The F in F1 The Movie stands for formula, and this latest effort from visually dynamic filmmaker Joseph Kosinski adheres to the basics at every turn from a storytelling standpoint. But gosh darn it, F1 The Movie also taps into why people love the most dominant brand of global motorsports today. It also understands why a lot of mainstream audiences go to the movies: to provide a full bodied, immersive, detail oriented epic that scratches a primal itch. The story contained within F1 The Movie is one audiences have been familiar with since the dawn of the medium, with little to no deviation. But in terms of giving the viewer an experience unlike anything they’ve seen before, this thing is all gas and no brakes, even with a running time that coasts past the 2.5 hour mark, making it just as long to sit through as an actual Formula One race.
Retired F1 driver Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) is having a rough go of it as the manager of the upstart APX racing team. The design of his car – conceived by Kate (Kerry Condon), the first female chief engineer for an F1 team, and overseen by aged, veteran crew chief, Kasper (Kim Bodnia) – isn’t up to snuff. His star driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), is an impulsive rookie who makes a bigger impression off the track at social events than on it, and he doesn’t have a consistent enough teammate to back him up out there. Joshua is willing to jump ship if the rest of the season keeps going as poorly as it has, and with half the season over already, Ruben has been given an ultimatum. After not making the podium for almost three straight seasons, the underfunded, underdog team has to win just one of the remaining nine races in the season. If not, Ruben is fired, possibly leaving the underwhelming Joshua without a ride for the next season. After exhausting all other options, Ruben begs his former F1 teammate Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) to join APX as their other driver. Sonny, a ramblin’, journeyman racer if ever there was one, hasn’t been in a Formula One race for almost thirty years, following a horrific crash that nearly killed him. Sonny has never been a success in F1, but he brings a lot of knowledge and tricks along with him, all of which puts him at immediate odds with the equally hot tempered Joshua.
The script from hit or miss screenwriter Ehren Kruger (Scream 3, The Ring remake, several Michael Bay Transformers movies) is built around a solid engine: a young buck and an old mule have to work together to achieve greatness. Kruger and Kosinski have essentially retrofitted the ethos they brought to Top Gun: Maverick onto a racing picture. It’s a tale as old as time, especially in the world of sporting movies where there’s always a wise old sage around every corner to put a cocksure, talented wiseass in their place. The biggest detriment to F1 The Movie is its ability to fully side with the older (white) guy every step of the way, including an unnecessary romantic subplot between Condon and Pitt and a “that old son of a bitch was right” ending that nearly sinks the whole thing as its supposed to be crossing the finish line. But everything else that occurs along the way creates a unique, detail oriented, and lived in experience, making F1 The Movie a case where the journey is worth more than the final destination.
F1 The Movie isn’t so much about winning the big one as it is about reasonably measured expectations, and those modest goals can be mined for a lot of tension. The film starts off with its characters in a bad place that could grow rapidly worse if they don’t get on the same page (or at least read from the same book). These people are their own worse enemies. Sonny and Joshua are both susceptible to superstitions and the manipulation of outside influences. The film has no need for an overarching villain, save for a snivelling turncoat that wants Ruben to lose his job who’s not too hard to spot. There’s also a pointed lack of nobility in Sonny’s tactics for getting Joshua and the rest of the team up to speed. Few sports movies go the extra mile to show how most athletes and teams are willing to use loopholes in the rules to their advantage (provided they don’t get penalized, discovered, or fined). Sonny’s aggressive style of racing is equal parts reckless and reasoned, making the on track action and pit road posturing equally exciting to watch.
Every member of the cast knows the exercise they signed up for, and that’s a loud, brash, locked in Brad Pitt star vehicle. Kosinski’s vision is as in love with Pitt as a big screen icon here as Top Gun: Maverick was with Tom Cruise’s similar aura. F1 The Movie isn’t just a love letter to the sport, it’s also a thunderous poem in honour of its star. Pitt gives the full on movie star charm offensive here and is perfectly relaxed throughout; the kind of larger than life performance few actors are afforded these days in effects driven blockbusters. Idris provides a good foil for Pitt, dishing out as much as he can take, becoming a star in his own right. Bardem brings a lot of gravitas and soul as the stressed out suit trying to keep his own dreams alive, delivering a performance that outshines even Pitt’s on a technical level.
But the main appeal of F1 The Movie lies in the depiction of the racing itself, which makes everyday in-car camera footage from a normal race look like grainy cell phone video from the early 2000s. Made with the big(gest) screen experience in mind, F1 the Movie covers ever possible angle of tracks, vehicles, and their surroundings. In a milieu where a single race car can cost upwards of $150 million each, every cent of the film’s budget is visible on screen and then some. It looks like the most expensive movie ever made. So detailed is Claudio Miranda’s cinematography that the viewer will leave F1 The Movie knowing more about the sport than they already did going in simply by paying attention to the visual cues, making it easy to appeal to both fans and those who have no interest in sitting through an actual race. The sound is loud enough to feel it in your bones, and the bombastic score from Hans Zimmer is one of the composer’s best to date.
Even with only a handful of movies under his belt so far, Kosinski has become the most reliable name in spectacle this decade next to Christopher Nolan. This is a filmmaker with unparalleled technical acumen and a keen sense of what a viewer wants from a big time blockbuster. Even his lesser films dazzle unlike anything that has come before them or since. While F1 The Movie doesn’t soar as high as his previous film, it’s not for lack of trying. F1 the Movie takes the old adage of “putting the viewer in the driver’s seat” to heart, and the results are nothing to scoff at. How effective is Kosinski’s film at getting one’s pulse racing? Well, this was the only time when I saw someone’s Apple Watch light up in a theatre because their heart rate was rapidly increasing. It could’ve been something else that caused it, but I’m taking that one as a sign.
F1 the Movie opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, June 27, 2025.
