My favorite character of the year was One Battle After Another's beer-drinking karate instructor

2025 was a good year for Benicio del Toro. Or, at the very least, it was a great year to watch Benicio del Toro on the big screen. Alongside a fantastically complex leading turn as arms dealer and reluctant patriarch Zsa-Zsa Korda in Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, he was also a standout supporting actor in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another – a role that's earned him the illustrious title of GamesRadar+'s character of the year.

In Anderson's tense, funny, moving film about revolution, family, and legacy, del Toro plays Sergio St. Carlos, AKA Sensei Sergio. He teaches karate to kids by day and is a figurehead for the undocumented community in Baktan Cross, California, on the side and, to me, it seems like a no-brainer to crown him our character of the year (my team seemingly agreed with me, too – I was uncontested in my campaign to rank him number one in the best of 2025's movie output).

We initially meet Sensei Sergio when ex-revolutionary Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) first realizes his teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) is in danger. After over a decade of living a peaceful life under false identities while the authorities fail to track them down, Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a right-wing freak with a vendetta against former members of the radical leftist group the French 75, has finally located them – and he's most interested in getting his hands on Willa. Some of Bob's former revolutionary pals rescue Willa from her school dance before Lockjaw's men arrive, but years of too much weed and booze have rendered Bob's brain pretty fuzzy, and he can't remember where their rendezvous point is supposed to be.

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Authority figure

Sergio is the first (and only) person Bob contacts for help in Baktan Cross, and he trusts him implicitly from the get-go. Sergio is more than happy to help, but he's got a few problems of his own to solve. Lockjaw has brought an army of immigration cops with him as a front for his mission to Baktan Cross, and Sergio has "a little Latino Harriet Tubman situation going on at my place. All legit. From the heart." So, yes, he's happy to help Bob out – but he has a couple of dozen undocumented migrants to smuggle to safety first.

Sergio acts as a foil to other establishment characters like Lockjaw – despite his ranking, we see throughout the movie that Lockjaw can't command authority or respect, no matter how hard he tries or how much force he exhibits. By contrast, Sergio, in the brief time we see him interacting with the residents of Baktan Cross, is not only respected but loved. He has everyone at his beck and call, from Bob to his family members to neighborhood teens. In one of the film's funniest sequences, when Bob is desperately trying to charge his burner phone but can't stay in one spot long enough to find a power outlet, Sergio calmly but sternly ushers him through an apartment complex like he's one of his adolescent students – and Bob obeys, disgruntled but obedient.

Sergio provides much of the movie's comic relief, and he's the source of one of the movie's best line readings. When pulled over by police, they ask him if he's been drinking. "I've had a few," he replies. When pressed, he elaborates: "a few small beers." It's the best marketing Modelo has ever had.

"No fear. Like Tom fucking Cruise"

The main thing about Sergio, though – although it's not something that's made a big deal of in the movie – is that he's very brave. His actions don't have the pizzazz or the showmanship of the French 75, who plant bombs in government buildings and hold banks at gunpoint, but Sergio is arguably helping more people in more tangible ways, even if he isn't so explicit in his radical politics. He risks a lot to help Bob, too, even though he doesn't really have any reason to; Bob's escape from police custody in the film's second act would have been impossible without him, and Sergio even turns himself over to the cops after throwing Bob out of the car to safety. "I'll tell you what freedom is," he tells Bob as they chase after Willa. "No fear. Like Tom fucking Cruise."

Among the undocumented people hiding out in Sergio's apartment building, there is a significant percentage of kids. As Sergio hurries them through a trap door to a network of tunnels that will eventually lead them to safety in a church, mothers help their young, frightened offspring carry their brightly colored backpacks and stuffed animals, and it's one of the film's more quietly sobering scenes. In this way, Sensei Sergio exemplifies the core message at the heart of One Battle After Another: the fight is never really over, so we have a duty to raise the next generation to do a better job than we ever could.

Honorable Mentions

• Clark Kent/Kal-El, Superman – Who better to kick off James Gunn's new DCU on the big screen than the Man of Steel?
• Thia, Predator: Badlands – Elle Fanning's Weyland-Yutani synth brought heart and humor to this sci-fi action adventure.
• Kleya Marki, Andor season 2 – The Rebellion owes pretty much everything to Kleya's intel and bravery.
• Annie, Sinners – Wunmi Mosaku's Hoodoo practitioner is key to fighting off the vampire hordes at the juke joint.

One Battle After Another is now available to buy or rent at home. For more, check out our One Battle After Another review.