This film is being presented as part of the Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library's Wednesday Movie Club, a weekly showcase of movies that matter for people who love movies.  Attendees will be invited to discuss the film immediately following the screening. Registration is not required.

What makes a film epic? It isn’t just size or spectacle. It’s what happens when ordinary people come up against forces larger than themselves: time, history, society, fate. These stories can unfold anywhere—from distant galaxies to familiar streets—and over moments or lifetimes. What matters isn’t scale but endurance, how long someone can hold on, what pressure reveals, and what’s left when the dust finally settles. This month, we’re exploring a little of all of the above.

Our “Epic April” opens with one of 2025’s most talked-about films, One Battle After Another. Paul Thomas Anderson turns Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland into a propulsive, human-scaled chase story driven by Leonardo DiCaprio’s terrific performance as a former radical forced back into the open when the state targets him and his teenage daughter. What follows is a breathless sprint through safe houses, borderlands, and underground pockets of America, with DiCaprio (often in a bathrobe) barely a step ahead. Urgent, inventive, and unexpectedly funny, the film crackles with PTA’s signature energy, turning breakneck action into a story about survival, loyalty, and the things worth fighting for.

Rating: R (language, violence, sexual content, and drug use)
Runtime: 2h 40m
Production Year: 2025
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, Wood Harris, Teyana Taylor
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson