
Kraner is likable enough in the lead, though she's basically asked to smile, sing, and react to imaginary cat-people the entire time. Gloria Estefan as Grandma is surprisingly delightful, bringing warmth to a role that could've been pure Hallmark fluff.
But the MVP, the absolute reason this thing is worth even glancing at, is Kristen Wiig. She plays Vera, the cat lady villain, and she's spectacular. This is Wiig in full eccentric, SNL-honed weirdness mode. Outlandish costumes, hilarious physical choices, wild facial expressions. She's clearly having a ball.
You can feel the movie come alive every time she's on screen. It's like she knew this script wasn't going to give her Shakespeare, so she just went for it and made Vera one of the most bizarrely entertaining kid-movie villains in a while. Honestly, if you're a fan of Wiig like I am, she alone makes parts of this movie worth watching.
The rest of it? Loud. Predictable. Aimed right at kids and nobody else. The songs are fine, but instantly forgettable. The "road trip to save the dollhouse" storyline is paper-thin. The humor is pitched squarely at the "fart joke = gold" level.
And while I laughed a few times (mostly thanks to the voice actors or Wiig), this is not a movie adults will love sitting through. At best, you'll tolerate it. At worst, you'll check your watch a lot.
But here's the thing: it's not awful. It's not the worst thing DreamWorks has put out. In fact, it's about 5,000 times better than their pointless, soulless, frame-for-frame remake of How to Train Your Dragon that came out earlier this year.
That was a cash grab. This at least feels like it was made for its audience, even if that audience is not me.
So yeah, I can't really recommend Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie to anyone outside the built-in fanbase. If your kids love the Netflix series, they'll probably eat this up.
It's bigger, louder, and brighter than the show, and it gives them more of what they already like. For parents stuck in the theater, you could do worse.
For me? It's not my world, not my audience, not my thing. But Kristen Wiig as Vera is a blast, Gloria Estefan is sweet, the voice cast is great, and it's colorful enough that I didn't want to claw my eyes out. That's a win, I guess.
Not great. Not good. But not torture either. - ⭐️⭐️
Thanks for reading, and please SUBSCRIBE to my weekly NEWSLETTER!
Join me on Patreon as a paid subscriber to help keep this thing going.
Thanks again!
