F1, marketed as F1: The Movie, is exactly what you think it is going to be about. A cocky over-the-hill race car driver being offered a deal he can’t refuse only to discover that in order to become a winner, he has to be a team player, not the star of the show. That this driver is not a has-been but a never-was is just a wrinkle in an otherwise familiar plot. Originality is not this film’s strong spot, nor are the performances, none of which have been singled out for any major awards. This is a film that soars on its production credits, its fast-paced racing, and a whole lot of visual effects that blend action and digital effects virtually seamlessly. There is no denying, this is a slick looking movie.
So why is F1: The Movie on the list for the ten best pictures of the year according to the Academy Awards? What makes it more special than something like Gran Turismo, a film based on the incredible true story of a video game racing expert who translates that talent into the real world of professional racing? The cynic in me wants to say that star power and audience popularity are at play here, with the Academy desperately trying to attract younger viewers the same way they did in the 70s when they invited voters from the counter-culture movement to be on the board and to make their movies. Perhaps some of that is even in play here since this film scored high on audience scores and earned a decent profit. Popularity contests rarely, if ever, translate into wins, though—Titanic being a big exception and that film was a technological powerhouse on top of everything else—and films like this usually scrape up a technological award or two then limp away in the end with nothing else. We won’t know for sure if this will be the case until those envelopes are opened live in about six weeks.
F1: The Movie did review well, though, which is something films like Gran Turismo, Speed Racer, and Days of Thunder failed to do. Ford v. Ferrari, however, made a splash at the Oscars but didn’t hit it out of the park at the box office. It’s hard to market a film about autoracing that will appeal to audiences in general, many of whom envision racing as a boring sport consisting of people driving around in a circle for 500 miles. To attract audiences who might otherwise ignore this type of movie, Brad Pitt was cast in the lead. Now, Brad Pitt isn’t a guaranteed moneymaker—Wolfs, a film he costarred in alongside George Clooney, was mostly ignored—but he has enough charisma and goodwill to get people interested in most projects. Still, you have that major hurdle: car racing appeals to a limited audience. We saw that in Pixar’s Cars, a film that—despite being derivative of Doc Hollywood—is a very underappreciated film.
The first thing needed is to find a way to make racing exciting for those who don’t already appreciate the sport. To do this, director Joseph Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda found ways to put us in those cars without falling back on the tired trope of a first-person viewpoint. The camera work, while overlooked by the Academy, takes us close and personal, almost too close at times, to the drivers, the cars, to the tires even, giving us a close-up look at how each of these things works together to make a F1 race car fly down the road at north of 200 mph. I have no interest in racing, and even I was pulled into the different aspects of how these things work.
But that is the technological side of things. None of this would work without the human element. This part of the story, while well presented, is nothing really new. We start out with aging former F1 prodigy Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), who has spent the last 30 years as a racer-for-hire, after a career-ending crash left him feeling like a failure who never reached his potential. After winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, he is approached by his former teammate, Rubén Cervantes (Javier Bardem), owner of the struggling APXGP F1 team, who offers him a chance to return to the F1 circuit as their second driver, racing alongside Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a rookie with a lot of talent and a hot head. APXGP is in danger of being sold by the investors if they cannot come up with a single win in the last nine races of the season.
Sonny meets Joshua and the team and quickly ascertains, despite struggling with the new equipment, that the vehicles need to be upgraded with enhanced aerodynamics to compensate for their speed disadvantage. He also struggles at first with his competitive edge, causing a complete loss when he initially refuses to be a team player on the track. But he eventually figures out his role in the team, finding exploits and other tricks to manipulate the races and give his teammate opportunities to climb up the ranks and actually compete. Because this is fiction, there is little doubt that it will come down to the wire, and it does just that. There is also little doubt who the villain of the picture will end up being, despite the film trying to paint it as a mystery. The script, written by Ehren Kruger, does little to mask this reveal.
While the film gives both of its leads opportunities to create real characters, development often comes abruptly, especially with Sonny, who does a rapid 180 after causing a game-ending accident for his team. “I thought we were racing,” he says when asked why he didn’t let his teammate pass him on the track. A short time later, he is suddenly taking big risks to hinder the other drivers and allow Joshua to shine at the expense of his own placement. Many of these tricks are very dangerous and even bending, if not outright breaking, the rules of the race, too, yet the results cannot be denied. This culminates in a situation, though, where Joshua suddenly ignores Sonny and tries to overtake another driver at the wrong moment, ending in a major accident that could have cost him his life.
F1: The Movie is visceral, exciting, and finds a way to make subjects like aerodynamics and tire technology interesting. Yet, in the end, it is still just a racing movie like so many before it, and it doesn’t bring anything enlightening to the table. This is a story we have all seen before, perhaps done better in some ways and lesser in others. It’s entertaining, but it isn’t something we haven’t seen before. Brad Pitt makes for an engaging lead, but he isn’t exercising his acting talents by any stretch of the imagination. This ultimately is a film that is a bit bloated and generic, but is energetic at times and carried by the easy swagger of its lead. That makes for a fun time on the big screen but not something worth going back to again and again.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Chad Oman, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Joseph Kosinski, and Jerry Bruckheimer
Best Sound: Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo, and Juan Peralta (won)
Best Film Editing: Stephen Mirrione
Best Visual Effects: Ryan Tudhope, Nicolas Chevallier, Robert Harrington, and Keith Dawson
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Release Date: June 27, 2025
Running Time: 155 minutes
Rated PG-13
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, and Javier Bardem
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
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