Time is slippery in One Battle After Another — and that’s exactly what makes it so fascinating. Sixteen years flash by somewhere in the story, yet the world around its characters hardly budges. The activist Perfidia Beverly Hills (played by Teyana Taylor) tells us in a wistful voice-over that "not much has changed," though everything around her ex Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) and their daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) feels ever so slightly shifted. The soundtrack still bumps with familiar beats like “Mo Bamba,” people now use nonbinary pronouns, and the vibe of the world feels caught between now and not-quite-yet. It could be 2018, maybe 2025, or even 2040 — and that ambiguity is what keeps audiences arguing. But here’s where it gets controversial: does the movie want us to pin down when it happens, or is that the whole point?
Since its release, the timeline of One Battle After Another has become one of its biggest mysteries. The rebellious energy of the film’s group, the French 75, clearly echoes the activism of the 1960s, yet the story’s first act — where Perfidia meets Bob, falls in love, gets arrested, escapes, gives birth to Willa, then vanishes — can’t possibly be set that far back. Smartphones appear in the frame during Perfidia’s arrest, placing it squarely in a modern age. Director Paul Thomas Anderson is riffing on Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, which explored the gap between ‘60s radicals and ‘80s yuppies — but this movie is definitely not trapped in the 1980s either.
In the film’s explosive opening, the French 75 storm a facility to free migrants detained at a border — a practice that, while tragically modern, has roots in real-life U.S. policies. Migrant detention was happening during Obama’s presidency in 2014 and continues today. So if this opening sequence took place around then, Bob’s later scenes with an older Willa in the town of Baktan Cross might fall around 2030. Still, some argue the timeline may begin later — maybe during Biden’s term or in the years just before the film’s 2025 release — which would shift the rest of the film’s events into 2041. That theory has gained traction among fans tracking Anderson’s every visual clue: the futuristic, retro-style tech used by Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) to analyze Willa’s DNA, for instance, feels both forward-looking and oddly nostalgic.
And yet, just when you think you’ve figured out when we are, Anderson throws in another curveball. Bob drives a 1991 Nissan Sentra, even though much newer cars exist in this world. Ex-revolutionaries avoid smartphones altogether, fearful of government tracking, and other little touches — like Willa’s friend driving an old Toyota Yaris — build character but muddy the timeline further. Is this chaos deliberate? Possibly. Anderson is known for prioritizing emotional storytelling over rigid logic, so maybe the clutter of eras simply mirrors the confusion of lives lived between rebellion and routine.
Watching One Battle After Another brings to mind Christian Petzold’s Transit, another film that toys brilliantly with time. Petzold set his story during World War II but filled the world with modern-day cars, clothes, and technology. The result? A haunting blend of past and present that transcends historical boundaries. Likewise, One Battle After Another refuses to exist in a single era, becoming more intriguing the less it makes chronological sense. The French 75 could belong to our present day, to 16 years ago, or to a future uprising just waiting to unfold.
In the end, Anderson seems to suggest that the when doesn’t matter. What endures is the spirit of rebellion itself — revolutionaries who keep emerging, no matter the year, the nation, or the iPhone model. There’s always someone ready to fight the next fight.
But what do you think — is Anderson’s fuzzy timeline a flaw in storytelling, or a brilliant way to show that history’s battles are always repeating? Let’s hear your take.
