Top 3 Most Realistic Motorsport And F1 Movies: Formula 1 (F1), one of the most popular sports in the world, has been trending on a global level more than usual over the past few days. That is because of the release of the new F1 movie.
Produced by Apple Studios and directed by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, this movie has not only put the most high-octane sport in the world on display on the biggest screens but also features real drivers, teams, and tracks. This film provides a real motorsport experience to the fans of the sport.
Speaking of being a faithful depiction of F1 and autosports in general, while the recently released feature does a good job of doing that, it is not the first movie to shine a realistic light on a sport that has millions of fans around the world.
Today, we will look back at three of the best autosport/F1 movies that do justice to the sport they are depicting, provide a realistic story to the fans, and do not come off as half-hearted efforts to capture the electrifying feel of watching humans drive at insane speeds and putting their lives in danger every time they take to the track.
Mind you, these are not documentaries. Although some of these depict real-life stories and incidents. Also, these films are not ranked on how good they are as movies, but on how realistic their depiction is of motorsport and F1.
Here are the top 3 most realistic motorsport and F1 movies:
Top 3 Most Realistic Motorsport And F1 Movies
3) Ford v Ferrari (2019)
This movie is the sole reason that the title of this list features the word motorsport. That’s because this film has nothing to do with F1 directly. But due to being one of the best movies of the last decade, full stop, it deserves a mention on any “best of” lists discussing motorsport racing.
Ford v Ferrari is the dramatised story of the Ford Motor Company entering into the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the most high-profile races in the world, where a car races for 24 straight hours. The movie follows the story of Ken Miles, a real Motorsports Hall of Fame of America inductee, who works on Ford’s car alongside Shelby owner Carroll Shelby and takes on regular Le Mans winners Scuderia Ferrari. The movie sees Miles going from a hot-tempered racer and engineer to nearly winning one of the biggest motorsport races in the world.
This film features Christian Bale as Ken Miles, Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby, and other mainstream Hollywood actors. Directed by Logan director James Mangold, it was nominated for the 2019 Best Picture Academy Award and won the Oscar for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing.
While this movie is a heightened dramatisation of the real-life events it follows, there is a focus on realistically depicting the ‘under the hood’ side of motorsport. With the film’s lead (Bale as Miles) being a mechanical engineer, there is a lot of technical detail on display here. Not only is this one of the best motorsport movies of all time, but it is also one that realistically shows many sides of the 1960s racing scene, from the cars to the business and the behind-the-scenes politics.
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2) Rush (2013)
Before F1: The Movie, the holy grail of all F1 films was Rush. This 2013 biographical flick is centred around the 1976 Formula 1 season and follows two of the greatest drivers of their generation, British driver James Hunt and Austrian driver Niki Lauda.
Hunt is a one-time F1 world champion, while Lauda is a three-time world champion. Two drivers with very different approaches, celebrity status, lifestyle, and attitude came head to head during the 1976 season, still considered by many as the greatest Formula 1 season of all time. This movie features the many races these two won, Lauda’s infamous 1976 Nürburgring crash that nearly killed him and definitely disfigured him, and the insane finale to that season on a rain-soaked Fuji Speedway in Japan.
Not only was this film directed by famous director Ron Howard, director of movies like A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code, but it also starred Chris Hemsworth, known for playing Thor in the MCU, who played the eccentric James Hunt. Meanwhile, Daniel Brühl, who incidentally also featured in the MCU as Helmut Zemo, as Lauda.
This film was nominated for and won many awards. And while there might be some controversy around the depiction of some of the people in the movie, mostly James Hunt, it is considered a very realistic take on the classic age of Formula 1, when death loomed around every corner and the racers lived like daredevils.
1) F1 The Movie (2025) (Spoiler Free)
F1 The Movie might be the most realistic depiction of the pinnacle of motorsport ever seen on the big screen. While the main cast of the movie is fictional, the story is set during the 2023 F1 season. Made in collaboration with the F1 organisation, with real drivers, team principals, and other real-life personalities featured in this film.
The movie stars Brad Pitt as fictional driver Sonny Hayes, who was an F1 prodigy in the 90s but left the sport after severe injuries. The film follows Sonny’s return to the sport in 2023, driving for Expensify APXGP F1 Team, another creation of this movie. While this film followed fictional characters, the world, people, and organisations around them are real.
F1 The Movie features all the then-active F1 drivers, like seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton (who is also one of the producers of the film), four-time world champion Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, and many more. It also features all 10 teams in the sport, like Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, and McLaren, and their principals. For example, Mercedes’ Toto Wolff and Red Bull’s Christian Horner.
Check Out: Top 3 Most Realistic Motorsport And F1 Movies
With the movie-makers working with Formula 1, the racing scenes were shot on actual race weekends. Even the interior shots of the cars were shot with actors behind the wheel of an actual F1 car. With the real racing feel, the actual personalities from the sport, and actual cars being used, the film is the most authentic F1 experience fans can take in, apart from watching the actual races. The biggest compliment (or criticism) this film can get is that it feels like a spin-off of the highly lauded F1 reality series Drive to Survive on Netflix.
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