Could, should, would F1 the Movie win the best picture Oscar? Well, we have to be realistic here: F1 is currently a massive outsider, at 200-1 along with The Secret Agent, which has no chance either but for very different reasons. It’s not hard to see why: this is a swaggeringly mainstream film, where tech and branding dwarf the human input, with the film itself acting as a front-end battering ram for a sports organisation desperate to break into the promised land of the US auto racing circuit. (I mean it’s right there in the title.) So even the most reactionary, conservative Academy voter is going to find it hard to mark F1 with their tick. So no, I don’t think it could win.
That’s not to say F1 doesn’t have quite a bit going for it. The Oscars, as we know, have historically had a problem 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. Whether or not that is a reflection of Hollywood itself, which since the mid-00s has concentrated its money and marketing into increasingly elaborate FX films to the detriment of drama and performance, is a question expanded on endlessly elsewhere. Suffice to say, F1 is definitely in that league, though not actually Top 10 (14th in the North American list for 2025); its ownership by Apple TV+ may have complicated things, denting its impact as a movie theatre spectacle.
