There’s nothing Hollywood likes better than a bumptious young director with talent to burn – at least until the world turns and puts them out of business. This year’s model is 36-year-old Brady Corbet, whose new film, The Brutalist, a 215-minute period epic shot on defunct film stock, has become the unlikely frontrunner in the 2025 Oscar race.
Corbet’s a relatively fresh face, only three features into his directing career. But he’s also a throwback, or a holdout, an old-school independent filmmaker following in the footsteps of his idols. Critics compare him to the auteurs of Seventies American cinema, some of whom are inconveniently still alive and making movies of their own.
