F1: The Movie (2025)

Jack and I found this story of a race car driver coming out of retirement entertaining but not, in our opinion, a Best Picture, though nominated by the Academy. Plenty of star power leads the glossy action picture, with Brad Pitt in the lead and support coming from Javier Bardem, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, and Tobias Menzies, among many.

Director Joseph Kosinski keeps it moving, though not fast enough, because it's just over two and a half hours long, from the script by Ehren Kruger. The prolific composer Hans Zimmer's exciting original score can be streamed on Apple Music, and that platform also has an album of fun songs.

Shout out to cinematographer Claudio Miranda. The first five of the many trivia items on imdb are fascinating (I didn't go further), some of which go into special photography techniques.

The movie's 31 wins include the Oscar for Best Sound and its 129 other nominations include Oscars for Best Picture, Visual Effects, and Editing, plus Miranda's nomination by his peers in the American Society of Cinematographers.

Pitt was last blogged for Babylon, Bardem for The Good Boss, Condon for Train Dreams, Menzies for You Hurt My Feelings, Kosinski, Kruger, and Zimmer for Top Gun: Maverick, and Miranda for Nyad. This is Idris's seventh feature but he is new to me.

33 producers lands this a spot on my Producers Plethora Prize list, though the current winner is Ferrari, coincidentally also about car racing, at 53.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are easing up at 82% but its audiences are full throttle at 97% approval. Jack watched it a week or two before I did on March 13 on Apple TV.