2025 is almost mercifully over, and we couldn’t escape this failed year without some Ben Shapiro movie takes. During his latest appearance on Friendly Fire, the failed screenwriter took aim at one of the Internet darlings of 2025 cinema.
Yes, the conservative commentator is no big fan of One Battle After Another. He’s beefed with the Paul Thomas Anderson flick earlier this year. But, when asked about 2025’s movies by Michael J. Knowles, he gave a moderately incorrect read of the film.
“The worst movie that I personally saw this year is very likely to win Best Picture.” Ben Shapiro says. “One Battle After Another is coming in on the Kalshi charts which makes me very sad. I hated it. I thought it was horrifyingly bad. I thought it was really bad. I like Paul Thomas Anderson generally, I won’t say that I love him. I’m not like a giant PTA stan.
“I really love aspects of There Will Be Blood but I don’t love the movie overall. I really love aspects of The Master but I don’t love the movie overall. I hate One Battle After Another with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. I think that it is horrifyingly bad. I think every character is pace bored. I think that the plot is ridiculous. I think the acting is really one note,” he continues. “I think the script is just trash and the whole thing is just about how America is a White Supremacist nation that’s secretly being run by a cadre of polo shirt-wearing white people trying to harm illegal immigrants and Black people in a sort of 1973 era rip off.”
Ben Shapiro rips 2025 films
We have been over Shapiro’s dances with pop culture numerous times at this publication. And, it’s safe to say the man is still fighting the larger public like it’s the crusades outside. Who could forget his all-timer Barbie take. Just a dude boxing his own shadow for the runtime of a YouTube video. It’s wild to see numerous people online still rock up to see whatever nonsense he’s proposing this week. But, this is the crux of the grifter lifestyle, there’s always someone to peddle that snake oil to. This week’s entry in the saga isn’t much different in that regard.
Shapiro’s argument that the “basic suggestion” of the film is some sort of trojan horse to accuse the larger American project of nefarious ends. He says the movie supposes “a conspiracy theory in which the United States is run by white supremacist Christian nationalists and all people of color and a few nice incompetent fellow travelers like Bob are going to take on that entire system. And that system must be taken on at the cost of family, at the cost of friendship, at the cost of decency, at the cost of basic human capacity for success.”
In these moments, you can see what lures so many people into this particular pundit’s web. But, then it all goes off the rails at the end there. Conservative criticism in social media spaces often drifts into an ironic “victim mentality.” The martyr complex is heavy on so many minds because their chosen world view is not treated as the default without challenge. But, at least some people are enjoying this year’s crop of movies!
(featured image: Jason Kempin/Getty Images
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