‘F1: The Movie’ Is ‘Top Gun’ With Cars

Formula 1 is at the height of its powers. Having finally broken through in the US after decades of trying (largely thanks to the success of the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive), this high-octane, heart-thumping motorsport has struck while the iron is scalding hot and has been given the grandiose silver-screen treatment. An official F1 movie has promise, but on paper feels so shameless and condescending. A classic sporting story of a scrappy underdog in a $200m+ summer blockbuster co-produced by everyone’s favourite omnipresent tech oligarchy, Apple, that’s essentially the most expensive and elaborate commercial for a billion-dollar sporting enterprise you will ever see? Textbook definition of having your cake and eating it too. So, it is an incredible feat from legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joseph Kosinski that F1: The Movie, an unapologetic, blatant corporate product, is the epic, exhilarating movie event of 2025 so far.

Hot off the outrageous success of Top Gun: Maverick, Joseph Kosinski has injected that same DNA into F1: The Movie. Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, an arrogant, reckless American racer with a devil-may-care attitude and unorthodox methods that are high-risk, but high reward (a true maverick if you will). Sonny was once a Formula 1 prodigy in the 90s until a horrific crash almost killed him and prematurely ended his F1 career. Cut to present-day, and Hayes is a true burnout (pun intended). Multiple divorces, gambling addictions, and a laundry list of poor life choices have Sonny living in a van and racing wherever and whenever he can to satisfy his insatiable need for speed.

That is, until his old F1 teammate Ruben (Javier Bardem) gives him an opportunity of a lifetime. With his APX racing team languishing in the F1 rankings and with no success under two and a half years of his ownership, the board is threatening to sell if things don’t turn around. In a last-ditch, Hail Mary effort to save his team, Ruben convinces Sonny to come out of retirement and race for APX in the backend of the Formula 1 season.

Just like Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell before him, Sonny is called upon to help an old friend by mentoring the ragtag APX racing team to bring out the best in each other and achieve success and greatness against insurmountable odds. His new teammate, rookie British driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), is a brash, immature reflection of Sonny’s younger self that is on the brink of being demoted and the team’s technical director, Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), is the first and only woman in that role in Formula 1, desperate to shatter glass ceilings and prove her capability and worth in a field dominated by men. Together, they might just be able to rocket up the road to redemption to silence the critics and the doubters, prove that this is where they belong, and become the best in the world.

As you can see, F1: The Movie is seemingly just Top Gun with cars, with this film instead advertising motorsport instead of military propaganda. But more broadly, F1: The Movie is a wonderful encapsulation of the old-school Bruckheimer action blockbuster of the ’90s and early ’00s. Where the action felt tactile and real, the direction and cinematography were sleek, and the editing was rhythmic and exciting, as if transposing the visual language and energy of music videos onto cinema. Paired with Hans Zimmer’s score that takes his classic muscular sound and infuses it with a dash of EDM and a soundtrack slathered with pop music, new and old, Kosinski beautifully evokes this style of which the likes of Michael Bay and Tony Scott were the masters.

Nowhere is this more present than in the F1 race sequences that are, of course, the main event of the film. Simply put, they are extraordinary. Filming on real F1 tracks during various race weekends during the 2023 and 2024 seasons in the very limited time between practice and qualifying, Kosinski puts you right in the action, whether it be pit lane, the tech crew, or the drivers seat of these aerodynamic death traps as they go in and out of slipstreams, jostle for position, and sometimes even spin out and crash at 200mph. The inclusion of real F1 drivers like Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and Lewis Hamilton (also a producer of the film) and iconic race callers David Croft and Martin Brundle commentating on the action just adds to the authenticity of the recreations in capturing the intensity and excitement of a Formula 1 race. Formula 1 novices and newcomers may be left to their own devices, as the race teams and commentary are constantly shouting specific terminology and jargon during the races that are seldom explained, but Kosinski completely envelops you within the spectacle that you are completely immersed in the thrill of the race.

Off the track though is where F1 stalls a bit. It may have the verve and spectacle of the Bruckheimer blockbuster, but F1 has the same shortcomings in the script department that are commonly associated with them. Ehren Kruger’s script takes you down the very cliché, well-traveled path of the sports movie comeback/redemption plot; as thrilling as the ride may be, it rarely deviates from said path and is still littered with narrative speed bumps. Sonny Hayes has very little characterization outside of Pitt’s admittedly magnetic movie star charisma, and while he does enough to sell the character described in the film not as a has-been, but as a “never-was,” he doesn’t have an arc in this film outside of being driven to win. Any lesson he needed to learn or challenge to overcome, Hayes had already done that before he was recruited by Ruben. In the early races, ignoring the downright unbelievable fact Sonny can just jump right back into an F1 car after 30 years and drive it with no issues, Sonny constantly goes against team strategy and butts heads with Joshua, and from then on those two just take it in turns of who will be the selfish asshole each that ignores the tactics and sabotages the team for their own gain. It’s a hokey crutch the film leans on and repeats way too often that it becomes tiring, especially over the course of the 156-minute runtime.

F1 is an unabashedly transparent, extravagant advertisement made for the sole purpose of bringing more eyeballs and engagement to the sport of Formula 1, and it does an exceptionally incredible job of doing it. Kosinski captures the adrenaline-pumping, exhilarating rush of Formula 1 racing unlike anyone has done before with race sequences that are truly electrifying and a redemption story, as flawed and as clichéd as it may be, that you can’t help but ride every moment with and root for Sonny Hayes to go all the way.

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