The Smashing Machine Premiere Erupts With 15-Minute Ovation And Fierce First Reviews

Early reactions are pouring in, and critics are calling it one of the wildest rides of the year.

Venice just went wild for The Smashing Machine. And by wild, I mean a 15-minute standing ovation. Yes, 15. That is a lifetime to clap for anything, but the buzz coming out of the premiere makes it sound earned rather than just festival gymnastics.

What the movie is

Benny Safdie makes his first solo feature as a director with a bruising, surprisingly tender sports biopic about UFC legend Mark Kerr. Dwayne Johnson plays Kerr, and Emily Blunt co-stars as Dawn Staples, Kerr's onetime wife. It is the kind of story that lives both inside the ring and in the mess outside of it, and the early word is that Safdie threads both worlds without flinching.

The room: 15 minutes of applause and tears

After the premiere, the ovation stretched to a full quarter-hour, and footage from inside the theater shows both Johnson and Safdie in tears. This is one of the most loudly supported titles at the festival right now, the sort of debut that puts a movie on an immediate awards track.

Early reactions, boiled down

• People are calling it raw and authentic, a sports biopic that hits as hard emotionally as it does physically.
• Safdie reportedly balances the violence of the cage with something humane and heartfelt; the approach sounds more character study than victory lap.
• Johnson and Blunt’s chemistry keeps coming up as a highlight, with a lot of talk about unexpected emotional heft between them.
• Multiple critics say it feels like a spiritual cousin to The Wrestler — clear-eyed, unsentimental, and deeply felt.
• The Playlist says Johnson will make you cry; IndieWire notes he effectively drops 'The Rock' persona to reveal something softer and more vulnerable.
• Variety’s take is firmly positive, emphasizing the clean, focused storytelling in Safdie’s first solo outing.

Oscar chatter already? Yeah

Johnson is getting the kind of praise that makes a Best Actor nomination feel very possible. He has come a long way since handing out the Visual Effects Oscar back in 2008. And it is not just him: Emily Blunt is drawing real attention for Dawn Staples — if this momentum holds, she could be heading toward her second Oscar nod after 2023’s Oppenheimer.

'I looked around a few years ago and I started to think, you know, am I living my dream or am I living other people’s dreams? You come to that recognition and I think you can either fall in line — 'Well, it’s status quo, things are good, I don’t want to rock the boat' — or go, I want to live my dreams now and do what I wanna do and tap into the stuff that I want to tap into, and have a place finally to put all this stuff that I’ve experienced in the past that I’ve shied away from. I’ve been scared to go deep and intense and raw until now, until I had this opportunity.'

Scorecard and what’s next

As of now, The Smashing Machine sits at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes from 18 reviews. It is in the main competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, facing 20 other titles for the Golden Lion. We find out who wins when the festival wraps on September 6. The movie itself hits theaters on October 3.

Are you making time for this one in a theater? The applause math might be silly, but the chatter sure is not.