# One Battle After Another

17 Hacker News commenters recommended One Battle After Another and 14 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People praise it as a politically engaged, cinematically ambitious film about fatherhood and radicalism, though several find it overlong and emotionally hollow.

## Why people recommend it

- Cinematic storytelling and filmmaking craft (2 comments): "given how much the film succeeds as an exercise in using the language of cinema to tell a compelling story" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47392074)) "it had some beautiful pieces of film-making" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47416875))
- Politically and socially engaging, insightful (3 comments): "there's nothing nearly as emotionally deep or socio-politically engaging as One Battle After Another" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47387326)) "The movie was deeply cynical and piercing critique on radicalism left and right." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47411657)) "literate, historically aware, personal and very insightful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47394760))
- Excellent, award-worthy film (3 comments): "One Battle After Another is also excellent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47388507)) "I can see why OBAA won quite a few awards." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47415844)) "it's PTA, all his movies are good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47404908))

## What people warn about

- Emotionally hollow, conflicts unresolved (2 comments): "found almost no emotion in it because none of the conflicts it sets up actually resolve on screen" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47387974)) "there's nothing nearly as emotionally deep or socio-politically engaging as One Battle After Another" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47387326))
- Heavy-handed, preachy political messaging (3 comments): "vague political messages and sex are used to take extremely shallow work and make it "adult"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47387529)) "It's up for best picture because to preach, not because it's actually good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47391110)) "The movie set out to combat division and failed catastrophically." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47396929))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan](https://hackerapproved.com/p/odyssey.md): 50 recommend
- [Perfect Days (2023 film)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/perfect-days.md): 19 recommend
- [The Secret Agent (2025 film)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/secret-agent.md): 18 recommend
- [The Rocky Horror Picture Show](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rocky-horror-picture-show.md): 15 recommend
- [Star Wars original trilogy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/star-wars-original-trilogy.md): 14 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "One Battle After Another", https://hackerapproved.com/p/one-battle-after-another/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).