Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.cbr.com
One of the decade’s biggest dramas is about to lose its biggest streaming home. Fortunately, The Brutalist isn’t done with HBO Max just yet.
Fans still have a few more days to revisit 2024’s critically acclaimed period drama The Brutalist before it makes its exit on HBO Max on Nov. 1. The drama was a hit with critics, but it also became a controversial release.
Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist — Explained
Directed by Brady Corbet from a screenplay co-written alongside Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist stars Adrien Brody as Holocaust survivor László Tóth, who arrives in the United States in 1947 after being forcibly separated from his wife, Erzsébet, and niece, Zsófia, portrayed by Felicity Jones and Raffey Cassidy, respectively. Although László soon finds work in his craft as an architect, a series of traumatic and horrifying turns quickly transform the struggle to achieve the American Dream into an outright nightmare.
Along with Brody, Jones, and Cassidy, The Brutalist features a star-studded ensemble cast, including Stacy Martin, Joe Alwyn, Guy Pearce, Alessandro Nivola, Michael Epp, and Jonathan Hyde. The film also features appearances by Salvatore Sansone, Maria Sand, Emma Laird, Peter Polycarpou, Ariane Labed, and Isaach de Bankolé.
Upon its arrival in theaters in 2024, The Brutalist was met with rave reviews from critics, as well as an outpouring of support from audiences. Over the course of its run at the box office, The Brutalist grossed more than $50.4 million against a production budget of just $9.6 million. The Brutalist was also nominated for 169 major industry awards, of which it won 64, including the 2025 Academy Awards for Best Actor for Brody’s portrayal of László, Best Original Score, and Best Cinematography.
The film, although praised for its performances, received criticism over its AI usage. The director “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own,” Brady Corbet clarified in a statement. “They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents.”
However, he noted, “Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production.”
What’s Next for the Stars of The Brutalist?
Currently, fans of The Brutalist are awaiting the return of both Brody and Jones to the silver screen, albeit for decidedly different cinematic outings. Brody is set to star alongside Rachel Zegler in director Karim Aïnouz’s Last Dance, which is based on screenwriter Emily Ziff Griffin’s 2021 New Yorker article, “The Last Dance with my Dad.”
The official logline for Last Dance reads, “Celebrated Broadway composer Elliot (Brody) invites his daughter Emma (Zegler) on a gay cruise through the Caribbean in 1991 — a dazzling, liberating world of music, celebration and chosen family where Emma, the only straight woman on board, experiences an unexpected first love with a young crew member. But beneath the joy and abandon, the AIDS crisis casts an ever-deepening shadow. As Elliot retreats from the devastating reality of his illness, father and daughter are forced to confront the unspoken truths between them. In the fleeting time they have left together, can they rediscover each other before the music finally fades?”
Rather than another biting drama, Brody’s The Brutalist co-star Felicity Jones will be returning to the silver screen to revisit a completely different kind of harrowing tale in Eleven Missing Days. Directed by Bertie Ellwood from a screenplay by Ernesto Foronda, Eleven Missing Days will star Jones as the late, great mystery writer Agatha Christie, and will revolve around a dramatized version of the real-life investigation into Christie’s infamous 11-day disappearance back in 1926.
The Brutalist will be available for streaming on HBO Max through Oct. 31.
- Release Date
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December 20, 2024
- Runtime
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215 Minutes
- Director
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Brady Corbet
- Writers
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Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
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Adrien Brody
László Tóth
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Guy Pearce
Harrison Lee Van Buren
