Why F1 the Movie should win the best picture Oscar

Could, should, would F1 the Movie win the best picture Oscar? Realistically, it is a massive outsider at 200-1 alongside The Secret Agent. The film is swaggeringly mainstream, where tech and branding often dwarf the human input, and it functions as a front-end battering ram for a sports organisation keen to break into the US auto racing circuit.

So no, it is unlikely to win. The Oscars have long struggled with so-called popular films; Oppenheimer, in 2024, was the first best picture winner in two decades to finish in the Top 10 box office of the year. F1 sits in that commercial league but not the Top 10—14th in the North American list for 2025—and its ownership by Apple TV+ may have dented its impact as a theatrical spectacle.

It would be a change to see a film like this take the top award: a sleek, burnished motion-picture artefact that is, visually at least, as beautifully finished as the tech it asks us to idolise.

United States, North America

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