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F1: The Movie is poised to dominate the summer blockbuster track for one clear reason: it makes a familiar sports story feel enormous. The first reviews praise Joseph Kosinski’s racing spectacle, sound, cinematography and Brad Pitt’s screen presence far more consistently than they praise the screenplay’s originality.
The result is an unusually effective theatrical racing film—not an established classic, and not a radical reinvention of the genre. Its biggest strengths are speed, scale and the veteran-rookie tension between Pitt and Damson Idris.
The first-review verdict on F1: The Movie is straightforward: it is a familiar comeback-and-mentorship sports drama made unusually exciting by its racing footage, physical sound design, large-format scale and Brad Pitt’s charisma. Critics did not generally describe the screenplay as original. They described a conventional story that Joseph Kosinski’s blockbuster craftsmanship turns into a powerful theatrical experience.
What the first reviews actually agreed on
The early response was enthusiastic about the movie’s delivery, not unanimous about its writing. Rotten Tomatoes’ June 17, 2025 first-review roundup repeatedly characterized the racing as exhilarating, high-velocity and ideal for a big screen, while also acknowledging that the underlying story could feel simple or generic. Motorsport.com’s collection of reactions from press screenings before the June 16 world premiere was similarly impressed by the action, sound, cinematography, score and emotional momentum.
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| What critics praised | What held the film back |
|---|---|
| Visceral racing sequences and a convincing sense of speed | A familiar sports-drama plot |
| Joseph Kosinski’s old-fashioned blockbuster technique | Melodrama and an occasionally overextended runtime |
| Brad Pitt’s effortless screen presence | Montage-heavy passages where sustained racing gives way to abbreviated storytelling |
| The chemistry and rivalry between Pitt and Damson Idris | The possibility that official Formula 1 involvement makes the film too polished or sanitized |
That combination explains the film’s early positioning. F1: The Movie looked like a strong candidate to dominate the summer’s premium theatrical schedule because it offered the kind of sensory spectacle audiences pay to experience communally. The reviews did not establish it as the greatest racing film ever made, or even as a more accomplished drama than Rush or Ford v Ferrari.
The story: a veteran returns to a sport that moved on without him
Apple’s official synopsis introduces Sonny Hayes, played by Brad Pitt, as a former Formula 1 phenom whose career was nearly destroyed by an accident. Thirty years later, his former teammate Ruben Cervantes, played by Javier Bardem, asks him to return to the grid and help rescue the struggling APXGP team.
Sonny’s teammate is Joshua Pearce, a rookie driver played by Damson Idris. Pearce is ambitious, fast and determined to establish himself, while Sonny brings experience, celebrity and a set of unresolved regrets. Their relationship is not simply a warm mentor-and-student friendship. They are teammates competing for status, results and control inside a team that cannot afford failure.
That premise places the film squarely inside a recognizable sports-movie tradition: a damaged veteran gets one more opportunity, a gifted newcomer resists being managed, and a failing organization needs both personalities to work together. The appeal depends less on surprise than on execution. The question is not whether the story is breaking new structural ground; it is whether the film can make familiar beats feel immediate at 200 miles per hour.
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The strongest first reviews treated the racing as more than connective tissue between character scenes. Kosinski and his team built the movie around motion, proximity and physical sensation. The result, according to the early reactions, is a film that wants the audience to feel the pressure of the cockpit, the violence of rapid direction changes and the danger of operating inside a tightly packed field.
Formula 1’s own production companion page emphasized that the filmmakers worked around actual Grand Prix weekends. That access matters because it gives the movie a relationship with the sport’s real calendar, locations and event atmosphere that a completely controlled studio production would struggle to reproduce. It does not automatically guarantee complete sporting accuracy, but it gives the racing a documentary-like immediacy even though the story and its central team are fictional.
Scale, sound and speed
Early critics repeatedly singled out the movie’s sound, cinematography and score. The sensory design is a major part of the film’s argument: even when the plot follows familiar lines, the presentation can make a qualifying lap, a team confrontation or a split-second mistake feel like a large-scale event.
The later commercial evidence supports that reading. The Associated Press reported that IMAX and other large-format screens accounted for 55% of the film’s opening-weekend ticket sales. That figure does not prove that every viewer preferred the film in IMAX, but it does show that the theatrical proposition was strongly tied to image size and immersion.
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There is an important qualification. The film does not offer uninterrupted racing from beginning to end. One of the criticisms collected in the Rotten Tomatoes roundup was that it relies on montage more than some viewers may expect. The spectacle is central, but it is arranged around the dramatic structure rather than presented as a continuous race broadcast.
Brad Pitt is the film’s anchor
Pitt was the most consistent individual point of praise in the early response. Sonny Hayes is written as a charismatic older star entering a younger, faster professional environment, and Pitt’s established screen persona becomes part of the character’s appeal. He can project confidence, ego, weariness and self-awareness without making the performance feel overworked.
That casting also gives the comeback story a useful layer of interpretation. Sonny is not merely trying to drive again; he is trying to understand what relevance means after decades away from the sport. The film uses Pitt’s presence to make that question legible immediately. The character’s celebrity is part of the plot’s machinery, but the performance keeps him from becoming only a symbol of past glory.
Motorsport.com’s early reaction roundup described Pitt as captivating and highlighted Sonny’s mixture of ego, regret, celebrity and reflection. Rotten Tomatoes similarly identified his effortless charisma as a major reason the movie works despite its conventional screenplay.
Damson Idris makes the rivalry more than a casting device
The film would be much less effective if Joshua Pearce existed only to receive Sonny’s wisdom. The early reactions suggest that the Pitt–Idris pairing supplies the story with much of its necessary friction. Pearce is not simply an inexperienced driver waiting for a lesson. He is a competitor with his own ambitions, methods and fear of being overshadowed by a returning legend.
That makes the central relationship a veteran-versus-rookie conflict shaped by team politics. Sonny wants to prove that experience still has value; Pearce wants to show that the future cannot be controlled by someone else’s past. Their rivalry also affects APXGP’s survival, so personal tension and professional pressure are constantly intertwined.
Early reviewers generally saw the two leads as an effective duo. Whether the character arc ultimately feels emotionally deep enough is more debatable, but the pairing gives the movie a working dramatic engine between races.
The Top Gun: Maverick comparison is both praise and warning
Critics frequently compared F1: The Movie with Top Gun: Maverick. The connection is understandable: both films were directed by Joseph Kosinski, and both involve an older star navigating a dangerous professional world increasingly occupied by a younger generation. Screenwriter Ehren Kruger also worked on both projects.
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The comparison is mainly about filmmaking grammar rather than plot. Both films favor tactile action, clear emotional stakes, accessible character conflict and the sense that practical or practical-looking imagery should do much of the persuasive work. That approach helps explain why reviewers considered F1 such an effective crowd-pleaser.
It also creates a derivative risk. Once a film is presented as another polished Kosinski event movie, viewers may judge it against the extraordinary standard set by Maverick. The most defensible conclusion is that the two movies share a blockbuster language. That does not mean they have identical artistic merit, emotional impact or cultural staying power.
Where the first reviews pushed back
The screenplay follows familiar racing-movie lines
The most substantial reservation was narrative familiarity. The film combines a disgraced or damaged veteran, a talented younger rival, a struggling team, a final opportunity and a redemption arc. Those ingredients are effective because they are recognizable, but they also make the plot predictable.
Rotten Tomatoes’ summary used terms such as “simple” and “generic” for the screenplay while still praising the action and Pitt. That is an important distinction. A film can be tremendously entertaining without reinventing the sports-drama template, and the early response largely placed F1 in that category.
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Not every review found the momentum consistent. The Rotten Tomatoes roundup records criticism of melodrama, a bloated runtime and sections where the movie’s emotional material slows the racing film around it. The montage criticism points to a related issue: the movie can compress or summarize racing developments when viewers may want to remain inside them.
Those complaints do not cancel out the praise for the action. They define the trade-off. F1: The Movie is not a lean, minimalist racing picture that eliminates everything except the competition. It is a broad studio drama that wants room for personal history, team conflict and spectacle. Some viewers will find that scale satisfying; others will feel that the movie takes too long to return to the track.
Does official F1 access make the film too safe?
The sport’s official involvement is one of the movie’s greatest production advantages and one of its most interesting limitations. Formula 1 access helped the filmmakers work within the atmosphere of real Grand Prix weekends and gave the action a level of environmental credibility. At the same time, some critics argued that the participation of Formula 1 and the FIA made the film feel like an expensive, sanitized public-relations exercise.
The fairest interpretation is not that the movie is either authentic or artificial. It is that the same institutional access produced both effects. It made the film more convincing as a visual account of the sport while potentially limiting how confrontational, cynical or messy it could be about Formula 1’s politics and culture. That tension is an inference from the early response and production material, not proof that the film misrepresents every aspect of the sport.
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Where it fits among racing movies
The first reviews placed F1: The Movie in the established lineage of motorsport films that includes Rush, Gran Turismo, Ford v Ferrari and Ferrari. The Hollywood Reporter comparison reproduced by Rotten Tomatoes called it a deft addition to that tradition, while another cited review argued that it lacked enough emotional force to become one of the greatest racing movies.
Both views can be true. F1 appears to be strong genre entertainment and a premium theatrical experience without yet having the originality or critical consensus required for classic status. It is better described as an exceptionally well-mounted crowd-pleaser than as a definitive statement about racing cinema.
What the later opening weekend tells us
The opening-weekend numbers reinforced the early reviewers’ sense that the movie had broad audience appeal. The Associated Press reported a $55.6 million opening in North America and $144 million worldwide, along with an “A” CinemaScore audience grade. Those figures support the idea that the film connected with moviegoers as a large-scale event.
They should not be treated as proof of profitability. AP also reported that the production budget was above $200 million. A strong opening weekend is encouraging, but it does not by itself establish that the film had recovered its production, marketing and distribution costs.
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Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is F1: The Movie worth seeing?
See it in a cinema if your priority is speed, sound and scale. The early response strongly suggests that the movie’s greatest asset is its sensory presentation, and the AP’s large-format sales figure gives that recommendation additional support. A premium format is not essential to understanding the plot, but it is particularly well matched to what the film does best.
Approach it with measured expectations if you need narrative originality. The story is built from familiar sports-drama components, and the reviews that praised the action still acknowledged generic writing, melodrama and uneven pacing. Viewers looking for a challenging or deeply revisionist account of Formula 1 may find the film too polished.
For readers coming from documentary or factual racing coverage, one distinction is especially important: F1: The Movie is a fictional feature drama, not a documentary. Its connection to real Formula 1 comes from production access, Grand Prix-weekend filming and the use of the sport’s real-world environment—not from presenting Sonny Hayes or APXGP as real competitors.
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Home viewing and physical editions
The film’s theatrical strengths make it a natural candidate for a capable home-theater setup, but the market evidence needs a regional qualification. Apple’s current press page lists a December 12, 2025 Apple TV release date. Warner Bros.’ Japanese home-entertainment page confirms a physical 4K UHD plus Blu-ray edition released in Japan on November 26, 2025. Edition names, release dates and availability can differ by country, so readers should check their local retailer rather than assume that one market’s product applies everywhere.
For collectors or viewers hoping to preserve the film’s image and sound presentation, F1: The Movie 4K UHD is the most direct product match. The confirmed Japanese release establishes that a 4K UHD/Blu-ray set exists, but the exact Amazon listing, seller, region compatibility and stock status still need to be checked at publication time.
Music and APXGP merchandise
The film’s score and sound are central to the early praise, so the companion music release is more relevant than a generic movie tie-in. The official soundtrack store lists physical CD and vinyl products for F1 The Album, released alongside the movie. Readers drawn to the film’s music can look for F1 The Album vinyl, with the usual caveat that retailer stock and regional editions may change.
APXGP is a fictional team, but its branding was developed into official merchandise. Formula 1 announced products including caps, hoodies and shirts, and the official store lists APXGP items. A fan who wants to wear the team identity introduced by the film can browse an official APXGP cap. This is a merchandise recommendation, not evidence that the fictional team exists in the real championship.
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Final assessment
The headline prediction that F1: The Movie was “poised to dominate the summer blockbuster track” was best understood as a prediction about theatrical excitement and broad audience appeal. The first reviews support that prediction. They describe a film with tremendous velocity, sound and visual scale, led by a star who knows how to make a comeback story feel inviting.
They do not support a claim that the movie reinvented the racing genre. Its screenplay is conventional, its pacing can be uneven, and its official relationship with Formula 1 may make the film feel more carefully managed than genuinely disruptive. The most accurate verdict is also the simplest: F1: The Movie is a familiar racing drama elevated by premium blockbuster machinery—and, for viewers willing to meet it on those terms, an excellent big-screen summer outing.
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Review context: This assessment distinguishes the early reactions collected by Rotten Tomatoes and Motorsport.com around the June 2025 world premiere from later audience and box-office information reported by the Associated Press. Production and release details are based on Apple’s official synopsis and press material, Formula 1’s production coverage, and Warner Bros.’ Japanese home-entertainment information.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is F1: The Movie a documentary?
No. F1: The Movie is a fictional sports drama about Sonny Hayes and the fictional APXGP team. Its connection to real Formula 1 comes from filming around actual Grand Prix weekends and working with the sport, not from documenting real drivers or a real team.
Is F1: The Movie the greatest racing movie?
The early reviews do not support a definitive claim that it surpasses Rush, Ford v Ferrari or other major racing films. They position it as highly effective genre entertainment whose sensory execution is stronger than its narrative originality.
What is the best way to watch F1: The Movie?
A cinema—especially a premium or large-format presentation—is the best fit for the film’s acclaimed racing sound and image scale. For home viewing, Apple’s press page lists an Apple TV release dated December 12, 2025, while Warner Bros. confirms a 4K UHD/Blu-ray edition in Japan; availability and editions vary by market.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: F1: The Movie is not a groundbreaking racing screenplay, but its authentic Grand Prix-weekend access, Kosinski’s tactile direction, Pitt’s charisma and the Pitt–Idris rivalry make it unusually effective blockbuster entertainment. See it for the speed and scale, not for narrative reinvention.
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