Adrien Brody’s Oscar-winning drama The Brutalist makes its streaming debut in May. Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a Holocaust survivor at the March ceremony.
Max announced on Monday (April 14) that co-writer and director Brady Corbet’s period drama will begin streaming on Friday, May 16. The film’s streaming debut will be followed with an airing on HBO on Saturday, May 17, at 8:00p.m. ET.
Adrien Brody's The Brutalist Premieres on Max in May
The Brutalist brought Brody his second Best Actor Oscar, this time for his portrayal of Hungarian Holocaust survivor László Tóth. After enduring the horrors of the Nazi regime, László immigrates to the U.S. in search of a better life. The architect arrives in the States with nothing to his name, but soon finds himself drawn into the sphere of demanding client Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce).
Here’s the official synopsis for The Brutalist: «Escaping post-war Europe, visionary architect László Toth arrives in America to rebuild his life, his work, and his marriage to his wife Erzsébet after being forced apart during wartime by shifting borders and regimes. On his own in a strange new country, László settles in Pennsylvania, where the wealthy and prominent industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren recognizes his talent for building. But power and legacy come at a heavy cost…»
The Brutalist Featured An International Cast
|
The Brutalist Cast |
|
|---|---|
|
Actor |
Role |
|
Adrien Brody |
László Tóth |
|
Felicity Jones |
Erzsébet Tóth |
|
Guy Pearce |
Harrison Lee Van Buren |
|
Joe Alwyn |
Harry Lee Van Buren |
|
Raffey Cassidy |
Zsófia |
The Brutalist received ten total nominations at the 97th Academy Awards, with Brody winning his second Best Actor Oscar. He previously became the youngest-ever Best Actor winner in 2003 for The Pianist. Aside from Brody’s success at this year’s Oscars, The Brutalist also won Best Cinematography and Best Original Score.
The film caused controversy upon its release for its use of artificial intelligence in post-production, in light of the recent SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes that largely centered around the use of AI. Corbet responded in January to clarify that AI was employed with a manual process for refining the Hungarian dialogue.
«Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own,» Brady Corbet confirmed in a statement. «They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents.»
The Brutalist Was Nominated for 10 Oscars
Director Brady Corbet's Period Drama Won Three Academy Awards at the March Gala
- The Brutalist premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won five awards, including the prestigious Silver Lion.
- Aside from his Best Actor Oscar, Brody won a BAFTA Film Award and a Golden Globe.
- The film was successful critically and financially, as it made nearly $50 million at the box office against a modest $9.6 million budget.
He went on: «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. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.»
Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.
Legendary director David Cronenberg was among those to defend The Brutalist, suggesting that there had been an organized «campaign» to discredit the film.
«I must confess, there was a scandal [with] The Brutalist,» he said at the London Soundtrack Festival in March. «There was a discussion about Adrien Brody… but apparently they used artificial intelligence to improve his accent. I think it was a campaign against The Brutalist by some other Oscar nominees. It’s very much a Harvey Weinstein kind of thing, though he wasn’t around.«
Corbet also shared on the WTF with Marc Maron that he made «zero dollars» on The Brutalist and had to live on no income while promoting the film during awards season.
«I’ve spoken to many filmmakers who have the films that are nominated this year that can’t pay their rent. I mean, that’s a real thing,» he told Marc Maron.
He then explained: «If you look at certain films that premiered in Cannes, that was almost a year ago. I mean, our film premiered in September [2024]. So I’ve been doing this for six months and had zero income because I don’t have any time to go to work. I can’t even take a writing job at the moment.»
