Following the New York premiere of F1: The Movie on Monday evening, the first reviews of the film from critics have been coming in, and they’ve been generally favorable.
The high-octane Formula One racing drama, directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick and Tron: Legacy), stars Brad Pitt and Damson Idris. The film follows Pitt’s Sonny Hayes, a former F1 driver who comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver, Idris’ Joshua Pearce.
As of Tuesday afternoon, F1: The Movie had a score of 84 percent from 58 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and clocked in at 69 percent on Metacritic from 24 reviews.
The film, from Apple Original Films and Warner Bros., speeds into theaters on June 27. It also stars Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem, Tobias Menzies and Kim Bodnia.
Read on for key excerpts from some of the most prominent early reviews following the New York premiere of F1: The Movie.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s arts and culture critic Lovia Gyarkye wrote in her review, “The strongest scenes in F1, which boasts a two-and-a-half hour runtime, are these moments during race weekends, when Kosinki embeds his fictional team with real ones. Fans of the sport will recognize cameos from Verstappen, Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris and many more drivers. Hans Zimmer’s adrenalized score ups the ante, adding tension to already nail-biting moments like a driver making a dangerous turn on a slick course or mechanics in the pit having mere seconds to switch out a car’s tires. The impressive craft of these scenes extends to Kosinki’s exploration of the various technologies, like road simulators, used to help drivers gain any advantage. Of course, there are some unrealistic elements in F1, moments that might have sticklers raising an eyebrow, but the film doesn’t feel any less dramatic than the real thing.”
Screenrant‘s Mae Abdulbaki wrote, “F1 The Movie is essentially a two-and-a-half-hour commercial with a surprisingly compelling story. Brands are littered throughout the film, and the title itself is pulled from Formula One racing. It’s not original at all, and yet I was riveted by every minute of the film. Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick) from a screenplay by Ehren Kruger, F1 The Movie is engaging and entertaining, building momentum and laying the groundwork for character payoffs. It could’ve easily phoned it in, as so many brand-related movies are wont to do, but Kosinski’s film makes us feel something.”
Ross Bonaime, with Collider, wrote in his review, “Despite the excitement and stunning race footage that F1 provides, it’s also placed in a story that we’ve heard countless times before. And while that’s in no way damning here — not by a long shot — it is a bit silly at times in how much it plays in the clichés. Like a good racer, you’ll probably be able to tell where every turn and twist is going to go, yet it’s the quality and impressive nature in which F1 hits these turns that puts this in conversation for the best racing film ever made. When the excitement and tension of the races are as good as they are here, you can ignore a bit of canned dialogue or a goofy trope that has played itself out one too many times.”
The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw wrote, “With that amused-cowpoke face of his squashed into his safety helmet, making his sixtysomething cherubic chops bulge in towards his nose, Brad Pitt gets behind the wheel in this outrageously cheesy but fiercely and extravagantly shot Formula One melodrama. Along with a lot of enjoyable hokum about the old guy mentoring the rookie hothead (a plot it broadly shares with Pixar’s 2006 adventure Cars), F1 the Movie gives you the corporate sheen, real-life race footage with Brad as the star in an unreasonably priced car, the tech fetish of the cars themselves (almost making you forget how amazingly ugly they are) with brand names speckling every square inch of every surface, the simulation graphics writ large, and the bizarre occult spectacle of motor racing itself.”
Nicholas Barber, with the BBC, wrote, “The biggest issue with F1, though, is not its insistence on showing its leading man in a flattering light, but its equivalent, fawning attitude towards Formula One itself. Shot on real circuits with the full co-operation of the organisers and participants (Lewis Hamilton is credited as a producer), it’s essentially a glossy corporate promotional film with so much distracting product placement that you’re more likely to remember the brand names than the characters. There is no wisp of criticism or scepticism, and no hint of anything exploitative or sleazy. Formula One fans may be pleased by the glimpses of their favourite drivers, but F1 is so intent on being positive about its milieu that none of these men is allowed to be a proper antagonist, or even to say anything rude about Sonny. Nobody can misbehave, and nothing terrible can happen to any of the characters, so there is no tension to speak of. The story simply hops around the world, ticking off every Grand Prix in a season. In the first of these, Ruben’s team fails miserably, but as the weeks go by… well, if you scribbled down what you guessed the structure might be, you’d be absolutely correct — except that your version might have some more high-stakes jeopardy than the actual film.”
IndieWire‘s head film critic David Ehrlich wrote in his review, “Formula One has always been a testament to the difficulty of striking the right balance between power and precision, and F1 embodies that aspect of the sport all too well. Always entertaining for how effectively it welds hyper-modern spectacle to the chassis of a classic underdog story (the latter part of that equation paving the way for Pitt’s most Billy Bean-coded performance since Moneyball), Kosinski’s film can be propulsive and exhilarating in spurts, but in working so hard to satisfy newbies and experts at the same time that it often struggles to seize on its simplest pleasures. Misfits becoming teammates. Losers finding redemption. Cars going really, really fast.”
Sophie Butcher, with Empire, wrote, “For Formula 1 fans, the sheer accuracy of F1’s depiction of the sport will be giddy-making; for agnostics, the races may feel a touch repetitive, and the level of detail may go over some heads. But whatever your relationship to the sport, the magnitude of what Kosinski and co have accomplished is undeniable. Fasten your seatbelts, and see this on the biggest screen you possibly can.”
USA Today‘s Brian Truitt wrote in his review, “The movie isn’t shy about lapping many a trope, yet the white-knuckle action sequences are where F1 lives and breathes. Kosinski wants audiences to feel the danger of essentially sitting in a rocket that can go 200 mph, and the euphoria of passing a foe in a Ferrari or having a straight line to the checkered flag. Those go a long way in forgiving the multitude of subplots and the toolbox of car cliches.”
The Associated Press‘ film critic Jake Coyle wrote, “F1 steers predictably to the finish line, cribbing here and there from sports dramas before it. (Tobias Menzies plays a board member with uncertain corporate goals.) When F1 does, finally, quiet down, for one blissful moment, the movie, almost literally, soars. It’s not quite enough to forget all the high-octane macho dramatics before it, but it’s enough to glimpse another road F1 might have taken.”
David Fear, with Rolling Stone, wrote in his review, “The way that Pitt injects his presence, his physicality, his charm, his well-honed screen persona, his particular mix of discipline and DGAF effortlessness, and his backhanded way of making outdated, Golden Age Hollywood roguishness feel completely somehow timeless is what makes this a winner. He even manages to upstage the cars. It’s a turn that reminds you of Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, William Holden, and, notably Steve McQueen, no stranger to movies about racing. (It can’t be a coincidence that one of Hayes’ Zen-like pastimes is throwing a ball against a wall like McQueen in The Great Escape.) F1 couldn’t feel more contemporary in its focus over a sport that’s the current obsession of millions, yet couldn’t feel more like a flashback to a bygone age where a larger-than-life movie star was the only necessary I.P. This is what blockbusters used to look like. Come for the most impressive, lustrous car that a gajillion-dollar budget can buy. The reason to stay, however, is the driver.”
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