Movie Review - Warner Bros.' F1

F1 is a 2025 sports film directed by Joseph Kosinski, written by Ehren Kruger, produced by Apple Studios, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Plan B Entertainment, Monolith Pictures, and Dawn Apollo Films, and distributed by Apple Original Films and Warner Bros. Pictures. It stars Brad Pitt and Damson Idris.

"Hope is not a strategy." - Sonny Hayes

Plot

Aging race car driver Sonny Hayes makes his less-than-glorious return to Formula 1 when an old friend approaches him to help save his struggling team.

The Sweet

Between this and Sinners, original movies are just on fire this year. Movies in general are kind of on fire this year.

F1 feels like a good, old-fashioned blockbuster. This isn't a big franchise. It's not some previously established IP. It's a fun, crowd-pleasing sports movie with a big movie star and a well-credited director. This feels like what movies used to be. In the 80s, there was just an incredible spark of creative, original blockbusters, from The Terminator toThe Karate Kid to Back to the Future...and those types of runs don't really exist anymore. F1 feels like a movie that would've come out during one of those creatively inspired periods. It's just kind of awesome.

Joseph Kosinski, the director, is slowly making his way onto my radar. His most popular film before this was, of course, Top Gun: Maverick, which just showed his ability to helm a truly big blockbuster. He made these flying sequences that are unlike anything I've ever seen before, and he kind of does the same thing in F1. I haven't watched a ton of racing films, but the races in this movie are just exhilarating. It makes you feel like you are on the track with Brad Pitt, and that just makes the entire movie so much fun to watch.

This is also an example of a movie that has really good characters without having to give them some huge arc or incredible backstory. A good screenplay combined with great actors can just make for some really entertaining characters, and that's what F1 is. Brad Pitt shines with his typical tough guy charisma, but his character is written to be this loner that also has an undercurrent of sadness with him. Damson Idris's character feels like he could fall into the stereotype of the young, cocky rookie, but he's a little bit more nuanced than that. The best character is Kerry Condon's Kate, the technical director of the team. She has this truly irresistible charm and strength to her that rivals Brad Pitt, and anytime you can say that, that's impressive.

The Oscars are notoriously awful at nominating some of the best scores of the last few years. The fact that The Batman was not nominated for any music Oscars is still insane to me. If F1 doesn't get nominated...man, I will riot, because Hans Zimmer delivers what is possibly his best score since Interstellar. And yes, I'm aware he's done things like Dune and Blade Runner 2049 since then. This is a pulse-pounding musical soundtrack where every single tune elevates every single scene. The racing sequences are already thrilling, but the addition of Zimmer's music just takes them to another level.

I also appreciate that this film didn't try to do too much with the genre its in. Sports movies are difficult films to make, because more often than not, there's two outcomes: the protagonist wins or the protagonist loses. And, usually, the protagonist wins. It's nearly impossible to make sports films unpredictable, so the way to do it right is to just give us a compelling story that makes the predictable stuff feel satisfying and earned. F1 does that perfectly. It sets up the characters in a way so that you understand what they need to overcome to win a race. And, because you are attached to this journey with these characters, the final payoffs do feel very earned even if they are predictable.

I don't have much else to say. This is just a classic example of a good movie. I don't have a ton of specific things to point out because I was just really enjoying the ride that this movie was. I want more films like this. Badly.

The Sour

The major problem with this movie is that it is simply too long. The film starts and you understand that there are nine races left in the F1 season. The movie has six races, and they are all, like, 10-15 minute long sequences. That's over an hour of racing sequences, so that means that, like, a third of the film is all just races. They are awesome, but that means that the other two thirds needs to be longer to give us the actual story. I felt like, as much as I loved the racing sequences, there did not need to be as many as there were.

The movie also feels like it gets repetitive at certain points. Again, with six racing sequences, it's hard to make all of them feel earned and significant. There's only so many times you can have one of our characters dramatically crash and have it feel impactful. The racing sequences aren't boring, but they feel less special the further the film goes on, because it's just a hair too long.

I hinted at this in my positives, but the sports genre is a very difficult one to operate within, because it's so often predictable and formulaic. While F1 normally does not fall victim to that, it doesn't keep itself one hundred percent clean. With the exception of, like, the best sports movies of all time, most sports films suffer from being a touch generic, and F1 does have some of that to it.

Much like my positives, though, I don't have much negative to say about F1. This is a very good, old-school blockbuster.

Final Thoughts and Score

F1 is a fun, thrilling sports film with some of the coolest racing sequences I've ever seen. It's a bit too long, but this is definitely a summer blockbuster worth seeing.

I am going Sweet here. Age range is 9+.

SWEET N' SOUR SCALE

Sweet (Great) Savory (Good) Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)

Fun Factor: 8.5/10

Acting: 8/10

Story: 8.5/10

Characters: 8/10

Quality: 8.5/10

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

Rated PG-13 for moderate violence, language, suggestive material, thematic elements

Released on June 27, 2025

2 hours and 36 minutes

Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes

Damson Idris as Joshua Pearce

Kerry Condon as Kate McKenna

Javier Bardem as Ruben Cervantes

Tobias Menzies as Peter Banning

Kim Bodnia as Kasper Smolinski

Sarah Niles as Bernadette Pearce

Callie Cooke as Jodie