Did Best Picture Oscar winner ‘One Battle After Another’ flop at the box office? Lifetime theater collection reveals the truth

Oscars 2026: “One Battle After Another,” a black comedy action-thriller film, won best picture at the Academy Awards, leading a haul of six trophies on a Sunday night when Hollywood handed its top movie honors to unconventional stories. The offbeat tale of political resistance traded wins with the vampire story “Sinners,” setting up a fight to the end at the Dolby Theatre. The Warner Bros. movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a one-time revolutionary who becomes a weed-smoking single father of a teenager.

Before this year Anderson had 11 career Oscar nominations and no ‌wins. In addition to best ⁠picture, he ⁠won best director and best adapted screenplay on Sunday.

How did "One Battle After Another" perform at the box office?

The action-thriller film “One Battle After Another” is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Thomas Pynchon. The film features a star-studded cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, alongside Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro.

According to Screen Rant, the movie released in September 2025 and garnered a 94% critical score and 85% audience score. The Paul Thomas Anderson directorial received massive praise and was widely hailed as one of the best movies of 2025, the online portal reported. The film grossed $200.3 million worldwide, including $70.2 million domestically and $130.1 million from international markets, according to Screen Rant.


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The $200 million mark at the box office made “One Battle After Another” Anderson's most profitable film in years. As far as the worldwide box office collection is concerned, Licorice Pizza (2021) made $33 million, Phantom Thread (2017) earned $52 million, Inherent Vice (2014) grossed slightly under $15 million, and The Master (2012) came away with $29 million, as reported by Screen Rant.

Did ‘One Battle After Another’ flop at the box office?

Despite crossing the $200 million mark at the box office, “One Battle After Another” probably did not even break even. At the time when the movie was released, Variety reported that several films released at that time missed their targets. “One Battle After Another” approximately required $300m (£224m) to break even.

The film's budget was $130m (£97m), BBC and Variety reported, citing Warner Bros. However, some sources, according to the BBC, claimed that it could be more than $10m higher. According to Variety, another $70 million was spent on promotional efforts. The online platform also reported that the revenue from ticket sales was reportedly split 50-50 between the studio and theater operators. Due to the marketing budget, the movie was expected to lose $100 million.

At the time when its theatrical run was winding down nearly, One Battle After Another reportedly failed to earn more than two and a half times its reported production budget of $130–$175 million. In the film industry, a movie typically needs to make around two to two-and-a-half times its budget to break even after accounting for marketing, distribution, and the share taken by theaters.

When a film fails to reach that threshold after its theatrical run, it is generally considered unable to break even financially. At the extreme end of the spectrum, a box-office bomb refers to a major financial disaster in which a film’s gross may not even cover its production budget alone, sometimes resulting in studio write-downs or other financial repercussions.