Andor was something special. It took audiences by surprise in 2022 by being completely unlike its fellow Disney+ Star Wars shows, narratively, tonally, and stylistically. Creator Tony Gilroy had taken a Rogue One prequel and made it a Jedi-less exploration of how and why people rebel in the face of oppression, complete with thrilling set pieces, blistering monologues, and a three-episode arc on the prison-industrial complex.

By the time season 2 premiered this year, its reputation had spread; Gilroy & Co. would have a bigger platform this time. And they were ready. With an expanded scope, traversing four years across 12 episodes, the show deepened its themes. If season 1 was about Cᴀssian and others deciding to rebel, this season was about what it cost them – as well as what being tools of the Empire cost their oppressors.

It wasn’t received as escapist fantasy, but as timely, even prescient science-fiction, speaking directly to the present day. At a time when the far right is on the rise in America and around the world, its ideas resonated more than ever.

And those ideas were energizing. The show wasn’t so much a warning as a rallying cry, and people were listening. (At least, the Governor of Illinois was – just this week, he celebrated Jimmy Kimmel’s reinstatement by quoting Nemik’s manifesto.)

Andor season 2 was more than just one of 2025’s most acclaimed shows. It was the show of the moment. When it finished, leaving me with that fight-the-empire feeling coursing through my veins, I believed nothing else I would see this year would make me feel quite like it.

I was wrong.

One Battle After Another Is The Surprisingly Perfect Heir To Andor

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: don’t go into Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another expecting Star Wars. This does not layer its politics over the bones of a cool sci-fi adventure, with spaceships and guns that make a satisfying laser sound. (In a theater, its gunfire is actually chest-rattling.)

This movie is rated R, and more than earns it. So, if you like Andor in part because you can trust it not to be profane or scarringly violent, this probably won’t be for you.

But One Battle After Another is also concerned with how and why people rebel against authoritarianism. It follows some members of the French 75, a violent revolutionary group, over several years. We see their intoxicating glory days of direct action, as well as the later life in scattered hiding from a past patiently waiting to catch up with them.

Their motivations vary, as does their commitment to the cause. Like Andor season 2, the movie embraces the fractured nature of rebellions, which always threatens to bury the movement in dysfunction. Anderson also similarly contrasts it with the ruthless efficiency of the state, infected by the same potent mix of careerism and bigotry that makes its villains equal parts pathetic and sinister.

But One Battle After Another never loses sight of the bigger picture. Resistance to fascism has value in all its forms – what is most important is that it happens, and that the people who resist know they are not alone. I emerged from the film with the same energy that I felt watching Andor, the same hope, as well as that feeling of having seen a work of fiction thrillingly engaged with our present moment.

The difference, of course, is that One Battle After Another isn’t set in a galaxy far, far away. You don’t have to work hard to see the real-life parallels to ICE raids or the neo-Nazi talking points slithering their way into the American mainstream. It’s right there in front of us, often aggressively unvarnished.

All that political heft could weigh a lesser film down, but here, it’s wrapped up in some damn good storytelling. There are plenty of reasons to watch it beyond its larger themes, not least of which is that it’s extremely entertaining. (You might not have guessed from how I’ve described it, but much of the movie is essentially a stoner comedy.)

But anyone who mourned the end of Andor after just two seasons shouldn’t let this movie pᴀss them by. If you want that fight-the-empire feeling back in your life, go see One Battle After Another in theaters this weekend. You won’t regret it.