New post-World War II Oscars season epic is almost 4 hours long and cost just $10 million

It’s been over 22 years since Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for epic The Pianist.

And now the 51-year-old is playing another Holocaust survivor in the critically acclaimed “masterpiece” The Brutalist.

The awards season contender premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last month where it was showered with five star reviews and compared to The Godfather.

Brody plays László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect who emigrates to the USA at the end of World War II with his wife (Felicity Jones) to experience the American dream.

At first the couple struggle in poverty before he scores a contract with a wealthy client (Guy Pearce).

At 215 minutes long, The Brutalist is longer than both The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon. Incredibly, Brady Corbet’s A24 production managed to keep the budget at $10 million.

The writer-director told : “We cut every corner we could to make sure that every single cent was on screen. It was a Herculean effort, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, because it was just years and years of essentially working for free.”

The Brutalist is released in UK cinemas on January 24, 2025.