Adrien Brody’s best roles, from The Pianist to The Brutalist

by Violaine Schütz.

Publié le 25 february 2025. Modifié le 26 February 2025.

Adrien Brody as a musician who survived the Warsaw ghetto in The Pianist

If you had to see one film only to grasp the immense talent of American actor and producer Adrien Brody, 51, it would be Roman Polanski’s Palme d’Or-winning film The Pianist (2002), for which the actor won the Academy Award for Best Actor. This deeply moving feature plunges us in the painful context of World War II, when Wladyslaw Szpilman – a real musician played by Adrien Brody – a talented Polish Jewish pianist who escaped deportation, finds himself imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto. He eventually escapes, then meets a German officer who likes his music and decides to help him.

In order to draw a realistic portrayal of this suffering man, Adrien Brody lost 30 pounds – he appears very emaciated in the film – and spent four hours a day learning how to play the piano for months. He also decided to isolate himself by leaving his flat, cutting off his phones, giving up his car and leaving for Europe with just two bags… A complete devotion that would be followed by six months adjusting to his former life and over a year struggling with eating disorders.

The Pianist (2002) by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody, available on Max.

Adrien Brody as a deceptively detached teacher in Detachment

In the very dark, nihilistic, yet poetic and pictorial film Detachment, Adrien Brody embodies one of his most sensitive and moving roles. He plays Henry Barthes, a teacher who has great empathy for his students but decides to work as a substitute teacher to avoid becoming too attached to them. He is sent to teach at a so-called difficult high school on the outskirts of New York for three weeks, as he tries to keep his distance from the problems that surround him. In order to deliver a performance with such melancholy and accuracy, Adrien Brody undoubtedly drew his inspiration from his own father, a former history teacher who taught in Queens, New York.

Detachment (2012) by Tony Kaye, starring Adrien Brody and Marcia Gay Harden, available on UniversCiné.

A man on a fraternal and spiritual quest in The Darjeeling Limited

“Adrien has a face that is from another era. He has such pathos in his face. It’s a face that’s made for a close up. Such expressive eyes – and some of his features are so exaggerated and yet delicate,” Scarlett Johansson once said. With his sad eyes, slim figure and unusual beauty, Adrien Brody often finds himself in zany worlds.

Wes Anderson called on him for The Darjeeling Limited, a feature film full of fantasy and not always easy to follow. He plays one of the three brothers who haven’t exchanged a word since their father’s funeral.

The three men decide to take a train journey across India to reconcile. But nothing goes according to plan, and soon, they find themselves on a series of dangerous adventures, including a fight, a meeting with their mother who became a nun, a detour through the desert, a separation, a funeral and a reunion. The collaboration between Wes Anderson and Adrien Brody worked so well that they will work together on The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Asteroid City.

The Darjeeling Limited (2008) by Wes Anderson, starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman, available on Disney+.

A punk in Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam

Summer of Sam (2000) is not the first film that film buffs mention when talking about Spike Lee’s career. Yet, it is one of his most exciting features according to us. The American director dives us into the hot summer of 1977 in New York. A serial killer – Sam’s son – is rampaging through the Bronx, preying on young women, as the media multiply their sensationalist stories, adding to the climate of terror.

Funny, electric, social and violent, Summer of Sam is a sensory whirlwind, an overdriven, over-the-top, Scorsese-like universe that will leave no one indifferent. That effect is partly due to its fabulous cast, including Adrien Brody (playing an Italian American punk inspired by the nihilistic Britain of the late 1970s) and Mira Sorvino (Romy and Michele’s High School reunion), as well as its explosive disco soundtrack.

Summer of Sam (2000) by Spike Lee, starring Adrien Brody and Mira Sorvino, available on PremiereMax.

Adrien Brody as a Holocaust survivor and architect in The Brutalist

This is without any doubt Adrien Brody’s most impressive performance since The Pianist. In Brady Corbet’s monumental 3-hour-long drama The Brutalist, the hero of King Kong (2005) plays the role of an avant-garde architect, László Tóth, who moved to the United States after the Holocaust. He tries to rebuild and live a normal life again with his wife, a journalist who is now disabled.

Luck finally seems to smile upon him as he meets a wealthy, cultured industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren, who asked him to build a mausoleum for his late mother. This ambitious and atypical project will require a very long and costly commitment on his part, all the more so since the industrialist has a hold on him and proves to be particularly harmful and vicious. Wounded by his past and by a sexual assault he is about to be suffer from, the architect will gradually sinks into drugs and let his demons get the best of him.

There’s currently a big debate in Hollywood because AI was used to perfect the Hungarian accent of the actor, but that controversy should not prevent him from winning another Academy Award. The actor has just won a well-earned Golden Globe and a Bafta award for his intense, subtle and poignant performance in this feature film about the intricacies of the American dream.

The Brutalist by Brady Corbet, starring Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, out now.

Traduction Emma Naroumbo Armaing