If you’ve been around movies—or cars—for a while, you know that racing on the big screen has always had a certain problem. How do you make an inherently thrilling sport feel authentic without just giving the audience a two-hour highlight reel?
In 1966, director John Frankenheimer answered that question with Grand Prix. To get it right, he mounted cameras on actual Formula One cars, filmed during real races, and even dropped his Hollywood actors into the action. Chief among them was James Garner, who played American driver Pete Aron. Garner didn’t just sit in a prop car on a soundstage—he trained extensively and actually drove at racing speeds for much of the film. He wasn’t just acting like a racer, he was one, which gave Aron’s on-screen determination and grit a palpable authenticity.
Grand Prix’s drama revolves around four main drivers: Pete Aron, whose career is jeopardized after a crash; French champion Jean-Pierre Sarti (played by Yves Montand), torn between racing glory and his own doubts; fiery British driver Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford), haunted by his brother’s death; and the young, ambitious Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabàto). The film balanced high-octane track sequences with a jet-set world of romantic entanglements, personal rivalries, and the emotional toll of life at the edge of danger.
Now fast-forward almost sixty years to F1 (2025), directed by Joseph Kosinski and starring Brad Pitt. Here, the realism is equally ambitious: IMAX cameras, actual F1 cars, and filming during fourteen real Grand Prix weekends with the cooperation of current teams and drivers. Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a once-great driver coaxed out of retirement to mentor rookie Joshua Pearce, played by Damson Idris. Pearce is the hotshot talent for the fictional Apex Grand Prix team—a struggling outfit looking for a comeback. Supporting characters include Kerry Condon as the team’s no-nonsense technical director, and a host of real-world F1 stars who appear as themselves, blurring the line between fiction and reality.
Here’s the key difference: Grand Prix is a sweeping ensemble—racing as a glamorous, dangerous soap opera. It’s about the whole field of competitors and the intertwined personal stakes. F1 is more focused—part redemption story, part mentor-student relationship—zeroing in on the psychology of competition and what it takes to rebuild both a driver and a team from the ground up.
Both films understand the emotional stakes as much as the physical ones. But if Grand Prix was a panoramic painting of the sport in the ’60s, F1 is a modern, high-definition character study—just as fueled by ambition, speed, and the thrill of the chase. And whether it’s James Garner in 1966 or Brad Pitt in 2025, the universal truth remains: when the lights go out and the race begins, nothing else matters.
