A string of awards makes it clear: ‘One Battle After Another’ is the Oscar front-runner

NEW YORK — If there were any doubt, the first few days of Hollywood’s year-end awards has already made it abundantly clear: Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” is the Oscar front-runner.

On Monday, “One Battle After Another” won best film at the 35th Gotham Awards. On Tuesday, it was named best film by the New York Film Critics Circle. On Wednesday, it swept the National Board of Review Awards, winning best film, best director for Anderson and acting awards for Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro and newcomer Chase Infiniti.

Expect to hear this pun a lot: one award after another.

“I didn’t expect this, actually,” Anderson said at the Gothams. “I started to think I didn’t know what was going on.”

That may be the first, and last, time Anderson can say that this awards season.

“One Battle After Another,” a father-daughter tale of political resistance in the face of recurring oppression, has firmly established itself as the movie of the moment. With an opening scene depicting a raid at an immigrant detention facility, Anderson’s opus has struck critics and moviegoers, alike, for its contemporary relevance in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. Even foes of the film, like conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, have predicted it will “win all the Academy Awards.”

Yet Anderson’s film is, in many ways, an Academy Awards oddity. It’s a critically acclaimed release that skipped film festivals. It’s a big-budget studio movie that wasn’t a hit. In fact, should “One Battle After Another” go on to win at the March 15 Oscars, it could be one of the only money-losers to ever win the industry’s top honor.

Smaller films have, increasingly, won best picture. That includes indies like “The Hurt Locker,” “Moonlight” and “Nomadland” — much-praised films with minuscule box office. Hollywood long ago got used to honoring films that exist largely outside its mainstream, franchise-obsessed business. And the notion of what constitutes a best-picture movie has grown elastic. “Parasite,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and, the most recent winner, “Anora,” have all shaken traditional notions of Oscar material.

But even the smallest Oscar winners have been commercial successes. Even “CODA,” the pandemic-era 2022 winner that went straight to streaming, was a big win for the then-nascent Apple TV. Historically, Hollywood likes to reward winners.

“One Battle After Another” represents something different. With a production budget of at least $130 million (some reports have it much higher) and another $70 million in marketing costs, it will have to have an extraordinary after-theater life to break even. Thus far, the Warner Bros. release has made $70.6 million domestically and $131.6 million overseas — great sums for an adult-oriented, R-rated, auteur-driven film that runs nearly three hours.

Still, Variety earlier estimated “One Battle After Another” will lose $100 million, a figure that Warner Bros. has disputed. It’s too harsh a label, but such a discrepancy could make “One Battle After Another” tagged as the first best picture-winning flop.

Awards season has a long way to go. None of the awards dished out this week has any direct correlation with academy voters. Some contenders, like A24’s “Marty Supreme,” have yet to hit theaters. Others, like Focus Features’ “Hamnet,” are just arriving. Support is also strong for another Warner Bros. title, Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” which might pose the stiffest competition for “One Battle After Another.” Both films are returning to IMAX screens on Dec. 12.

But a bottom line in the red is far from a unique cross to bear this fall. Aside from the blockbuster launches of “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good,” waves of would-be awards contenders — films like “The Smashing Machine,” “Roofman” and “Christy”— have fizzled with ticket buyers. It’s been a grueling fall for a wide spectrum of contenders, a context that makes “One Battle After Another,” comparatively, a smash success.

The biggest financial ding against it, really, is that it cost a lot — arguably too much — to make. At a time when so few films anything like “One Battle After Another” get greenlit, let alone with such budgets, the cost of “One Battle After Another” could even be seen as a badge of honor. Here is a movie that win, lose or draw, is in the fight for a kind of moviemaking that’s under siege. To quote DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson: “Viva la revolution!”