The Oscar drumbeat has already begun for Best Actor in a Leading Role this season.

Some performances have already been seen, like Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another” and Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners.”

Prognosticators like to include predictions for things no one’s seen, like Daniel Day Lewis in “Anemone” and Timothy Chalamet in “Marty Supreme.”

But the truly outstanding performance so far is Ethan Hawke in “Blue Moon.” The Richard Linklater movie is currently at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, and releases October 17th.

Those who’ve seen “Blue Moon” know that this is Hawke’s finest and most unexpected performance. He plays songwriter Lorenz Hart, who co-wrote dozens of American Songbook songs like the title song, plus “My Funny Valentine,” “Where or When,” “My Romance,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” “(We’ll Have) Manhattan,” and so on.

Most of Hart’s hits were written with Richard Rodgers. When we meet Hart, it’s been 16 years since the duo has worked together. It’s the opening night of “Oklahoma!” — March 31, 1943 — which Rodgers has done with Oscar Hammerstein. Hart is prowling around Sardi’s where “Blue Moon” takes place, waiting for the after party to begin and reviews to be announced.

Hart is trying to get drunk at the empty bar in Sardi’s, talking mostly with the bartender (an amiable Bobby Cannavale) and the pianist, a soldier on leave named Knuckles (Jonah Lees). In time, a preppy looking older fellow is spotted drinking in a corner. That’s “The New Yorker” legend E. B. White (Patrick Kennedy), who’s struggling to finish “Charlotte’s Web” and gets another idea from Hart before the night is over.

You’d think a movie just set in Sardi’s wouldn’t have much action, but Linklater knows how to move a camera around like no one else. Also, the Robert Kaplow screenplay is so mesmerizing that the focus is on the words more than anything else, although a scene set with Hawke and Margaret Qualley in the coat check room is the surprise of the movie.

Eventually, the crowd comes in from opening, starting with Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and a variety of characters. Hammerstein introduces Hart to his 13 year old student named Stephen (as in Sondheim) and there are some other surprises — IFYKYK, as they say now.

But mainly, it’s all about Hart, who was just five feet tall, gay, and alcoholic. How Hawke and Linklater faked off the height is the real story, since Hawke is probably 10 inches taller in reality. Throughout the film, as Hawke — with his slicked back hair, sad pasty smile, and endless gab — moves around the restaurant, he’s dwarfed by everything and everyone around him.

Hawke has never had trouble talking talking talking on film or on stage. He’s basically a monologist who lets other people speak from time to time. Think of “Boyhood” or the “Before” trilogy, anything where Linklater encourages him to hold forth in filibuster. Kaplow’s screenplay is perfectly suited to the actor, who makes “Blue Moon” into a one man show that occasionally allows others to chime in.

Hart is fighting drink, loneliness, perceived failure, his homosexuality, and disappointment that “Oklahoma!” will now overshadow everything he’s written with Rodgers. Hawke is incandescent. He should get not only an Oscar but a simultaneous Tony Award he’s so good at conveying a drowning man pouring water on himself at the same time.

Cannavale, et al in the bar are very good, but Qualley is also doing top work here as the subtly ambitious daughter of the woman who runs the Broadway league. Her flirtation with the very much older Hart — who’s more interested in the men at the party — is riveting. Again, their scene in the coat check room is worth the price of admission.

I hope Sony will rev up a campaign for Hawke sooner rather than later. No prognosticators should sleep on this performance — or for that matter, this screenplay. What lovely work.

The first time Paul Thomas Anderson tried to adapt a Thomas Pynchon novel, I liked to call it “Incoherent Vice.”

The film was based on the novel, “Inherent Vice,” but PTA could not lasso it and bring it to the ground. The book kicked him off its saddle and dragged him around by the bit. The movie was unwieldy and impossible to enjoy.

Now comes “One Battle After Another,” which is more influenced by Pynchon’s “Vineland” than based on it. PTA has taken the bare bones of a story about American revolutionaries in the 1970s and overhauled it completely. The movie now stands alone with a strong three act structure, well drawn characters, a main story of a father and daughter that never ebbs, and a light touch that makes a two hour, forty minute film seem like it flies by.

It might be Anderson’s best work ever, and it will be the heavy favorite in awards season.

(To prepare, you might watch this movie’s more serious flipside, Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty.”)

Warner Bros. has done an interesting job with “One Battle,” handcuffing critics to a review embargo but letting social media posts fly freely. There have also been a bunch of premieres, and lots of feature stories like one in the NY Times. The studio has made the reviewers go last.

So okay, we will.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a gonzo rebel named Bob Ferguson who changes his name and identity and goes underground after he becomes a wanted man. His group, the French 75, are like an even less organized Weather Underground who live by the lyrics to Gil Scott-Heron’s 1974 anthem, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Bob has a lover and partner in crime, named Perfidia (a stunning Teyana Taylor) who’s a lot tougher than him (not hard since he mostly smokes dope and follows orders) and takes more risks. At one point Perfidia acts her name and secretly succumbs to the rough advances of a screwy military man named Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn, aiming for a third Oscar). She eventually disappears completely underground, leaving Bob with a baby girl that may or may not be his.

We jump forward 16 years until the girl, Willa, played with aplomb by newish Chase Infiniti, having been raised by Bob, becomes a pawn in Lockjaw’s game to bring Bob to justice. Unfortunately, Lockjaw is missing several bulbs in his chandelier. He’s a terrifying company man who now harbors this possible secret of fathering a black child while, as a solid racist, he’s trying to gain membership in a white supremacist cabal of billionaires called the Christmas Adventurers Club. It’s unclear what he will do to Bob and Willia if he finds them even if she is his daughter.

There are plenty of tanatlizing subplots and impressive supporting characters. Chief among them are Benicio del Toro, who runs a martial arts club as a front for political activities, and Regina Hall as an Earth mother in the organization. They’re collaborators who live in public as part of a vast network of revolutionary sympathizers. Alana Haim, in a smaller role, is one of the network.

There are also a lot of minor characters written so sharply that as they pass through the film, you happily accept them. Anderson’s script could have been another free-for-all like “Inherent Vice.” But it’s so well delineated that you don’t get bogged down or confused ever. The movie has one guiding point: to reunite Bob and Willa after they’ve been separated, and to keep them free of the law.

All the while, Jonny Greenwood’s tension filled score pulsates under the high emotions, Michael Bauman’s cinematography, and Colleen Atwood’s costumes fit seamlessly into Anderson’s vision. As the director builds to a desert highway chase sequence in the last third all of these elements combine for a path to a thrilling ending.

“One Battle After Another” is fiction, of course. But Pynchon and Anderson drew their revolutionaries — and their shady government and corporate enemies — on ideas that have existed since the 60s: Are the French 75 crazy or do they know something we refuse to acknowledge? Are they waging a war in an alternative universe?

Di Caprio is an elusive fellow in real life, but as with most of his movies, he’s a consummate actor. No one plays goofy better, whether he’s slinking out of the country club in “Wolf of Wall Street” or getting drunk on his pool float in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Bob Ferguson is simultaneously the dramatic heart of “Battle” and the comic relief. When Anderson uses “Green Acres”  lyrics from the Gil Scott Heron song as code among the French 75, Di Caprio pulls of the ridiculousness without losing a beat.

Of course, that’s the thrust of the film. Bob Ferguson has spent 16 years getting high since almost getting arrested during his halcyon days. He can’t remember the pass phrase or code when he calls in to rebel headquarters. He’s constantly asked “What time is it?” by someone at the other end of the phone.  He can’t remember if he ever knew at all. It’s hilarious and profound.

Lockjaw is Penn’s best character in years. In years. A very public liberal, Penn plays the rigidly conservative and dangerous rogue colonel for all he’s worth. But it’s not parody. It’s a shocking portrayal of a sad man in decline. By the end of the movie you can only feel sorry for Lockjaw. Both DiCaprio and Penn are at the top of their games.

“One Battle After Another” is a big deal, a roiling satire that connects the dots to today from 50 years ago. After brilliant films like “Magnolia,” “Boogie Nights,” “The Master,” “There will Be Blood” even “Licorice Pizza,” Anderson has found his moment. A big fan of Robert Altman, you can see the influence throughout “One Battle,” but it’s still PTA’s movie through and through. What a pleasure.

“One Battle After Another” opens next Thursday night, September 25th. I’m seeing it again in a few days and will have more to say, no doubt.