The Brutalist

Three other actors held the leads first: Joel Edgerton and Marion Cotillard were announced as László and Erzsébet in September 2020, with Mark Rylance as the wealthy client. None of the three was there in April 2023, when Brady Corbet’s new cast was announced: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce. The epilogue had already been shot in Venice in September 2020. Principal photography, pushed back by the pandemic and other delays, only began on 16 March 2023 in Budapest and wrapped after 34 days. The Hungarian capital and its countryside stood in for 1950s Philadelphia and rural Pennsylvania, the Andrássy Castle at Tóalmás became the Van Buren mansion, and the quarry passages were shot in Carrara. The net budget was $9.6 million, the worldwide gross $50.4 million. Ten Oscar nominations brought three wins: Brody for Best Actor, Lol Crawley for Best Cinematography, Daniel Blumberg for Best Original Score. It also took four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes and Venice’s Silver Lion for direction. A good fit if you want to watch knowing a Hungarian castle stands in for the Van Buren mansion and Carrara for the Pennsylvania quarries. Not for anyone taking Tóth for a real architect; the production’s consultant, the architectural historian Jean-Louis Cohen, said no architect in fact came out of the war with a career like his.