Favorite Films: Did You Catch These Easter Eggs in ‘One Battle After Another’?
Do we still have to say “spoiler alert”? Then fine: spoiler alert.
Here are observations from someone who has watched the best movie of 2025 too many times:
1. Let’s start with the obvious: Leonardo DiCaprio has said in interviews that he loosely based his character, nicknamed “Ghetto Pat,” after “The Dude” – or “El Duderino,” if you’re not into that whole brevity thing – from The Big Lebowski. For one, both Pat and Jeffrey Lebowski are essentially confused throughout the duration of each movie.
2. Both characters have goatees, occasionally tie back their hair and dress similarly with bathrobes, flannel and sunglasses. (HalloweenCostumes.com actually sells a “Big Lebowski The Dude Bathrobe Costume for Men.”)
3. Both characters smoke marijuana roaches with tweezers while they’re relaxing: Pat on his couch and Lebowski in his bathtub. Their respective phones ring just as the characters are achieving a sense of peace. But they’re really shaken up when their doors are busted in. (Lebowski also smokes a joint using tweezers while in bed with Maude.)
4. In a postcoital scene in The Big Lebowski, Maude asks The Dude what he’s done with his life. He answers, in part: “You ever hear of the Seattle 7? That was me … well, and six other guys.” Pat is an avowed member of the French 75.
5. The Dude worked as a roadie for Metallica. Pat is in a band that’s trying to achieve “that tube sound” like Steely Dan.
6. Colonel Steven A. Lockjaw is considered to be part of the Christmas Adventurers Club because a spot in the white-nationalist group because former member Jim Kringle died. An alternate name for Santa Claus is “Kris Kringle.”
7. A loud orchestral segment by Radiohead member Jonny Greenwood, plays briefly and only two times in One Battle: When Lockjaw is walking in a hallway after meeting with the Christmas Adventurers Club, and when Willa/Charlene walks toward Lockjaw, seeing him for the first time. The use of that music in the latter scene confirms that Lockjaw is indeed Willa’s biological father, before his administers a DNA test to both of them.
8. In a car with his fellow Paris 75-ers, Pat is asked if he “likes black girls.” He replies by shout, “Of course I like black girls!” In the only scene shared by Pat and Lockjaw, the latter sneers to Pat, “Do you like black girls? I love ’em.” This helps establish the rivalry/feud between those two characters over Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor).
9. Benicio del Toro’s character, Sergio St. Carlos, has a poster of a tiger hanging on a wall in his residence. His cell phone’s ringtone is “Eye of the Tiger,” the theme song to Rocky III.
10. There are multiple references to fear throughout One Battle, but the most impactful scene about it is when Sergio tells Pat: “:now what freedom is? No fear. Just like Tom fucking Cruise.” (Bonus observation: Cruise was one of the central characters in Magnolia, who directed that movie and One Battle.
11. The movie is called One Battle After Another, suggesting social conflicts over wealth, race, gender and immigration will go on forever. While on the phone at Sergio’s pad, Pat shouts in frustration, “Life, man. Life! Just always some tiny detail, right?” Before Lockjaw hands Willa over to a bounty hunter Avanti (Eric Schweig), Lockjaw says to him, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Do you find that to be true?” The car chase, which feels exhausting because they drive over one hill after another, captures the essence of the movie: Life is monotonous, boring and yet challenging all at once.
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