F1: THE MOVIE

June 27, 2025

Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon

Words by JANE CROWTHER


Made by the same dream team behind Top Gun: Maverick, this high-performance star vehicle is pure popcorn entertainment that slipstreams Tom Cruise’s mega hit with dynamic racing scenes and a storyline that requires paddock-precision suspension (of disbelief). Yes, it’s highly improbable that a sixty-something renegade Indy car racer would be plopped in the number one seat of a F1 team and proceed to smash their cars and methodology to smithereens – but presented this slickly with as much star power to rival the horsepower, you’ll allow it.

Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon
Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films

Brad Pitt is our rebel, Sonny Hayes, an instinctively brilliant but unpredictable driver with a back scar from an accident when he was the hottest young driver in Formula one. Emotionally scarred (stunted?) by the incident, Sonny now lives out of his van while travelling from driving job to driving job, but never sticking around. While he can push his team to pole position with crafty moves, he’s not interested in glory – until Javiar Bardem’s F1 team owner, Reuben, comes calling with an eyewatering cheque and an offer to know that Hayes could be ‘the best in the world’. His team, Apex, has a hotrod technical director, Kate (Kerry Condon) and a young gun driver, Joshua (Damson Idris) but is lagging behind on the grid. During the next travelogue two hours, Sonny will race the global Grand Prix circuit throwing the rules out the window, romancing the brains of the operation and clashing with his hothead teammate. There’s some corporate shenanigans, F1 cameos (Lewis Hamilton produces) plus a soundtrack filled with stadium bangers and a propulsive Hans Zimmerman score.

Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon
Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films
Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon
Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films

The races are joltingly visceral (especially the opening Daytona 24 introduction), giving audiences a glimpse into the claustrophobic, G-force, missile-on-wheels perspective on the track while the characters are elevated by polesitter performers. Condon in particular shines, her charming scepticism and beguiling way of delivering a sentence how you’d least expect it making Kate far more than a simple ‘love interest’, while Bardem barely flexes to steal focus – and that’s not even taking into account his spectacular suits. Idris holds his own against the charisma of Pitt, detonating that Thelma & Louise smile, the zero-Fs of Tyler Durden and the sartorial insouciance of Cliff Booth. If you’re going to believe a driver approaching his pension can outstrip Verstappen, Pitt is the man to do it.

Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon
Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films
F1: The Movie is in cinemas now

TRENDING

Blade Runner, Double Indemnity, George Wyman, The Artist, The Bradbury Building

CINEMATIC SPACE

Created for work but famed for film flights of fancy, Hollywood Authentic celebrates downtown LA’s Bradbury Building…

Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Mia Threapleton, Scarlett Johansson, The Phoenician Scheme, Tom Hanks

BENICIO DEL TORO

The lead of Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme tells Hollywood Authentic how Cannes was the secret ingredient in their latest collaboration.

BUY

You may also like…

jude law, firebird, cannes film festival, cannes dispatch, hollywood authentic, greg williams

JUDE LAW

CANNES DISPATCH 10 …Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Jude Law moments before the world premiere of Firebrand, for which he has received unanimous praise for his explosive performance as King Henry VIII. Law stars alongside Alicia Vikander as his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, in the film directed by Karim Aïnouz, which screened in competition at the 76th Cannes

marion cotillard, little blue girl, cannes film festival, cannes dispatch, hollywood authentic, greg williams

MARION COTILLARD

CANNES DISPATCH 6 … Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Marion Cotillard is in Cannes for a special screening of Little Girl Blue, a French-Belgian docudrama that tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of director Mona Achache’s mother, the author Carole Achache, played by Cotillard. The Oscar-winning actress also currently stars in Apple TV+’s dystopian, climate-focussed series Extrapolations,

Ariana Greenblatt, Borderlands, Cate Blanchett, Edgar Ramírez, Eli Roth, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart

BORDERLANDS

Words by JAMES MOTTRAM From Queen Elizabeth I to Bob Dylan in his electric era to The Lord of the Rings’ ethereal Galadriel, two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett can do no wrong. And so she proves again in Eli Roth’s Borderlands, a rambunctious adaptation of the popular videogame series from Gearbox Software. It’s not often that the chameleon-like