Mar. 15, 2026, 10:35 PM EDT
UPDATE (March 15, 2026, 10:35 p.m. ET): In a crowded field, “One Battle After Another” won best picture of the year, beating out fan-favorite “Sinners” to take home the night’s biggest award.
“F1” is a perfectly fine, entertaining, disposable, summer, theatrical spectacle, popcorn flick. The blockbuster film, starring Brad Pitt, is the highest-grossing of the 62-year-old Oscar-winning actor’s career, and he plays a character competing at the highest levels of motorsport, where the average age of professional drivers is somewhere between 27 and 29. It is a silly, breezy and wildly successful movie. The kind of flick that puts bottoms in the seats at a time when fewer people are going to see movies in the theater.
It is also an Academy Award nominee for best picture — and that is just ridiculous. The character development is kiddie pool-level deep, the dialogue is as wooden as any “Star Wars” movie and the satisfying conclusion never feels really in doubt. Just as the actual stars of “Top Gun” are fighter jets, racecars do much of the entertainment-lifting of “F1.” It’s standard Hollywood blockbuster fare, executed very well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a movie geek who appreciates both the high and the lowbrow. I’m as averse to the academy’s historic snobbery against fun as anyone — but come on guys, “F1”?
Just as the actual stars of “Top Gun” are fighter jets, racecars do much of the entertainment-lifting of “F1.”
For much of the Oscars’ history, best picture nominees have been limited to five — as it was and is with pretty much every other Oscar category. From the late 1920s until 1943, the academy nominated between eight and 12 films for best picture. But from 1944-2008, there were just five nominees. A nice, accessible number, one that — if you were a fan of the Oscars — made it fairly easy to remember the nominees even years later.
But after a backlash over “The Dark Knight” and “WALL-E” — two hugely popular 2008 films that were also critical darlings — failing to get best picture nods, the academy expanded the roster, eventually settling on 10. The idea was to generate more broad interest among the masses in the stuffiest of awards shows. And that’s how “F1” ended up a best picture nominee.
It didn’t work, but that’s not really the fault of the academy. The terminal decline of broadcast television has culled the audiences for all awards shows. And watering down the prestige of a best picture nominee by adding to the mix films like “Top Gun: Maverick” (from the director of “F1”) did not spark a renaissance in Oscars ratings or box office draws. While the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon of 2023 — when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” dominated both the summer box office and critics’ year-end lists — was a boon for Oscar ratings, it doesn’t seem to have sparked a lasting trend,