A middle-aged man, wild-eyed and stoned, dives into a beat-up car and fumbles with the ignition, stomping the gas to a soundtrack of squealing tires as he slams the driver’s side door shut while already in motion. His chin-length hair is naturally wavy, or hasn’t seen the right side of a showerhead in a number of days, or maybe both. He’s wrapped in a bathrobe, indoor clothes in a decidedly outdoor environment, and he seems decidedly not up to the dangerous task at hand.

Am I describing Leonardo DiCaprio in the new Paul Thomas Anderson -directed One Battle After Another , or Jeff Bridges as the indelible The Dude in The Big Lebowski ? Trick question—it’s both of them.

On the surface, the two movies, released more than a quarter-century apart, may not seem to share much DNA:

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