"The Smashing Machine" is a 2025 American biographical sports drama film focusing on the life of MMA fighter Mark Kerr. Directed by Benny Safdie, the film explores Kerr's career, relationships, and struggles with addiction. The movie adopts a gritty, quasi-documentary style. It premiered at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2025, and was released in the United States on October 3, 2025, by A24. The film has a running time of 123 minutes.
- Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr
- Emily Blunt as Dawn Staples
- Ryan Bader as Mark Coleman
- Bas Rutten as Himself
- Oleksandr Usyk as Igor Vovchanchyn
Directed by Benny Safdie.
"The Smashing Machine" received generally positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 71% approval rating based on 306 reviews. The site's consensus states, "Dwayne Johnson goes the distance with his transformative turn as Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine, a gritty biopic that sidesteps cliché even at the expense of narrative satisfaction while still landing the dramatic body blows that count". Metacritic assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 56 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". However, the film was a box office bomb, grossing $21 million against a $50 million budget. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards. It was nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 98th Academy Awards.
