One of my earliest movie memories is leaping to my feet in a theater when Rocky Balboa knocked out Ivan Drago—a moment so electric, so fully immersive, that it made you forget it wasn’t real. That kind of exhilaration is what moviegoers chase their whole lives. Watching F1, which hits theaters this Friday, I found myself recalling that thrill—not because I was swept away, but because my neighbor’s fist-pumping excitement every time Brad Pitt’s character crossed the finish line kept pulling my attention away from the screen.
Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a former racing star whose career was sidelined for decades by a devastating crash. Though long forgotten by most, Sonny’s old teammate Ruben (Javier Bardem), now a venture capitalist and Formula 1 team owner, desperately needs a seasoned driver to salvage his faltering team. Sonny isn’t the obvious choice—in fact, he’s not even Ruben’s first pick—but with the team on the brink of collapse, they take a chance. Sonny joins forces with rookie driver Joshua (Damson Idris), more adept at gaining social media followers than racing skill, and Kate (Kerry Condon), the technical director struggling to improve their underperforming car. The press tries to craft a comeback narrative, but enthusiasm is lukewarm at best. As one headline puts it, “If You Missed Him, He’s Back.”
Have you missed Brad Pitt? If your attention in recent years has been more on his personal life than his roles, maybe not. His public divorce from Angelina Jolie came with serious allegations and family drama, though investigations closed without charges. Yet, as my colleague Scaachi Koul noted last year, public support for Pitt has largely endured. His latest big-screen lead, Bullet Train (2022), grossed over $200 million worldwide, and F1—backed by Warner Bros., Apple, and a sport with a massive global fanbase—is on track for a nine-figure opening weekend. Sharing director Joseph Kosinski and co-writer Ehren Kruger with Top Gun: Maverick, F1 leans heavily on Pitt’s star power, with its key art showcasing him front and center, shirt clinging to his still-chiseled frame.
Pitt has been a fixture of cinema for so long it’s hard to imagine Hollywood without him, yet he’s largely steered clear of massive blockbusters that define modern stardom. His biggest lead hit was World War Z (2013), nearly a decade after a blockbuster streak that included Troy, Ocean’s Twelve, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. His highest-grossing film overall is Deadpool 2, where he had a brief cameo as the Vanisher. Still, the runaway success of 2019’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood proved Pitt can still draw crowds—and cause a stir when he takes off his shirt. (Another vivid movie memory: the collective breath held in theaters when the then-27-year-old emerged in Thelma & Louise.) With a budget estimated between $200 and $300 million, F1 is Pitt’s most ambitious film in decades, his biggest swing at a major hit. But like his Moneyball character, Sonny Hayes knows that aiming for the fences isn’t the only way to win.
Sonny’s strength isn’t raw speed but strategy—and a willingness to push the rules to the limit. When Ruben’s team first meets Sonny, they’re incredulous: “That old guy?” Sonny wagers he can match the team’s young hotshot Joshua’s lap time on his very first try—and he nearly does, until he crashes spectacularly. On the track, Sonny is ruthless: he bumps rival cars, spins out deliberately to create track debris, times pit stops to block leaders, and uses decades of hard-knock racing experience to shake things up. (For the uninitiated, it turns out tires are a surprisingly big deal.)
Though F1 shares marketing tactics with Top Gun: Maverick, Pitt feels less like Tom Cruise and more like Cruise’s Color of Money co-star Paul Newman—only with the grace of age. At 61, Pitt wears his years, complete with fading tattoos and scars that tell a story. When Ruben tries to recruit Sonny, he shows him an old magazine cover featuring Sonny’s younger self and asks, “What would that guy do?” Sonny glances at his youthful, boy-band-worthy image and deadpans, “Join a boy band?”
