F1 THE MOVIE (2025)

Joseph Kosinski’s F1 The Movie is a crowd-pleasing blockbuster that plays fast and loose with the rules of Formula One, aiming to keep both dedicated motoring fans and newcomers entertained. Filmed during the sport’s 2023-24 season, the movie nevertheless captures the passion and antics required to become a world champion.

We meet Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) at the 24 Hours of Daytona. The veteran racing driver’s living in his van, drifting through various races and teams, more interested in the thrill and the money than the glory. That’s until Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), Hayes’s onetime rival and current owner of the Apex Grand Prix Formula One team, appears with an offer Sonny can’t refuse.

Hayes left the world of F1 after a horrific 1993 accident nearly took his life, but now he’s finally ready to return. Apex hasn’t won a point all season and Ruben’s on the verge of being voted off his own team by his advisory board, so he convinces Sonny to join the team alongside rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). The drivers instantly butt heads, neither respecting the other’s approach to a race, as the movie swiftly moves onto the racing, disregarding the realities of a 61-year-old joining a Formula One racing team mid-season.

The world of F1 is well-crafted, even for devotees of the sport. Apex feels like a fully realised team, helped by the fact the film crew was allowed to shoot in the actual pit lanes during Grand Prix throughout the year. Apex team principal Kaspar Molinski (Kim Bodnia) and technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) also feel like real people one would find at a pit wall.

Filming on location and with production insight from Mercedes, F1 accurately captures the sport’s highs and lows. The atmosphere and passion that go into racing are perfectly recreated, helped by commentary from real-life Sky Sports personalities Martin Brundle and David Croft. The other teams and drivers are merely window dressing, however, treated more like Easter Eggs than actual characters. F1′s at its best when it properly integrates the fictional characters with real-life figures, such as a press conference with Kaspar sitting beside other real team principals, Zak Brown and Fred Vasseur.

It’s a pity they couldn’t have incorporated more real-life faces from the sport into the narrative. There’s a sense that the real teams and their drivers were contractually obliged to appear in F1, often looking uncomfortable in the background. Having them more involved in the story, instead of it solely being Sonny and Joshua bickering, would have given F1 more variety. It’s understandable the real-life teams didn’t want to be shown crashing and misbehaving on screen, but it would’ve added much-needed depth to the storytelling and broken up the repetitive middle segment.

F1 doesn’t do anything almost every other sports movie’s done before. There’s the past-it sportsman looking for a comeback, the rivalry with a cocky hotshot, the taboo romance between colleagues, and even a scheming board member (Tobias Menzies). It doesn’t aim to revolutionise the genre or surprise audiences, so what you see is what you get with the surprisingly low-stakes F1.

Ehren Kruger’s screenplay is the weakest element. The first act introduces a cast of interesting characters, but the second act makes it obvious this is ‘the Sonny Hayes show’. Joshua is sidelined for huge chunks of the movie (it’s since been revealed that a subplot involving Simone Ashley as his love interest was cut), and the narrative gets stuck in neutral. Luckily, an exhilarating third act saves the film from becoming too self-indulgent. Still, it’s a shame F1 abandons its world-building with all these characters and a racing team in favour of focusing on one middle-aged man.

F1 also misses the emotional heart that made Kosinski’s previous film, Top Gun: Maverick (2022), stand out from the pack. For a movie about such a dangerous sport, the stakes feel disappointingly low. It’s all a little too glossy and safe, no doubt due to its close connection with the real-life business of Formula One. Nobody’s an antagonist; everyone’s a hero. And since nobody can say anything bad about Sonny, there’s barely any tension.

The script is too scared to make bold statements about anything. F1 is a film without much to say, other than driving cars is extremely fun. It’s an old-fashioned style of filmmaking that relies entirely on Hollywood star power, exciting stunts, and a cool soundtrack. It gently touches on big topics, like Kate standing out for being a woman on the pit wall, the aftermath of Sonny’s traumatic accident, and how social media’s almost become more important than talent in sport… but then the movie decides it doesn’t really have a point of view, so crank up the Led Zeppelin and let’s watch Brad Pitt drive fast. There’s no time for nuance in Pitt’s vanity project.

While the writing can’t deliver, the cast does. Pitt himself is deep in ‘cool film star’ mode here, swaggering around the pits like a cowboy in a saloon. Damson Idris proves himself one to watch as the rookie who wants it a little too much, although you can’t help but feel there’s a version of this film where Joshua and his story get the screen time they deserve. Bardem and Condon are given some of the cringiest lines, but deliver them with a convincingness that does the writing more than it deserves. Kim Bodnia is also a brilliant bit of casting as the frustrated yet charming team principal.

F1 ultimately struggles to understand who it’s been made for. Kosinski’s tried to craft a film that appeals to those with no prior knowledge as well as motor racing mega fans. There are many references to the world of Formula One and its history, which are delivered without patronising context. There are also extended racing scenes, talk of race strategy, and the technology behind making cars so aerodynamic, which may bore those not inclined to care about cars speeding around in a circle.

However, the narrative plays fast and loose with the sport’s rules and the commentary’s been simplified to assist those new to this world. Be prepared to have moments explained to you as if you were a small child. However, sit back, turn your brain off, and it’s easy to enjoy F1 The Movie. But it’s less a film and more a glossy, expensive advert, full of fast cars, a cool soundtrack, and Brad Pitt at his charismatic best. Don’t go in expecting bold storytelling choices or an interesting point of view, just a classic underdog story told on a grand level.

USA | 2025 | 156 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Joseph Kosinski.
writer: Ehren Kruger (story by Joseph Kosinski & Ehren Kruger).
starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Javier Bardem, Kim Bodnia, Shea Whigham, Will Merrick, Joseph Valderrama, Sarah Niles, Samson Kayo, Abdul Salis & Callie Cooke.