The Brutalist is an ambitious, roughly three-and-a-half-hour drama about a fictional architect trying to rebuild his life in postwar America. Adrien Brody gives László Tóth a commanding, often inward performance, while the film’s monumental architecture and enveloping images make its ideas tangible. Its scale is also its weakness: the epic can feel as imposing and unwieldy as the building at its center.
What is The Brutalist about?
Directed by Brady Corbet and written by Corbet and Mona Fastvold, the film follows László Tóth, a Hungarian Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who emigrates to the United States in 1947. He enters the orbit of industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren, whose commission gives Tóth a chance to work again while placing him under the influence of a wealthy and powerful patron. Felicity Jones plays Erzsébet Tóth; Guy Pearce plays Van Buren. The story uses the fictional Van Buren Institute—a vast community center and church—as the point where professional ambition, money, immigration, religion, and power meet.
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Tóth is a fictional character, not a real architect whose biography the film recounts. The film’s concerns are historical, but its central building and protagonist belong to Corbet and Fastvold’s drama.
Brody’s performance gives the epic its center
Brody plays Tóth as a man whose talent is unmistakable but whose ability to control his circumstances is limited. The role depends on that tension: the architect can imagine a structure on an immense scale, yet must negotiate with patrons who have the money and authority to shape what gets built. Brody makes the character’s drive legible without reducing him to a simple story of triumph.
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That focus helps anchor a film that ranges across years and large historical themes. The supporting performances place Tóth’s relationships and compromises in view, but Brody remains the drama’s organizing presence—an artist trying to preserve a sense of authorship in a world where power is unevenly distributed.
The building turns architecture into conflict
The Van Buren Institute is more than a dramatic backdrop. Its immense concrete forms, subterranean spaces, and striking shaft of light give physical shape to the film’s interest in memory, faith, and authority. The commission creates an opportunity for Tóth, but it also makes his work answerable to the patron financing it. Architecture is therefore both his craft and the arena in which the film’s conflicts become visible.
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Corbet described the connection between the structure and the character in the international press notes: “For us, post-war psychology and post-war architecture — including Brutalism — are linked, something we bring to life in the movie through the construction of the Institute, a manifestation of 30 years of trauma in László Tóth, and the ramification of two World Wars.” That statement offers a useful way into the film’s design, not a claim that every architectural detail has one fixed meaning. The Institute can be read as an expression of accumulated history while remaining a contested work shaped by patronage and practical power.
VistaVision creates scale; 70mm describes a presentation
The Brutalist’s imagery is designed to make the spaces feel expansive and enveloping. Kodak reports that cinematographer Lol Crawley shot on Kodak 35mm film, chiefly in VistaVision. Architectural Record explains that VistaVision runs 35mm film horizontally through the camera aperture, producing a wide field of view. The film’s visual breadth is thus not evidence that it was photographed on 70mm.
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Capture format and screening format are different things. The Venice festival listed a 70mm presentation, and Corbet said he was honored to bring the film to the festival “in 70mm.” That describes an exhibition format documented for Venice, not the camera stock. A 70mm screening depends on the venue and engagement; the cited festival listing does not establish where it is currently available.
The score adds weight—and sometimes friction
Daniel Blumberg’s score follows the film’s architectural logic. Architectural Record reports that Corbet asked for musical “slabs” that would echo the Institute’s concrete, and describes prepared piano and layered textures that can feel discordant as well as monumental. The music does not simply smooth the film’s transitions; its abrasive edges can intensify the sense of strain surrounding Tóth and his project.
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How long is The Brutalist, including the intermission?
Plan for roughly three and a half hours of film, with an intermission at screenings that include one. Film at Lincoln Center lists 215 minutes including a 15-minute intermission. The Venice festival lists 215 minutes, while a 2025 Kodak article gives 216 minutes plus a 15-minute break. The one-minute discrepancy reflects different source listings, so check the particular screening’s schedule rather than assuming every engagement handles the interval identically.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Languages and viewing considerations
Film at Lincoln Center lists English, Hungarian, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Italian, with English subtitles. The Venice festival also lists those five languages, though its surfaced entry does not specify subtitles. If language access matters, check the screening’s local listing for subtitle details.
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The film’s length and deliberate scale are part of its method, but they also make it a demanding watch. Its strongest stretches connect Tóth’s individual struggle to the Institute’s physical presence; at other points, the drama’s reach can outpace its momentum. Viewers drawn to architecture, postwar history, and character-centered epics are likely to find the ambition more rewarding than those looking for a brisk biography or a conventional rise-to-success story.
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