Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | December 9, 2025
Leonardo DiCaprio is looking pensive for Time. He's just been crowned their Entertainer of the Year, which means we get a rather interesting profile of the Oscar-winning yacht lover from the one and only Stephanie Zacharek. He talks about being inspired by James Dean when he was a teenager, his environmental work (nothing on his investments in hotels in Israel, though), and his latest movie, One Battle After Another. It's that movie that's landed him this honour. As Zacharek describes him, DiCaprio is 'the actor of the moment, one moment after another.' But is he really the entertainer of 2025?
Probably not, at least on an objective level. 2025 has given us an embarrassment of riches in terms of pop culture, despite the nightmarish combination of corporate monopolies, AI, and podcast bros. Time gave KPop Demon Hunters the honour of Breakthrough of the Year for its unexpected success, and that movie certainly feels like one of the true entertainment forces of 2025. I'd also shout out Ne Zha 2, the Chinese animation that became the fifth highest-grossing movie ever made, the continued success of Bad Bunny, the late-night fightback against Trump via Colbert and Kimmel, and Ryan Coogler's Sinners signalling his critical, commercial, and industry-wide clout. 2025 gave us Kendrick at the Super Bowl, after all.
But let's not discount what Leo pulled off in 2025. He doesn't make many films, so the ones we do get are covered with a kind of intrigue and intensity that most actors of his generation seldom warrant. One Battle After Another is his first work with Paul Thomas Anderson, another generational talent who commands immense loyalty, albeit on a smaller scale. The end result is one of the most rapturously acclaimed films of 2025. It has 14 Critics Choice Award nominations and nine from the Golden Globes. It won Best Feature at the Gotham Awards, and has too many critics' awards for me to count. This was not a weak year for film but One Battle After Another is still SO far ahead of its competition, like Katie Ledecky in the pool at the Olympics.
As much as I love PTA's films, I don't think One Battle After Another would have been the commercial success it became without Leo. He is that rare an actor who is able to headline a non-IP, adult-driven film with a higher-than-average budget and get audiences to see it in theatres. This is the guy who got The Revenant, a $135 million grim drama about frontiersman and bear mauling, and led it to a $533 million box office run. No, seriously, that movie made more money than The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Sure, maybe One Battle After Another is still technically in the red -- it's made about $204 million from a reported budget of $130 to 175 million -- but the fact that it even got to that number at a time when cinema attendance is dwindling speaks volumes of his power. People who wouldn't normally watch a 162-minute drama about left-wing revolutionaries taking on white supremacists did so because of Leo.
But this story is obviously not an objective calculation of the year. It's promotion. Leo's on the campaign trail, eager to secure Oscar number two. And he might just get it. One Battle After Another has dominated the awards season conversation far more than any other film, even in a year as crowded as 2025. I don't agree with people who think it's Anderson's best -- Inherent Vice forever! - but it's undeniably an excellent piece of work. There's a good chance this could be the one that finally gets PTA his long overdue win. It is odd that he's never actually won an Oscar before.
One Battle After Another feels symbolic to a lot of critics. It's a reminder that there's still worth in letting artists do what they want, and that this kind of big-name collaboration between a bona-fide movie-star and an acclaimed filmmaker can yield major dividends. Leo used his star power to get this made and it paid off. As Warner Bros. looks set to be strip-mined for parts by one of two vulture-like conglomerates who are squabbling for the right, this movie feels like a final hurrah. I hope it'd not, but I also couldn't blame Time for wanting to celebrate something that feels like such a rarity in the current pop culture landscape.
DiCaprio doesn't do many interviews, so landing one is always a big deal. It all helps to reinforce this image of Leo as a real mega-star, which he undeniably is. Even in a season where oversaturation of one's image is key to nabbing that award, Leo plays a savvy game. As Zacharek describes him in their interview:
'If he's occasionally evasive, he's so subtle about it that his digressions end up becoming answers in themselves. He almost seems eager to please, not in an ingratiating way, but as a means of making sure the job at hand is done right; he's not going to be the guy who gums up the works. He comes off as relaxed and unfussy, in some ways almost remarkably unlike a movie star, and more like the unguarded, open-faced kid of This Boy's Life, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, or Romeo + Juliet. His eyes, though, are definitely movie-star blue, Peter O'Toole blue--big-screen blue. They're a symbol of everything we stand to lose as our screens get smaller and smaller. James Dean slipped away from us even before we could fully grasp what he meant. DiCaprio, on the other hand, has stuck around. We've had the pleasure of first watching him grow up onscreen, before growing into roles of extraordinary emotional complexity and delicacy--roles that confront various visions of adult masculinity, suggesting the grand range of what men can be, including how they can fail themselves and others. He built a future on what Dean left behind and became a movie star in the process, but the kid who begged his parents to get him to auditions lives on. All he ever wanted to be was an actor.'
Honestly, that explains Leomania's enduring appeal, and his status as an entertainer worth celebrating, better than I could. We keep rooting for the former child star turned heartthrob turned directors' favourite because he's so damn good at it. Think about how long it took for the public to really sour on his dating life patterns, and how he's still able to navigate that without drawing too much attention to himself. He is very good at being famous, thanks to a mixture of talent, savvy, and balancing public and private. Maybe that's the real entertainment. If only he wasn't so pally with billionaires.
