Bret Easton Ellis opened his mouth about ‘One Battle After Another’

American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis is a wealth of bad opinions. Often one worse than the next. And as he continues to share bad opinions, we all continue to be subjected to them. This time, his bad opinions are about One Battle After Another.

Ellis spoke on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast about Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, which is his highest rated yet, and was shocked by the news that the movie had a “kind of leftist sensibility.” That “leftist” sensibility being that people should not be put in cages and that racism is bad but okay.

“It’s kind of shocking to see these kind of accolades for — I’m sorry, it’s not a very good movie — because of its political ideology, and it’s so obvious that’s what they’re responding to,” Ellis said. “Why it’s considered a masterpiece, the greatest film of the decade, the greatest film ever made [is] because it really aligns with this kind of leftist sensibility… [it will soon be] a kind of musty relic of the post-Kamala Harris era — that thing everyone gathers around and pretends is so fantastic and so great when it really isn’t, just to make a point… There’s a liberal mustiness to this movie that already feels very dated by October 2025. Very dated. And it just doesn’t read the room. You know, it reads a tiny corner of the room, but it does not read what is going on in America.”

Bret Easton Ellis thinks he is the smartest person in any room and that’s never true

The older I get, the more I realized that Bret Easton Ellis just lucked into writing novels that connected with people because there is no way he wrote any of them with their concepts in mind. Not in anyway other than there are aspects of Ellis’ work that are so progressive and fascinating that I cannot fathom that the man who is aggressively wrong about his views could have ever conceived these ideas.

The man who wrote American Psycho thinks that One Battle After Another is too heavy handed? Okay.

(featured image: Lionsgate)

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Rachel Leishman

Assistant Editor

Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She's been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff's biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she's your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell's dog, Brisket. Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.

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