Is The Brutalist based on a true story? Inspiration behind the Oscar-nominated film, explored

The recently released film from 2024 has its viewers asking one question. “Is The Brutalist based on a true story?” Well, to answer your question, no, it isn’t. Keep reading to find out why and how.

Director Brady Corbet’s periodical film titled The Brutalist has garnered some significant reach during this ongoing awards season. It has earned a whole lot of critical acclaim and a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film aired during the latter half of 2024 in the U.S. It has also acquired an Oscar nomination for Best Actor with Adrien Brody’s depiction of the Hungarian-Jewish architect named László Tóth. Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, and Grammy Award winner Joe Alwyn have also drawn some significant amount of light on the film with their performances.

With its extremely emotional narrative style and authentic-looking world-building, the movie has left audiences thinking if the story is really grounded and rooted in real historical events.

However, even though the characters in the film feel real and authentic, the story isn’t really based on true events.

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Is The Brutalist Based on a True Story?

Regardless of its extremely realistic-looking portrayal of mid-20th-century Europe and America, The Brutalist as a film is not based on something specifically true. The film also does not contain any "based on a true story" disclaimer.

If truth be told, there has never existed a person named László Tóth who was a Hungarian-Jewish architect who escaped from the Holocaust and went on to build some monumental constructions in America.

Regardless of this, the themes and historical events as seen in the film are pretty much tied to the actuality of history that took place all of those years ago.

During the time of the Second World War and after it, countless Hungarian Jews encountered brutal oppression, persecution, and mistreatment. Then there were some who survived and migrated to the U.S., where they made substantial contributions to a lot of fields, also including architecture.

While the film surely does not portray the life of a single real-life person, the narrative does talk about the experiences of numerous European immigrants who wanted to re-establish their lives after the 2nd World War.

The Real-Life Inspiration Behind the film

Even though László Tóth as a character in the film may be fictional, The Brutalist picks up some heavy inspiration from real architectural movements.

The film makes a reference to the Bauhaus school, which is a highly dominant German art and architecture institute. The furniture and designs seen in the film closely bear a resemblance to those of Heinrich Neuy, who was Bauhaus-trained, and this is something that reinforced the film’s grounding in real design principles.

Brutalist architectural style is something that came up during the 1950s. It was developed by British architects who were also modernists.

An exciting fact to know would be that a real-life architect who mirrors László Tóth is a person named Ernő Goldfinger, who was a Hungarian-Jewish architect who went to Britain to escape persecutions.

Goldfinger was someone who turned out to be an important figure during the time of post-war modernist architecture while designing buildings using the Brutalist style.

While the film does not vouch to be a retelling of Goldfinger’s life, his story does mirror that of László Tóth.

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So, to sum this up, is The Brutalist based on a true story? No.

However, László Tóth, as a fictional character, mirrors the lives of countless other people and their struggles and the brutality they faced.

By mixing up fiction with historical depth, the film offers a convincing story that echoes with real-world themes of art and identity—warranting its lasting effect on its viewers.