The Big Picture – “One Mailbag After Another, and the Updated PTA Movie Rankings”

Podcast: The Big Picture, The Ringer
Date: September 29, 2025
Hosts: Sean Fennessey (A), Amanda Dobbins (B)
Special Guests: Adam Nayman (D), Andy Greenwald (E), Jack Sanders (C)

Episode Overview

This lively mailbag edition arrives in the midst of a cultural event: Paul Thomas Anderson’s (PTA’s) “One Battle After Another” has opened to buzz, box office debate, and nearly universal acclaim. Sean and Amanda sift through listener questions about the film and about PTA’s legacy, hosting honest, funny conversations about the art, business, and culture of movies, with deep dives into PTA’s career, rankings, generational impact, and cinephilic context.

They’re joined by guests Adam Nayman—author of Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks—and Andy Greenwald from The Watch, both offering nuanced, personal takes on Anderson’s latest and what it means to experience a once-in-a-generation movie in the theater.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "One Battle After Another" Box Office Conversation

• Opening Numbers and Cultural Handwringing

  • “One Battle’s” $22.4M domestic, $48.5M global debut is PTA’s biggest opening, set to surpass “There Will Be Blood."
  • Box office speculation addressed as “shareholder disease,” with Amanda quipping: “It’s not your money. Who cares? Let’s fund great things.” [05:51]
  • Sean frames the film’s budget as an anomaly—the creative result of key relationships (e.g. Mike DeLuca at Warners, TCM/Spielberg/Scorsese alliance) more than a bellwether for Hollywood risk in general.

• Art vs. Content, Short-Term vs. Long-Term Value

  • “Box office is a short-term analysis game… Movies can be valuable over time—they’re like an annuity.” – Sean [06:59]
  • Example: “Aquaman” made a billion, but its cultural value as “forever movie” is dubious compared to films with staying power, like “The Ten Commandments.”

2. Memorable & Comic Moments in “One Battle After Another”

(Mailbag segment, fun tone)

• Standout sight gags, one-liners, and performances are celebrated:
  • "Life, man. Life." – Bob (Leo) in Sergio’s back room [14:19]
  • Benicio del Toro’s “Sensei” dance; Leo falling off the roof; skateboarder delivering news.
  • “These are noise triggers.” – Amanda on Leo yelling at Comrade Josh [15:41]
  • “Semen demon!” — James Downey’s character [16:05]
  • Bob’s bathrobe/Halloween costume discourse and PTA character costume ideas (Dirk Diggler, Roller Girl, Reynolds Woodcock, Punch Drunk Love suit). [17:02]

3. PTA, Format Wars, and Where to See the Movie

• Sean’s “VistaVision” screening at LA’s Vista theater breaks mid-movie, leading to a technical deep-dive on formats (film vs. DCP, IMAX, 70mm) [22:11].
• Both co-hosts urge listeners: see it in a theater you like, as big as possible, film if you can, but don’t let perfection be the enemy of good.

4. Paul Thomas Anderson: Updated Rankings

Sean’s List (descending):

10. Hard Eight
11. Punch-Drunk Love
12. Licorice Pizza
13. Inherent Vice
14. Boogie Nights
15. Magnolia
16. Phantom Thread
17. One Battle After Another
18. The Master
19. There Will Be Blood

“Boogie Nights is amazing—a five-star classic that changed my life…but it’s at 6. That’s weird.” – Sean [29:00]

Amanda’s List:

10. Inherent Vice
11. Hard Eight
12. Licorice Pizza
13. Punch-Drunk Love
14. Boogie Nights
15. Magnolia
16. There Will Be Blood
17. The Master
18. One Battle After Another
19. Phantom Thread

“I find that I respond most to the PTAs [of] later period, when the heart starts opening a little, and also where women do start showing up in the movies.” – Amanda [134:04]

• Rankings spark good-natured bickering about “Boogie Nights,” “Inherent Vice,” PTA’s evolution, and “weed dad energy.” [32:13]

5. Cultural Significance: Generational ‘Event’ Movies

• Listeners and hosts reflect on seeing “One Battle” as a true event—comparable to “Titanic,” "The Matrix," “The Dark Knight,” "Avatar," "Get Out," “Endgame,” and “Barbenheimer”—and the rarity of “I saw the Beatles” moments in movies now. [34:38, 35:22]
• For Gen Z, “One Battle” is a first lived “film history” moment; guests cite “Parasite” as the last of that magnitude for younger cinephiles.

6. Comparing “One Battle After Another” to “Eddington”

• The two films capture the era’s anxieties, but diverge philosophically:
  • “Eddington is a movie about being on your phone; ‘One Battle’ is about being in the world.” – Sean [46:37]
  • Amanda: “‘Eddington’ has no hope, and… ‘One Battle After Another’—it wants to have hope. It believes in the next generation.” [48:52]
• Both films probe the impotence and confusion of aging activism and politics in the digital era, but PTA’s film offers a glimmer of renewal via the Willa character.

7. What Makes a PTA Movie a PTA Movie?

• Protagonists: Creative, horny, bumbling, socially inept, “good at solving things but in a bumbling way.” [53:04]
• Recurring threads:
  • Playfulness about sexuality (“a horn dog pervert—that’s one of his things—but also a wonderful dad,” Sean) [54:47]
  • Collision of satire and real emotion.
  • Male psyche, father/daughter and generational tension.
  • Distinctive technical touch—camera movement, color, ensemble.

“There’s a sense of perversion… processed through the movies and the kinds of characters that he writes.” – Sean [54:47]

8. Syllabus & Influences: The "One Battle" DNA

• Top influences cited by PTA & Leo: “Star Wars,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Lion in Winter,” “Searchers,” "Midnight Run," “Battle of Algiers,” “French Connection.”
• Extended cinephile syllabus: “Putney Swope,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Cheech and Chong,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Zabriskie Point,” “Duel,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Nashville,” “Short Cuts.” [58:07–63:00]

9. Small Moments That Linger

• Sean: The hawk/Blackhawk helicopter visual metaphor as sky shifts from threatening to military [64:43].
• Amanda: Sensei’s moments with families (“Don’t be scared… It’s okay,” in Spanish), non-subtitled and deeply moving [65:12]. Also the “Steely Dan”/karate cross-cut.
• The poignant final montage of Willa with her parents, happiness replacing memory of crying—a parent’s experience of time and change [66:54–68:46].
• Discussions of POV/camera mediating parental distance: “You never see [Perfidia]…It’s as close as I can get to understanding this.” – Sean [68:46]

10. Listener Q&A: Community, Culture, Connections

• Halloween costumes and PTA iconography
• Power outages in the theater: worst possible scene to miss in “One Battle”
• Dating and the Big Picture listener community: Single fan seeks date for live show with hosts offering to play matchmaker [71:13–72:59]

Guest Interviews: Commentary, Critiques, and Emotional Impact

Adam Nayman: Critic, Author of "PTA: Masterworks" [75:05–115:24]

On Critical Consensus

• “Film culture is trying to find things to rally around. People have invested a lot in PTA… because he’s always pushed for final cut and is very ambitious.” [75:53]
• Acknowledges that early praise comes from a predominantly white, male, cinephile base—and the coming discourse will carry further, deeper scrutiny.

On Art, Authorship, and the Political Text

• “We have a tendency to graft filmmakers onto their movies and look for those strands of autobiography… This is not an impersonal filmmaker.” [81:00]
• Discusses gender and race: Perfidia as absent revolutionary black woman, the text’s fraught and loaded handling of legacy, abandonment, and fetishization.
• “He is taking a small part of Vineland and scooping out her narrative into the present tense… It’s just very loaded when it’s not just an absent female character, but this absent female black revolutionary.” [88:04]

On Style and Impact

• Raves about Benicio del Toro’s “Sensei” sequences and the clarity and propulsion of the first 40 minutes (“feels like five minutes… fluid and intense storytelling” [92:41]).
• Notes the emotional power of small gestures: Bob’s line about not knowing how to do Willa’s hair (drawn from Maya Rudolph’s family experience) [105:27].
• “My emotional takeaway: it’s about time… And the password is time. Bob gets it right, and that’s his little triumph.” [112:08]

Andy Greenwald: The Watch [115:27–end]

On Seeing “The Master”—PTA as Life Event

• Shares a personal story linking a screening of “The Master” to major life changes (pregnancy, death, confronting Harvey Weinstein pre-revelation) [117:59], underlining how PTA movies become milestones.

On “One Battle After Another”

• Describes being “in awe of the Jenga Tower of feelings” and needing more viewings to fully digest the film’s tonal pivots [122:51].
• Finds it “electric to see a movie made by an artist telepathically intuiting what it feels like to be alive at the moment the film is released… just so compelling and exciting.” [126:03]
• Lauds Leo’s performance and the cast mixing “the greatest actors of their generation” with emerging talents; calls Teyana Taylor and Chase Infinity standouts [131:19].
• On parenthood and emotion: “The last two lines of this movie have destroyed me in a way that I don’t remember a movie destroying me before…” [126:22]

Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

“It’s not your money. Who cares? Let’s fund great things.”
— Amanda (05:51)

“Box office is a short-term analysis game. It’s not a long-term analysis game. Movies can be valuable over time—they’re like an annuity.”
— Sean (06:59)

“Eddington is a movie about being on your phone. One Battle After Another is about being in the world.”
— Sean (46:37)

“I delivered a cogent, deeply analytical analysis.”
— Sean, teasing Amanda about his “Aquaman” rant (12:19)

“The password is time. Bob gets it right—and that’s his little triumph.”
— Adam Nayman (112:08)

“It is legitimate—a deeply felt performance—Leo… I knew he could do almost anything, but I didn’t know he could do this.”
— Amanda on Leonardo DiCaprio (107:35)

“The last two lines of this movie have destroyed me in a way I don’t remember a movie destroying me before… It gave me that feeling of being alive in myself, not just alive in a moment.”
— Andy Greenwald (126:22)

Tone & Language

The tone mixes passionate cinephile enthusiasm with warm, relatable humor. Sean is bookish and earnest, Amanda is wry and quick with a retort; both revel in granular detail but keep things accessible, honest, and personal—mirrored by the guests’ energy and intelligence.

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:56] – Box office debate and why this PTA budget is unique
• [11:43] – Launching the mailbag and comic moments in One Battle
• [22:11] – VistaVision, formats, and the heartbreak of a broken projector
• [27:05] – Updated PTA movie rankings (Sean then Amanda)
• [34:38] – Generational importance: event movies and moviegoing experiences
• [46:37] – “Eddington” comparison: movies about/against the digital age
• [52:35] – “What makes a PTA movie a PTA movie?”
• [53:04] – Detailed discussion on PTA character archetypes and humor
• [58:07] – PTA/Leo's movie “syllabus” and influences
• [92:41] – Adam Nayman: Speed, clarity, and emotion in “One Battle”
• [105:27] – The emotional resonance of Bob’s line about Willa’s hair
• [112:08] – Final thoughts from Nayman: Time as the heart of the film
• [126:22] – Andy Greenwald: On parenthood, generational connection, and emotion

Memorable Moments

• Sean shopping for 4K physical media at 7:30 a.m.—an ode to movies as forever objects [09:02]
• Amanda and Sean debating who in fact is “ranting” about Aquaman and who is being the “herd one” [12:06]
• The mailbag query leading to an impromptu “Big Picture” listener matchmaking service [71:13]
• Andy Greenwald being blindsided during “The Master” screening by life events and Harvey Weinstein’s intro [117:59]
• Del Toro’s “few small beers” and “Sensei dance” winning MVP of supporting performances [96:18]

Final Takeaways

“‘One Battle After Another’ isn’t just Paul Thomas Anderson’s biggest movie; it’s a bracing, funny, ambitious film that’s sparking event-movie energy across generations and cinephile circles. Sean, Amanda, and their guests frame it as both the culmination of PTA’s thematic obsessions and the rare release that feels like living, breathing cinema—a moment where art, time, and the messy, beautiful business of life all connect on screen.”

Summary by Segment:

• Box office matters but art and relationships matter more; this is a meeting point between industry anomaly and passion project
• Rare, generational cinematic event—worth experiencing in the biggest, best way you can
• PTA’s evolution is traceable in every frame and every ranking; his movies grow with you
• Small moments—funny, sad, or sharp—linger as much as the spectacle
• “One Battle” sits comfortably among “Star Wars,” “Titanic,” “Get Out,” and “Parasite” as a piece of cultural memory in real time
• This is a movie to rally around, to scrutinize, and to treasure for years to come.

“If you’re listening and haven’t seen the movie in theaters, I’m pissed at you.” – Amanda [141:16]

“That goes double for me.” – Sean [141:29]