Golden Globes 2025: Brady Corbet wins ‘Best Director’ for ‘The Brutalist’
The Brutalist director Brady Corbet has won ‘Best Director’ at the 82nd annual Golden Globes, which took place on January 4th in Los Angeles.
Corbet faced competition in the ‘Best Director’ category from Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez, Sean Baker for Anora, Edward Berger for Conclave, Coralie Fargeat for The Substance and Payal Kapadia for All We Imagine As Light.
The movie, which stars Aiden Brody and Guy Pearce, has been a labour of love for Corbet for seven years. The Brutalist marks the filmmaker’s third full-length project, having previously helmed The Childhood of a Leader in 2015 and Vox Lux in 2018.
The official synopsis for the film reads: “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.”
Despite The Brutalist’s modest budget of $10million, Corbet successfully made every penny count to make it look like it cost $100m, which was a gargantuan task for the director, who needed to make compromises to make it work.
“Most people just couldn’t wrap their head around the ambition of the project,” Corbet said in a recent interview. “And I kept telling everybody, like, ‘Listen, we shot Vox Lux in 22 days. We’re pretty accustomed to operating without a safety net.”
In his victory speech at the Golden Globes, Corbet shared: “Sincere thanks to the Golden Globes for giving our film further visibility with such recognition.”
Adding, “It is extraordinarily meaningful for a film like this that once, a few short months ago, had the odds very much stacked against it. I would also be remiss not to mention that I am humbled to be in such excellent company, filmmakers I genuinely admire. Hundreds of very devoted people worked on this film for years before, during and after its realisation.”
The Brutalist was the second most-nominated movie at the Golden Globes with seven nominations, only Emilia Pérez featured in more categories with ten nominations.
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