‘F1’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Fails to Hit the Heights of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Director Joseph Kosinski has proven himself a master of high-octane, old-school blockbusters that actually look like they cost $200 million. But lightning doesn’t strike twice — at least not on Rotten Tomatoes. As of June 17, F1, Kosinski’s latest adrenaline-fueled spectacle, holds a 80% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes after 46 reviews. That’s a solid podium finish, but not quite the pole position Top Gun: Maverick managed back in 2022, which flew in with an astonishing 96% from critics and went on to become one of the biggest box office smashes of the 21st century with nearly $1.5 billion in global receipts. So what happened?

According to Collider’s Ross Bonaime, who gave F1 an 8/10, Kosinski hasn’t lost his touch. If anything, the filmmaker behind Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, and Only the Brave has doubled down on his signature formula: pairing stars with sleek, immersive technical filmmaking that actually makes you feel the speed. And it’s all here again — F1 stars Brad Pitt as aging racer Sonny Hayes, a man with a van, a history of self-sabotage, and one last chance to prove he still belongs on the track. He’s joined by Damson Idris as hotshot rookie Joshua Pearce and Kerry Condon as team tech genius Kate McKenna. It’s thrilling. It’s crowd-pleasing. It’s even shot at real Grand Prix weekends with real cars. But if critics are docking points, it’s not the racing sequences — it’s the well-worn track the story follows.

There’s no denying the craftsmanship. Kosinski and longtime cinematographer Claudio Miranda deliver some of the most exhilarating race sequences ever put on film. You feel the speed, the sweat, the tire rubber. Hans Zimmer’s score, as always, goes full throttle.

But the story? Critics say you’ve seen it before. It’s a greatest hits collection of underdog sports movie tropes, and while that’s not necessarily bad — Maverick was also familiar — F1 doesn’t have quite the same emotional sharpness or cultural moment working in its favor.

There’s also a sense that F1 may lack the novelty and cross-generational nostalgia that made Top Gun: Maverick such a phenomenon. That film had 36 years of built-up love, plus a career-defining performance from Tom Cruise, and a rare blend of earnestness and bombast that critics and audiences alike went wild for.

Is ‘F1’ Any Good?

This might not be the kind of film that’s going to dominate Oscars or top end-of-year critic lists. But like Bonaime said,F1is “the type of film that makes you want to go to the movies… the type of bombastic feature that makes you want to sit down, eat popcorn maniacally like you’re Tom Cruise watching Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.”

So sure, it might not match Maverick’s review score, but let’s face it: if F1 gets your heart racing, you probably won’t be checking the critic score when you peel out of the theater.

F1 opens on June 27 in theaters.