F1 (2025)
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Racing legend Sonny Hayes is coaxed out of retirement to lead a struggling Formula 1 team—and mentor a young hotshot driver—while chasing one more chance at glory.
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56 films that influenced F1
What critics say influenced F1
…possibly since “Days of Thunder,”…
One of the following three movies is on the TV, no earlier than half over: Days of Thunder, Remember the Titans, or Glory Road.
In order to see the issues in F1: The Movie clearly, I have to talk about Days of Thunder (again).
It's a film that makes Days of Thunder look downright subtle and muted.
It’s a drama with Formula One racing, blondes who look at computer screens with wavy speed lines, cocky kids who Learn A Lesson, and Brad Pitt.
Racing films are landmarks of dad cinema, from ‘90s classics like Days of Thunder to recent bangers like the Oscar-winning Ford v Ferrari…
You can see the influence of better racing films in the DNA: the bruised poetry of Ford v Ferrari, the tight emotional structure of Rush, even the metaphorical sweetness of Cars.
…those seeking a similar aesthetic thrill can also find it elsewhere, with recent titles springing to mind including James Mangold’s Ford vs. Ferrari…
…it does not touch the hem of being as memorable and superb as “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), the definitive racing classic film.
The film, which lands in theaters June 27 before a streaming release on Apple TV+, is a deft addition to a sturdy lineage of motorsport flicks, from Rush and Gran Turismo to Ford v Ferrari and, most recently, Ferrari.
…or the dramatic punch of Ford v Ferrari…
As opposed to true stories like Rush or Ford vs Ferrari, fictional ‘be all you can be’ motor-racing films are few and far between…
It’s got that classic Hollywood flair that hearkens back to golden-age films like Le Mans and Grand Prix…
…previous racing films (WINNING, LE MANS)…
I have always loved the thrill of racing movies like “Grand Prix (1966),” “Ford v. Ferrari (2019)” and, my favorite, “Le Mans (1971)”…
McQueen was 41 with Le Mans…
Yes, we’ve had high-profile racing movies before. Rush, Ford v Ferrari, Days of Thunder, Le Mans and Pixar’s Cars.
Steve McQueen’s 1971 Le Mans has the race-car footage but minimal human-being drama…
Jerry Bruckheimer’s attempt to shoehorn “Top Gun” into an earthbound jet…
…you could say “F1” uses car racing much like “Top Gun” used flying fighter planes. And much like “Top Gun”, Kosinski’s film features its own perfectly cast A-lister who brings some notable star wattage to an already brilliant movie.
Ebert writes that “the archetypal Tom Cruise Movie is Top Gun, in which the young fighter pilot, a natural, was tutored by a once-great pilot and emotionally nurtured by an older female flight instructor before testing his wings against the hot dogs of his unit, in preparation for a final showdown.”
The other element that Top Gun: Maverick had that was essential to its success was the original Top Gun, which provided legacyquel plot threads like Maverick’s relationship with his old rival Iceman, along with a genuine emotional through line.
Loosely doing for Days of Thunder what Top Gun: Maverick did for Top Gun…
Just as Tony Scott segued from the unforgettable Top Gun skies to the middling Days of Thunder racetrack, Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski transitions from Tom Cruise aerial heroics to Brad Pitt speedway action with F1.
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…golden-age films like Le Mans and Grand Prix…
…there is one homage to Grand Prix that I cannot wait to watch again, where Hayes and Pearce are starting a race and we see them both in split screen.
I have always loved the thrill of racing movies like “Grand Prix (1966),” “Ford v. Ferrari (2019)” and, my favorite, “Le Mans (1971)”…
Great racing flicks of the past such as John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix made much of the death wish that then haunted drivers.
John Frankenheimer’s 1966 Grand Prix looks good but is overloaded with soap-opera storylines…
The film it should most resemble is John Frankenheimer’s F1 classic Grand Prix from 1966. That movie boasts the same “one racing season” structure, same protagonist in Yves Montand’s ancient petrolhead and the same insider’s look at the racing milieu.
Much like Kosinski’s Top Gun outing, F1 offers a first-person glimpse from inside the cockpit, as Pitt and Idris drove on actual racing tracks for the film (albeit in Formula 2 cars, not that it would matter much for non-F1 purists).
Picking up where they left off with Top Gun: Maverick, F1 is filled with impossible angles and quick, robotic pans that make us feel like we’re at the mercy of these rocketship machines.
Director Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick, this movie’s obvious model) offers endless racing scenes…
This one feels a lot like the Days of Thunder to Top Gun: Maverick, with Maverick‘s director, Joseph Kosinski, flexing his newfound muscles on a more earthbound ode to speed…
…the team behind Top Gun: Maverick? Racing films are landmarks of dad cinema…
…the cast and crew manage to craft a blockbuster in the same spirit as a Top Gun: Maverick with a little something for everyone.
At least since 2013’s Rush anyway, but never quite so proudly branded as F1…
Not unlike Ron Howard’s Rush, Kosinski knows how to capture adrenaline through camera position and movement, always placing us in just the right spot between the characters or between the vehicles to ramp up the suspense.
You can see the influence of better racing films in the DNA: the bruised poetry of Ford v Ferrari, the tight emotional structure of Rush, even the metaphorical sweetness of Cars.
The film, which lands in theaters June 27 before a streaming release on Apple TV+, is a deft addition to a sturdy lineage of motorsport flicks, from Rush and Gran Turismo to Ford v Ferrari and, most recently, Ferrari.
…owing a variety of debts to prior 'art' like Le Mans '66 and Rush…
For comparison, Ron Howard’s “Rush” told a richer, more human story. And that was half an hour shorter.
…the shift away from Barbie (de facto, femme) supremacy in 2023…
The unprecedented success of Barbie loosened the floodgates, becoming a catalyst for films and TV shows based on games, dolls and cartoon classics from The Last Of Us to A Minecraft Movie.
As corporate-endorsed blockbusters go then, F1 isn’t quite up there with Barbie…
Not true. Barbie roundly interrogated that brand. One of its most memorable lines was the furious takedown, “You destroy girls’ innate sense of worth and you are killing the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.”
Is it smart? No. Is it Barbie? No. Is it entertaining? Absolutely.
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A former prodigy in the ’90s who raced with some of the greats (Ayron Senna, subject of an amazing 2010 doc, is mentioned often)…
…notably SENNA and RUSH…
There's Senna in his red and white McClaren…
Like with the pilots in Top Gun: Maverick, Kosinski places viewers right in the driver’s seat with the drivers as they battle each other with their cars like the chariot riders in Ben-Hur.