F1 News: 'F1 the Movie' nabs two Gloden Globe nominations

On December 8, 2025, the Golden Globe Foundation announced nominations for the 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards (for 2025 achievements), and F1: The Movie (directed by Joseph Kosinski, starring Brad Pitt as veteran driver Sonny Hayes) earned two nods: Cinematic and Box Office Achievement (recognizing its record-breaking $631.5 million global box office, the highest-grossing sports film ever) and Best Original Score – Motion Picture for Hans Zimmer’s score.

The film, an Apple Original Films production shot during real F1 race weekends, also recently won a National Board of Review spot as one of 2025’s Top Ten Films and seven Critics Choice nominations. The ceremony airs January 11, 2026, on CBS.

Short Story: Gridlock Glory

In the velvet hush of a Beverly Hills screening room, where the air hummed with the faint echo of V8 engines from a loop reel, Brad Pitt leaned back in his leather armchair, fingers drumming the armrest like pistons on a downshift. It was June 27, 2025—opening day for F1: The Movie—and the world outside was already revving. Silverstone’s barriers blurred on the massive screen, Sonny Hayes (Pitt’s grizzled racer, pulling one last comeback from the wreckage of ego and exhaust) slicing through rain-slicked corners, his APXGP car a monocoque missile painted in midnight blue.

“Cut the sentiment,” Pitt muttered to director Joseph Kosinski, who sat beside him, nursing a black coffee. “It’s not about the win. It’s the grind.” Kosinski nodded, his eyes still alight from the Silverstone shoot, where real F1 titans like Lewis Hamilton had traded tips mid-take. The film wasn’t scripted glamour; it was forged in the paddock—Idris Elba barking strategy as engineer, Kerry Condon’s no-nonsense technician Kate McKenna patching carbon fiber like a battlefield medic, Javier Bardem’s team owner Ruben Cervantes chain-smoking through budget crises. They’d filmed between qualifying laps, the roar of 1,000-horsepower hybrids drowning out “action” calls.

Months blurred into a victory lap: $631.5 million at the box office, shattering records for sports epics, fans packing IMAX theaters from Monaco to Monza. Critics raved—the NBR named it a Top Ten Film, Critics Choice heaped on nods for cinematography, editing, visual effects, sound, stunts, and that pulse-pounding Ed Sheeran track “Drive.” But awards? Pitt waved them off in interviews: “Trophies are for the shelf. The real gold’s in the footage.”

Then, December 8, 2025, dawned crisp and electric. The Golden Globe nominations dropped like a checkered flag over the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s reformed ranks—the Golden Globe Foundation, post-scandal, now a meritocracy of global tastemakers. Pitt was in Austin, prepping for a Wolfs sequel table read, when his phone buzzed. Kosinski’s text: “Two Globes. Box Office Achievement. Zimmer’s score.”

He stared at the screen, a grin cracking his salt-and-pepper stubble. Cinematic and Box Office Achievement—for the sheer velocity of its audience conquest, outpacing Barbie’s 2023 haul in the category. And Best Original Score, Hans Zimmer’s sonic assault: thunderous percussion mimicking turbo spool-up, strings wailing like wind through wings, a motif that built from Sonny’s qualifying jitters to his final, defiant overtake. Zimmer, the maestro behind Inception‘s dreamscapes and Dune‘s sands, had channeled F1’s alchemy—precision engineering fused with raw adrenaline—into a score that lingered like burnt rubber on asphalt.

By noon, the trades were ablaze. Variety hailed it as “the sports film’s Top Gun: Maverick moment,” pitting F1 against Sinners and Wicked: For Good in the box office race. Pitt’s phone lit up: Elba, crowing from London; Condon, texting a fist emoji from the set of her next indie; Bardem, dry as ever: “Now we drink the good champagne.” Even Lewis Hamilton chimed in from the Mercedes garage: “Told you, mate. That Rascasse scene? Pure poetry.”

That night, under Texas stars sharp as downforce, Pitt slipped into a private screening of the film. No entourage, just him and the glow of the projector. As Sonny Hayes crossed the line in pixelated triumph, the Zimmer swell hit—brass horns blaring like a podium anthem—and for a beat, the room trembled. Pitt raised an imaginary glass. The Globes air on January 11, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton, but this? This was the real podium: a story born at 200 mph, nominated not for flash, but for the unyielding truth that victory isn’t handed down—it’s chased, corner by corner, until the world blurs into legend.