Cinema from the Spectrum

You don’t need to be an expert about Formula 1 racing to watch F1. It might seem like Joseph Kosinski and Ehren Kruger are trying to make a Formula 1 movie for those who don’t know much about the sport, beyond the racing. It would feel fitting that the two of them are coasting off what they had accomplished with Top Gun: Maverick, even while they’re working with yet another spin on a very familiar sports movie trope. That’s not to say F1 isn’t made any less entertaining, but there’s a missed opportunity to showcase all the more intricate aspects of Formula 1 racing on the screen. And frankly, as someone who doesn’t know very much about Formula 1 racing, I sense that the definitive portrait of the sport has yet to be made.

From the moment when F1 starts, you already get a perfect idea what kind of sports movie this is. Brad Pitt enters the picture as Sonny Hayes, a former Formula One driver now living a nomadic lifestyle as he lives as a racer-for-hire. A gambling addict who can’t quite escape the thrill of the track, and as such, he gets invited by an old friend, Reuben (Javier Bardem) to help mentor a new racer, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). In doing so, Sonny Hayes is allowed the chance to chase the F1 glory that he had sought for most of his life, before his initial racing career had been cut short after an accident. In part, it couldn’t be helped but felt like Joseph Kosinski calling back to Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money, with the narrative centered around a seasoned player becoming a mentor to a younger, hot-headed player. Still, it’s more than enough to get the audiences pumped up for all the racing sequences.

Considering the fact that Joseph Kosinski is reuniting with writer Ehren Kruger, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and cinematographer Claudio Miranda, it might only feel fit that he’s trying to recapture the same energy from Top Gun: Maverick. It all shines through in the film’s incredible racing scenes, shot in that very same manner that the flying sequences in the aforementioned film were captured. Every minute of it feels like you’re being put into the same perspective of driving around the racetracks, feeling the same adrenaline rush of moving at that speed too. But it’s also evident that Kosinski and Kruger have done their homework with recreating moments from F1’s own history in how they incorporate several plays and crashes into the games we’re seeing on the screen.

This story is one that’s been done numerous times prior, especially in sports movies. It seems like Kosinski and Kruger are aware of this, but it’s not exactly something that they’re moving past either. The best scenes all feature Brad Pitt and Damson Idris going at one another for their conflicting stances on what being a star player is like. It also helps that both actors are delivering great work as they constantly bounce off one another. When the two of them never have screen time together, you can sense that the film starts to feel padded, especially when the film tries to present a love story between Pitt and Kerry Condon’s characters. The two never really seem to share the same screen chemistry that Pitt shares with Idris, and with the film’s running time being a little over two and a half hours, it only makes the film feel incredibly bloated.

Rather than creating a portrait of the intricacies of Formula 1 racing, F1 is all about trying to sell you in on the idea that this sport is the most exhilarating thing you could watch. Much like Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday, Kosinski’s film is a very fetishized portrait of Formula 1, not so much a movie all about the way the game works, but a portrait made with overbearing love of the sport. Instead, it just feels like there’s a missed opportunity, as Kosinski and Kruger clearly are making this out of love for F1’s history. The involvement of F1 in this film’s production team, noting the fact that racer Lewis Hamilton serves as one of the producers, would be an indicator that this film was closely watched by experts in the game. But there’s never really anything that would point towards F1 being a movie made to showcase that feeling for newcomers.

You’ll probably have a fun time with F1 if you’re coming in wanting to see nothing but the races. These moments bring the film’s energy up to a maximum, but it never seems to carry that same momentum all throughout. Being a little over two and a half hours, it feels way too long. Considering the fact its story is one that’d been done a bit too many times in the realm of sports films, you might even come out of the best moments feeling exhausted. It might be the perfect way to bring people to become newfound fans of Formula 1 racing, but die-hard fans of the sport may have other things to say. Still, I think there’s a lot of fun to be had within the moment, it’s a shame that F1 opts for the safest possible route for spectacle. There’s not a moment where this movie seems to want to say anything about the races, beyond that overbearing love of the game – but considering F1’s legacy, you’d hope for more.

Watch the trailer right here.

All images via Warner Bros. Discovery.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Screenplay by Ehren Kruger
Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Joseph Kosinski, Lewis Hamilton, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Chad Oman
Starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Javier Bardem
Premiere Date: June 16, 2025
Running Time: 156 minutes