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Movie Name: The Smashing Machine
Directed by: Benny Safdie
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk
Genre: Biography, Action, Drama, Sport
Running Time: 123 Minutes
Release Date: October 03, 2025
Rating:
Languages: English
Production House: A24, Out for the Count, Seven Bucks Productions, Magnetic Fields Entertainment
Budget: $40 million
The story of mixed-martial arts and UFC champion Mark Kerr
The Smashing Machine: Biopic Sports Drama
The Smashing Machine is an upcoming American biographical sports drama film written, directed, co-produced, and edited by Benny Safdie. It stars Dwayne Johnson as former wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr, alongside Emily Blunt as Kerr’s then-wife Dawn Staples, with Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten and Oleksandr Usyk in supporting roles.
The film is set to be released by A24 on October 3, 2025.
In December 2023, it was announced that a biographical sports drama film based on the life and career of Mark Kerr was in development at A24, with Benny Safdie writing and directing and Dwayne Johnson starring. During the 2024 Academy Awards, Johnson confirmed that Blunt would star in the film as Kerr’s wife Dawn Staples. Lyndsey Gavin, Oleksandr Usyk, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, and Zoe Kosovic joined the cast in May 2024.
Principal photography ran on May 21 to August 7, 2024, spanning locations such as New Mexico, Tokyo, and Vancouver. Cinematographer Maceo Bishop, who worked with Safdie on The Curse (2023–2024), shot the film on 16mm film.[6] Later that year, Johnson tweeted that Belgian musician Nala Sinephro would compose the score.
The Smashing Machine had its world premiere in competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2025. It will also screen at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2025. It is scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States and Canada on October 3, 2025. The first trailer for the film was released on April 29, 2025.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of 40 critics’ reviews are positive. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating “generally favorable” reviews.
Safdie was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival following its world premiere.
Movie Trailer:
Movie Review:
Dwayne Johnson delivers transformative performance in this anti-sports movie
Story:
The film chronicles the true story and career of Mark Kerr (played by Dwayne Johnson), a pioneering MMA fighter, as he grapples with both professional challenges and personal demons.
Review:
The Smashing Machine subverts the typical sports film formula, delivering a raw, intimate portrayal of survival, addiction, and self-acceptance.
Rather than glorifying the triumph of the human spirit, the film dares to explore the darker aftermath of defeat — the self-doubt, the self-loathing, and the slow, painful unraveling of a once-great champion.
Benny Safdie’s docudrama, based on the true story of MMA fighter Mark Kerr, begins scattered and subdued. The first half drifts through Kerr’s daily life with an almost aimless, indie-film energy that feels too loose, even frustrating at times.
But then it lands like a thunderbolt, finding its emotional and narrative rhythm. What starts as disjointed slowly transforms into something strangely meditative, even hypnotic. The fight scenes are brutal yet poetic; the sound of punches slicing through air is mesmerising.
The film’s greatest strength is its refusal to follow a traditional arc. The script resists dramatic exaggeration and leans into honesty. There’s no redemptive monologue, no training montage. Instead, we get something far rarer: the vulnerability of a man brought to his knees by life itself.
Dwayne Johnson delivers a career-best performance, disappearing into the role of Kerr with heartbreaking honesty. Just as powerful is Emily Blunt, who brings an unhinged energy and complexity to a film that is anything but commercial.
More than a sports story, this is a haunting portrait of a champion unraveling and the cost of survival when the spotlight fades. What happens after the cheering stops and the silence sets in?
