F1: The Movie

Yes, it flirts with the usual sporting movie cliches, but this is a joyful, immersive cinematic experience that literally puts you in the driving seat of the world’s most powerful cars, while never losing sight of the characters and emotional arcs at the centre of the redemptive, underdog story.

Premise:  On the verge of losing his Formula 1 racing team, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) turns to his former F1 teammate Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), now a racer-for-hire living out of his van, to help the team find a way to win a Grand Prix.  But the team’s rookie driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), and its technical director, Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), are not sure that Hayes still has what it takes to compete in F1 … if he ever did.

Review:

There are certain film genres where it’s almost impossible to avoid the usual cliches – and one of those genres is sporting dramas.  Even the best ones follow familiar beats – for example, the underdog triumphing against the odds – but what separates the good ones from the rest of the pack are (a) the characters and (b) the execution of the underdog story.  Thankfully, F1 (or F1: The Movie, depending on where you look) excels at both.

This film not only has some real money behind it, it’s also had unprecedented access to the world of Formula 1.  The F1 governing body has collaborated on the movie (allowing footage from the real life 2023 and 2024 F1 championships to be adapted for the movie), and many real life F1 drivers and personnel appear as themselves (including 7-times World Champion Lewis Hamilton, who’s also a producer on the movie and who contributed to the script) – all of which really adds to the film’s sense of verisimilitude in a way that few previous sporting movies have managed.

“…an immersive cinematic experience…”

But it’s not simply the sporting cameos that makes F1 stand out – its real ace-in-the-hole is the way in which the racing footage was obtained.  Just as director Joseph Kosinski in his previous film, Top Gun: Maverick, managed to put cameras in fighter jets to film the actors performing real aerial stunts, here he was able to get up to four miniature IMAX cameras onboard the racing cars to get footage of the actors really driving around F1 tracks.  The end result seamlessly melds close-ups of the actors actually driving racing cars with utterly convincing racing footage, to produce an immersive cinematic experience unlike anything I’ve seen since, well, Top Gun: Maverick.  I was lucky enough to see F1 on an IMAX screen, and this is definitely a film that benefits from being seen on as big a screen as you can manage.

But impressive racing footage alone wouldn’t be enough to make a good film – and it seems that director Joseph Kosinski (who co-wrote F1 with Ehren Kruger, who also co-wrote Top Gun: Maverick) learned a lot about combining emotion with spectacle from his time working with Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick.  Each of the main characters in F1 feel like fully realised characters with their own arcs, and the emotional highs and lows of the movie genuinely hit home.  Brad Pitt is as charming as ever as Sonny Hayes, but he always conveys the emotions hidden just behind Sonny’s charismatic façade, while relative newcomer Damson Idris gives what should be a breakthrough performance as Joshua Pearce, the hotshot rookie still trying to figure out what’s really important to him.  F1 is a much better showcase for Damson Idris’ talents than the disappointing Outside the Wire, which was arguably his biggest profile movie before now.

“…not a film without a sense of humour…”

After the two rival drivers, the next biggest character is the team’s technical director Kate McKenna, played by Oscar-nominee Kerry Condon, who gets to flesh out what could have potentially been an underdeveloped role.  Javier Bardem completes the main cast as Ruben Cervantes, a former F1 driver who’s caught between two worlds, balancing the business responsibilities of being a team owner, with the adrenaline-fueled passion of a former driver.  Importantly, F1 is not a film without a sense of humour – while the dramatic moments are played seriously, the relationships between the characters are allowed to breathe with moments of levity and comedy that add further depth to the characters.

Although no one outside the main four actors get a great deal to do, the rest of the supporting cast is crammed full of talent, meaning they all do a lot with very little screen time.  Kim Bodnia, Callie Cooke, Abdul Salis, Will Merrick and Joseph Balderrama play the team’s racing crew, Tobias Menzies plays Ruben’s financial backer, and Samson Kayo plays Joshua’s agent and social media manager – and each gets at least a moment or two to shine (with Callie Cooke being a particular stand out amongst the ensemble).

“…puts you in the driving seat of fast paced racing action…”

I also need to mention the music in F1, because not only is Hans Zimmer’s score soaring and propulsive, but the soundtrack is also probably the best I’ve heard so far this year - making F1 an early contender for both ‘Best Score of 2025’ and ‘Best Soundtrack of 2025’ (a double-win I’m not sure any other film has managed in any of my earlier annual awards…).

Ultimately if you have no interest in Formula 1 or dislike sporting movies, then F1 may not be the film for you.  But judging F1 against what it set out to do, it successfully provides an unparalleled cinematic experience that puts you in the driving seat of fast paced racing action, while also delivering emotionally satisfying character arcs before the final checkered flag is waved.