This weekend, our local community The World Theatre will be showing Brad Pitt’s Formula One racing movie “F1.” As always, tickets are just $5 with popcorn and soda each available from $1-$3. Bit of a bargain compared to the $3,000 “cheap seats” for the upcoming Circuit of the America’s race in Austin, Texas.
F1 tells the fictional story of former race great Sonny Hayes (Pitt) being recruited by old friend and struggling F1 team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) to try to bring the team a much needed victory. Hayes teams up with up-and-comer Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) who has a lot of skill but no idea how to really race. Although it is clearly a testosterone-heavy film, it also has compelling female performances from Pearce’s mother, Bernadette (Sarah Niles, best known for stage and TV roles); and team technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon, who brings her unabashed Irish regional accent that shone in the eminently weird and wonderful movie The Banshees of Inisherin).
Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), much of the movie was shot at actual F1 races in 2023 and 2024. While I’m not a car racing fan, I was for years a big motorcycle racing fan, and I was really impressed how the plot followed the importance of tire management and successful pit stops. While the producers did not have their own cars in the races, they were able to digitally “skin” two of the actual race cars with pseudo paint jobs to make them match Pitt’s and Idriss’ fictional cars. I know the movie has faced the inevitable criticism of Formula One fans for not being realistic, but honestly, I found it immensely enjoyable for characters, story and race drama.
I loved watching F1 in it’s initial run at our local commercial theater, and I can’t wait to see it again this weekend at The World.
Watching F1 brought to mind a number of older racing movies that I would love to find time to rewatch.
Most recently, that would be 2023’s Ferrari staring Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari and Penélope Cruz as his estranged wife Laura Ferrari. Cruz is absolutely ferocious in this story based on the 1957 race season as Enzo tries to put together a team that can get a badly needed win in a 1,000-mile endurance race, and he struggles even harder, along with Laura, to come to terms with the death of their son Dino. While I thought Driver did well as Enzo, it was Cruz’s portrayal of the betrayed Laura who dominates the film.
The second variation on this theme was director James Mangold’s Ford v. Ferrari, which looks at the real-life 1966 battle between Ford and their new GT40 designed to compete against Ferrari in the 24 Hours of LeMans. The movie stars Matt Damon as the legendary driver and car designer Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as Ken Miles, the English race car driver. As is always the case with movies based on real-life events, there is considerable fictionalization, but it’s still a great look at one of the great racing battles.
But as good as all three of these are, none are better than director Ron Howard’s Rush. Unlike these previous films, this is the story not of the cars but two rival drivers trying to establish who is better during the 1976 Formula One campaign. Chris Hemsworth (best known for as Marvel’s Thor) plays the passionate British playboy driver James Hunt, who drove for McLaren. German/Spanish actor Daniel Brühl (who became famous as the Marvel villain Helmut Zero) plays the cold, calculating Niki Lauda, an Austrian driver for Ferrari. This is not only a story about these drivers on the track but about how they approach their personal relationships and adversities.
Finally, we close this out by taking a big step back in time reminding you to take look at John Frankenheimer’s 1966 giant Grand Prix, staring James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, and cinematographer Lionel Lindon’s gorgeous Super Panavision 70mm camerawork. It is a typical 1960s “epic film,” with an international cast and an almost 3-hour run time.
Epilogue – If you are a hard core racing fan, you might want to see Steve McQueen’s Le Mans, which tells the story of a fictional 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. The film has virtually no plot with few meaningful characters, but it has some of the best race footage ever to appear in a dramatic movie.
Do you have a favorite racing movie of any type you’d like to mention? Tell us about it in the comments!