'The Brutalist': a work of art starring Adrien Brody in the Oscars race

Released last December in the United States, Brady Corbet's ‘The Brutalist’, starring Adrien Brody, has been in cinemas since 12 February.

Looking at the film in its totality, we trace the arrival and journey to the United States of László Tóth, a Hungarian Jewish architect and survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp, in the years following the Second World War.

The action is filmed in two sequences, ‘The Enigma of Arrival’ and then ‘The Hard Core of Beauty’, and shows how, thanks to some help, the character goes from the misery of carrying out odd jobs to find fame as a recognised figure of the Brutalist architectural movement.

The film is monumental in its ambition, lasting 3 hours and 40 minutes. As in the productions of yesteryear, there is a quarter-hour intermission between the two parts.

Despite the appearance of a biopic, the script and its characters are entirely fictional. Adrien Brody is supported by Felicity Jones as his wife, Erzsébet Toth, and Guy Pearce as the wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren.

Slate points out that the film, far from showing a linear success story, reveals the dark side of the American dream with Inverse saying it shows "the hollow nature of the American Dream, and the devastating sacrifices made in pursuit of it".

More than twenty years after his Oscar win for ‘The Pianist’, which also took place against the backdrop of the persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany, Adrien Brody reprises another memorable role in this feature film.

‘I’m really grateful for Brady (Corbet) and Mona (Fastvold) to write something, and a role in particular, that is so full of complexity and humanity and speaks to the great deal of hardship in this world, both in the past and also that has relevance today

This film, as many of you may know, is an opportunity for me to honour my own ancestral struggles.

My grandparents and my mother fled Hungary in ’56 during the revolution," said the actor at the BAFTA winners’ press conference.

"It’s very important that a film that speaks to tremendous cruelty and despicable behaviour in our past, that we see elements existing today that can guide us and remind us of that," he continued

“There’s no place anymore for antisemitism, there’s no place for racism, there’s no place for petty bigotry and stereotypical resentments. And if you can look at the past and you can look at this universal hardship of so many, you gain, hopefully, some perspective," he concluded.

The director Brady Corbet in an interview for the podcast Q with Tom Power that it was important to make the character real, saying "I've seen so many survivor stories where these characters are angels... I struggle with that because I think it suggests that we can only empathize with someone if they're perfect."

The Guardian's film critic Peter Bradshaw praised ‘an electrifying piece of work, stunningly shot by cinematographer Lol Crawley and superbly designed by Judy Becker.’.

‘I emerged from this movie light-headed and euphoric, dizzy with rubbernecking at its monumental vastness’, added Bradshaw of the work, which he describes as an “amazing and engrossing epic”.

Audiences too seem to have been won over by ‘The Brutalist’. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of the 294 reviews were positive as of Wednesday 19 February.

As of Monday 17 February, the film had grossed $14 million in the US and $25 million internationally since its release, according to French radio station Le Mouv.

These revenues are high given the film's modest budget of 10 million dollars, not to mention the fact that it is being shown by an independent distributor in a limited number of cinemas in the United States.

‘The Brutalist’ is one of the most talked-about films of 2025. Last year it won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival, and it has already won several awards at this year's Golden Globes and BAFTAs.

The film received no fewer than ten Oscar nominations, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor for Adrien Brody. Will it be crowned winner at the American cinema's big event on 2 March?

In all, Brady Corbet's feature film has already won 64 awards from a total of 169 nominations. Acclaimed by the film world, ‘The Brutalist’ is anything but an ordinary film!

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