When I heard there was going to be a movie featuring the sport I love and that it was being produced by the Sir Lewis Hamilton, himself — I couldn’t have been more excited.Â
F1: The Movie (2025) follows Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) as he makes his return to Formula 1 to help his ex-teammate’s (Javier Bardem) struggling team — APXGP. He butts heads with his rookie teammate — Joshua Pearce — played by Damson Idris and forms a special relationship with Technical Director Kate McKenna, played by Kerry Condon. Everyone has to work together to get at least one race win before the season’s end to keep APXGP going.Â
If you’re an F1 fan, I’ll tell you this now — this movie wasn’t necessarily made for us. There are fan services like all the driver and team principle cameos or small nods to F1 history, but majorly this movie is for thrill seekers — the people who just love a good action movie.Â
The movie was shot during several Grand Prix and with Pitt and Idris actually racing in Formula 2 cars. The filmmakers really pushed the limit when it came to capturing that perfect shot and it paid off big time. Rigging actual cars with cameras gives viewers a front row seat to all the action. The point of view is unique and makes for some incredibly cinematic shots.Â
The soundtrack in this movie absolutely goes off with “Just Keep Watching” by Tate McRae which has been trending on TikTok for a hot minute, with contributions from huge stars like; Ed Sheeran, ROSÉ, Don Toliver (ft. Doja Cat), and Hans Zimmer as composer. Classic songs like “We Will Rock You” and “Whole Lotta Love” bring a thrill that compliments the melodies of the V6 engines perfectly. It’s little things like that the movie-makers definitely took their time to make just right and it pays off. Â
Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, a place where the level of detail falls off is the plot. It’s incredibly basic. I could’ve told you exactly how it was going to end before it started. It doesn’t help that they publicly filmed so many of the scenes so any eagle-eyed F1 fan could easily put together what was going to happen. Personally I think the plot would’ve worked better within the context of an IndyCar championship rather than Formula 1. It would have been a little bit more believable, but probably wouldn’t have brought nearly as many people to the theatres.Â
The movie also did a poor job of letting women be good at their jobs. In a season where we finally have our first ever female Race Engineer in Laura Mueller, we don’t also need a movie where the only three female characters either mess up, are overly protective of one of the male leads, or have random romantic tension with Brad Pitt. We can have witty banter without romantic tension, a loving mother who doesn’t villainize the main character, and I beg of Hollywood, let us have a woman whose entire storyline isn’t “I’m the only one here who can’t do my job.”
I debated for forever on how absolutely pedantic I was going to be with this review, but for everyone’s sake I’ll keep it simple and say this: is this movie the most accurate representation of Formula 1? No. Is it close? To an extent. It’s Hollywood, everything is dramatized, bigger, and crazier than what a typical race season looks like. The movie also isn’t the best with continuity — it was filmed over two seasons and fans can tell.Â
Altogether was this film a five star movie? No, did I give it five stars on Letterboxd anyway… maybe. The joy I felt seeing Carlos Sainz in Ferrari red again, Checo Pérez back on the grid, and Lando Norris’ mullet made almost every blunder and inconsistency worth it for me. It’s fun, exciting, and action packed. What more can you really ask for from Brad Pitt? In the wise words of my friend, “Everyone should go see this film with their F1 friend.” I was probably more entertaining than the movie but we all walked out of that theatre laughing, which in my books makes a movie worth seeing.
