‘F1 The Movie’ Review: Joseph Kosinski’s Racing Drama Hits the Apex of Expertly Designed Summer Crowd-Pleasers [A-]

Of all the types of directorial projects to get pigeonholed into based on the achievement of previous work, action movies centered around the highly technical, precision-based feat of operating a specialized machine of brawny engineering seem like one of the more agreeable ones. That’s where director Joseph Kosinski finds himself with F1 (amusingly known as F1 The Movie for marketing purposes). Following a history of belated Tron sequels (Tron: Legacy), original Tom Cruise sci-fi yarns (Oblivion), and natural disaster melodramas (Only the Brave), in 2022 Kosinski teamed up with cinematic power couple Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie for Top Gun: Maverick, which reinvigorated a theatrical landscape still reeling from tightened COVID precautions. It was also a marvelous blockbuster in its own right, denying any easy opportunity to coast by on franchise recognizability and instead delivering a thrilling crowd-pleaser worthy of the theatrical experience champion who returned to grace the title role.

Kosinski trades Cruise for Brad Pitt and military fighter jets for Formula racing cars, but F1 doubtlessly feels like a spiritual successor to the palpable, visceral sensations that outlined Maverick, particularly behind the camera. Kosinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, screenwriter Ehren Kruger, cinematographer Claudio Miranda, and composer Hans Zimmer all return from Maverick for another story about a storied professional opening up their bag of tricks from a distinguished, dangerous craft for a new generation. It’s also one that, though missing that extra boost of amplified fervor Cruise and McQuarrie typically bring to a project marked by their fingerprints, proves Kosinski as a reliable director of pragmatic spectacle, delivering yet another high-velocity dad movie of sturdy quality—something more refreshing than the latest clutter of poorly rendered superheroes. 

That said, F1 was produced in collaboration with the Formula One World Championship’s governing body, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile), so this story of an older expert training a young hotshot was never going to be particularly adventurous. There’s too much on the line for the organization representing the highest class of Formula racing—the most prestigious event in motorsports—for a film to veer too far off, well… formula. But F1 does what it can to find a new lane in which to explore the age-old learned-master-meets-naive-protégé dynamic and situates itself as a steady sports underdog and redemption story within a well-tread genre legacy. 

In its effort to stand out from the pack, it blurs the line of whether these two specialists actually care about legitimizing their ramshackle team APX (pronounced “Apex”)—now deep in an interminable losing streak and under threat of being sold out by team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem)—or if they’d rather run each other off the track just to prove a point. You know where this kind of dichotomy ultimately ends up, but there’s a satisfying nature to the proceedings and a real force to the drama as early opportunities are squandered by two firebrands who can’t get out of their own way—or each other’s.

That’s because, of course, they’re ultimately more alike than different. Just as the young rookie Joshua Pearce (breakout star Damson Idris) leans into the confirmation bias of his ego, believing he’s owed more than he’s earned, so too did the washed-up Sonny Hayes (Pitt) once thinking he was due when he was young and fervent. Hayes gave up on his Formula 1 dreams after a crushing accident sent him spiraling, and he’s since made a living as a professional gambler and occasional racer in lower-tier tourneys like Daytona. It’s when his old friend Cervantes approaches him to help revive a collapsing team that Hayes is offered a chance at a dream he had long since given up.

As mentioned, these are broadly recognizable character traits and archetypes, but they’re played with appealing sincerity here, as if F1 knows that you know what movie you came to see—and is happy to go full-speed ahead with you in the passenger seat. And as far as leads in summer crowd-pleasers go, it’s hard to argue with seeing a true movie star like Pitt on screen. He carries himself with that casual late-period swagger, sometimes pulling out an insouciant, smart-aleck energy reminiscent of Cliff Booth. But he shows up for the heated moments as well, whether it’s an argument with Idris that hits an inevitable crescendo or his concentrated intensity when he’s on the track. 

Pitt and Idris are surrounded by a stacked supporting cast that helps flesh out all the disparate roles that make up an F1 team, including Kerry Condon as Kate McKenna, the sport’s first female technical director; Bardem as the manager who also acts as a direct link to Hayes’ tortured past; and Tobias Menzies as the corporate face aiming to take over APX. For all the high-impact set pieces, F1 takes its time showing the audience the intricacies of how behind-the-scenes operations shape what you see on the track. How do the technicians simulate tire performance and wind resistance? What does a strategy session before a big race look like? There’s even a supremely minor subplot about the development of a rookie mechanic named Jodie (Callie Cooke), as if to suggest that the folks in the garage have just as much personal stake and interiority as the ones in the cars. 

But really, the cars are what you come to see, and F1 delivers. Perhaps building on his background in engineering and architecture, Kosinski stages his set pieces with a clinical sleekness that still retains a propulsive sense of exhilaration. With cameras cutting from wide shots that cleanly track the action’s overview to setups mounted on and inside the vehicles, the action is always staged for maximum impact and to get the viewer as immersed in the fluidity of motion as possible. Watching Pitt, who learned to drive Formula racing cars for the film, maneuver around the track is by turns tense and stirring, with the meat-and-potatoes reliability of the script serving as a firm foundation that provides emotional context for the intensity. The film teaches viewers unacquainted with the subtleties of Formula racing by using an announcer to narrate the races—a straightforward solution that adds helpful scaffolding to sequences that might otherwise get lost in the momentum. It’s economical, clever, and gratifying.

The script isn’t quite as ergonomic as those car bodies. At over 150 minutes, this is a movie with some extra bloat that could have been trimmed to make things a bit more aerodynamic. A budding relationship between Hayes and McKenna doesn’t quite stick (despite Condon’s ability to light up any film she’s in); some late-movie business involving forged internal documents complicating a race feels like a last-ditch attempt to inject unnecessary tension; and if you thought this movie would feature just one story-altering near-death crash, the runtime ensures there’s room for two. 

But for the most part, F1 delivers a forward-thinking type of throwback summer spectacle—a familiar ’90s-style sports drama delivered via cutting-edge gloss. You won’t be particularly surprised by where the story goes, but you will be fulfilled watching varying tiers of Hollywood star power commit, steadily and assuredly, to their designated functions. “Functions” is a good word for how F1 operates: dependable and consistent, like a car with an engine you can always count on to turn over.

Grade: A-

Warner Bros and Apple Original Films will release F1 in theaters and IMAX nationwide on June 27, 2025, and internationally beginning June 25, 2025.