[6] It stars Adrien Brody as a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor who emigrates to the United States, where he struggles to achieve the American Dream until a wealthy client changes his life.

The cast also features Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankolé, and Alessandro Nivola.

Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor László Tóth, forcibly separated from his wife and orphaned niece after being sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, emigrates to the United States.

As his ship enters New York Harbor, he spies the Statue of Liberty, although from his vantage point it appears to be askew and nearly upside down (an image reprinted on the film's poster and in the opening titles).

They are soon commissioned to renovate the library of the Bucks County mansion of wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren at the behest of his son Harry while his father is away.

Attila demands that László leave their home, blaming him for the failed project and falsely accuses him of having made a pass at his wife (implying she lied to ensure his eviction).

Harrison turns up to tell him the architectural community has lauded his modern library renovation, and that he has researched his past and discovered that László was an accomplished architect in Europe.

After László almost kills Erzsébet by giving her heroin to soothe the pain from her osteoporosis when she runs out of medication, she proposes they live in Jerusalem with Zsófia and her family, to which he agrees.

She ends by claiming that László once told her: "No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.” In September 2018, Deadline reported that director Brady Corbet had chosen the period drama The Brutalist as his next project following the world premiere of his second feature film, Vox Lux.

Gugenheim for ALP, Trevor Matthews and Nick Gordon for Brookstreet Pictures,[15] Brian Young's Three Six Zero,[13] and the Polish company Madants,[16][17] and executive produced by Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, and David Hinojosa of Killer Films.

[15] Sebastian Stan, Vanessa Kirby, Isaach De Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, and Stacy Martin were also announced in unknown roles.

[citation needed] Director of photography Lol Crawley, editor Dávid Jancsó, and costume designer Kate Forbes were announced on March 9, 2023.

[24] On April 11, 2023, it was announced that Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Jonathan Hyde, Emma Laird, and Peter Polycarpou would star in the film, while Edgerton, Cotillard, Rylance, Stan, and Kirby were no longer attached.

[35] The overture features pianists John Tilbury, Sophie Agnel [fr], and Simon Sieger, trumpeter Axel Dörner, and saxophonist Evan Parker, all of whom appear throughout the soundtrack.

[36] "Erzsébet", one of the score's themes, was played by Blumberg live on a piano since Corbet wanted the actors to hear the music while shooting; the train noises from the scene were eventually incorporated into the track's final version.

[37] In an interview with RedShark News, Jancsó revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) tools from Respeecher, a Ukrainian software company, were deployed in order to improve the authenticity of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones's Hungarian dialogue.

"[38] Director Brady Corbet issued the following statement to Deadline Hollywood after Jancsó's interview sparked backlash on social media:[39][40] [Brody] and [Jones]'s performances are completely their own.

The aim was to preserve the authenticity of [Brody] and [Jones]'s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.Additionally, it was claimed that generative artificial intelligence was used to conjure a series of architectural blueprints and finished buildings in the film's closing sequence.

[38] In a 2022 Filmmaker article, production designer Judy Becker claimed the film's architecture consultant used Midjourney "to create three brutalist buildings quite quickly.

To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980.

The website's consensus reads: "Structurally beautiful and suffused with Adrien Brody's soulful performance, writer-director Brady Corbet's immaculately designed The Brutalist is a towering tribute to the immigrant experience.

He continued: "The Brutalist obviously takes something from Ayn Rand, but also from Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow in its depiction of the US immigrant adventure and the promise of success – but maybe Corbet and Fastvold go further and faster into how dizzyingly sensual and sexual it all is".

[61] Some reviews criticized the film, including The Ringer's Adam Nayman[62] and The New Yorker's Richard Brody, with the latter writing that "Brady Corbet’s epic takes on weighty themes, but fails to infuse its characters with the stuff of life.

"[63] NPR included the film in their list of the best movies and TV of 2024, with critic Bob Mondello writing that The Brutalist is "Gorgeous, conceptually stunning, and dizzying in its savagery about cracks in the foundation of the American dream.

[65] Filmmakers Oliver Stone, Tim Fehlbaum, Drew Goddard, Reinaldo Marcus Green, Don Hertzfeldt, Matt Johnson, Karyn Kusama, David Lowery, Lance Oppenheim, Paul Schrader, Celine Song and Malcolm Washington have cited it as among their favorite films of 2024.