- Dwayne Johnson is the cultural frontrunner for an Oscar after the premiere of The Smashing Machine at the 2025 Venice Film Festival.
- Directed by Benny Safdie (Good Times, Uncut Gems), the sports biopic centred on mixed martial arts pioneer and wrestler Mark Kerr received a 15-minute standing ovation that moved Johnson to tears.
- The Smashing Machine is set to release on October 2nd, 2025 in Australia.
In the same calendar year that Daniel Day-Lewis came out of retirement, Leonardo DiCaprio starred in a Paul Thomas Anderson picture, and Denzel Washington reunited with Spike Lee, against all odds, the current zeitgeist favourite to claim Best Actor at the next Academy Awards is… Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson.
This is, of course, due to the rapturous reception that Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine recently received at the Venice Film Festival; eerily similar to the tear-jerking applause Brendan Fraser enjoyed early in his own Oscar campaign for yet another A24 venture: Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale.
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When the credits rolled on the much-hyped sports biopic, in which Johnson portrays mixed martial arts pioneer and wrestler Mark Kerr, the audience reportedly “erupted” into a borderline farcical 15-minute standing ovation (among the longest at this year’s edition of the festival).
The online praise has been no less effusive…
Dwayne Johnson gives "Oscar-worthy" performance in "taut and upsetting" real-life drama https://t.co/YiYHRW4DZI
— Digital Spy (@digitalspy) September 3, 2025
#TheSmashingMachine is a sincerely raw sports biopic on the gritty & brutal, real & emotional fights we face in & out the ring.
— Ren Geekness (@RenGeekness) September 1, 2025
Johnson bleeds vulnerability onto the screen in an undisputed knockout performance worth every ounce of blood, sweat & tears.
Blunt the PERFECT match. pic.twitter.com/LccnwMc3xX
Benny Safdie’s ‘THE SMASHING MACHINE’ debuts at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Dwayne Johnson is receiving critical acclaim for his performance in the film. pic.twitter.com/T4GzP0Rj7g— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) September 1, 2025
Dwayne Johnson is being lauded by critics for his performance in ‘THE SMASHING MACHINE’
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) September 1, 2025
“Dwayne Johnson is a Revelation” – @Variety
“Johnson’s performance is out-and-out wonderful” – @IndieWire
“Dwayne Johnson will bring you to tears” – @ThePlaylistNews pic.twitter.com/YTPM8CvKr4
“I have, for a long time, wanted this,” said Dwayne Johnson, sitting alongside director Benny Safdie and co-star Emily Blunt, the latter of whom portrays Kerr’s girlfriend/wife/eventually ex-wife, Dawn Staples.
“The three of us have talked for a very long time about, when you’re in Hollywood – as we all know, it had become about box office. And you chase the box office, and the box office can be very loud, and it can become very resounding, and it can push you into a category and into a corner. This is your lane and this is what you do and this is what Hollywood wants you to do.”
The 53-year-old WWE icon turned actor added: “I just had this burning desire and voice that was saying, ‘What if there is more and what if I can?’ A lot of times, it’s harder for us – or at least for me – to know what you’re capable of when you’ve been pigeonholed into something.”
“Sometimes it takes people who you love and respect, like Emily and Benny, to say that you can.”
While we didn’t exactly anticipate Oscar buzz, as previously noted, we did suspect this would be Dwayne Johnson’s graduation from everyday movie star to actor with a capital ‘A’ – not entirely unlike what Adam Sandler had with Punch Drunk Love, and Matthew McConaughey had with A Time To Kill the first time around (then Jeff Nichols’ Mud during his mythic “McConaissance”).
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Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt has set an Australian release date of October 2nd, 2025 – check out the official synopsis and trailer below.
And in the event The Rock manages to cook up a gilded statuette for Best Actor, don’t be surprised if he attempts to mount a US presidential campaign.
The Smashing Machine synopsis
Mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) reaches the peak of his career but faces personal hardships. The film borrows its title from the 2002 HBO documentary of the same subject.
Dwayne Johnson aside, A24’s The Smashing Machine features Emily Blunt as Kerr’s longtime partner Dawn Staples, former Bellator heavyweight champion Ryan Bader as inaugural UFC heavyweight champion Mark Coleman, the one and only Bas Rutten as himself, heavyweight boxing great Oleksandr Usyk as Igor Vovchanchyn; along with Lyndsey Gavin as Elizabeth Coleman, Satoshi Ishii as Enson Inoue, and plenty more.
