This Agon movie review covers one of 2025’s most daring debut films. Italian director Giulio Bertelli does not make the kind of sports film you are used to watching. There is no triumphant finish line. No slow-motion medal moment. What Bertelli delivers instead is a controlled, deeply unsettling study of elite athletes pushed beyond what the human body should reasonably endure.

If you are a fan of ambitious, thought-provoking cinema, this one demands your full attention.

What Is Agon About?

Agon is set inside a fictional hyper-technological Olympic environment where athletes are constantly monitored, measured, and reduced to performance data. The film follows three central athletes, each collapsing under a different kind of pressure. Bertelli treats the human body not as something to celebrate but as a subject under investigation.

That clinical approach is what separates this film from every conventional sports drama released in recent years.

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Direction and Vision

Bertelli brings a rare background to this project. His experience as a professional sailor and his work with Muccio Prada gave him a designer’s understanding of precision and structure. Every frame of Agon reflects that. He is not here to inspire you. He is here to show you exactly what inspiration costs.

The film sits far closer to body horror than to traditional sports drama. Fans of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan or Claire Denis’s Beau Travail will immediately recognise the language Bertelli is speaking. If you enjoy those films, you can read our breakdown of the best arthouse sports films of the decade here.

Cinematography That Gets Under Your Skin

Cinematographer Mauro Chiarello’s work in this Agon movie review worthy film is shot with surgical precision.. Medical sequences are deliberately drained of colour, rendered in near-monochrome to reflect the cold reality athletes face behind closed doors. Competition footage, by contrast, bursts with intense and almost violent colour.

The contrast is purposeful. Chiarello builds a visual argument about the gap between public spectacle and private suffering, and he makes that argument without a single word of dialogue.

One scene stands above everything else. A sharpshooter sits alone in a hotel room the night before competition. Bertelli holds on her face for nearly three unbroken minutes. No score. No movement. Just silence and the faint tremor in her jaw. It is the most quietly devastating scene in any film released this year.

The Three Athletes at the Heart of Agon

_{Source: Image courtesy of The Match Factory / Photo by Sofija Zobina.}

The three athletes at the heart of this Agon movie review each represent a different kind of collapse.

Alice Bellandi carries the film’s most physically confronting segment. Her storyline includes real operating room footage that transforms the sports film into something approaching medical documentary. It is hard to watch and impossible to look away from.

Alex Sokolov, portrayed by Sofija Zobina with extraordinary restraint, faces a social media scandal that strips her identity down to nothing. Her fencing accident near the end reframes every scene that came before it.

Yile Vianello represents the film’s philosophical core. Her arc argues that control in elite sport is always an illusion, and the moment an athlete believes otherwise is precisely when everything falls apart.

Score and Sound Design

Composer Tom Wheatley makes a bold choice throughout Agon: he scores the silence rather than the action. His music functions as ambient interference, subtle enough to feel subconscious. The sound design follows the same logic, building atmosphere through the creak of orthopaedic bracing, the hum of medical equipment, and the hollow acoustics of empty training halls.

Together, sound and score create a film that works on your nervous system as much as your emotions.

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Editing and Production

Editors Tommaso Galone and Francesco Roma handle three narratives that each operate at different rhythms. The Bellandi sequences are patient and long-take. The Vianello segments are cut more frantically to mirror her mental state. The fact that these co-exist in one coherent film without ever jarring is a significant achievement.

Agon is backed by MUBI, whose curatorial reputation for challenging, high-quality cinema adds important context. You can explore the full MUBI catalogue for similar titles at mubi.com. (external outbound link) The platform’s credibility lends this debut the audience it deserves.

Does Agon Have Any Weaknesses?

This Agon movie review would not be complete without honesty about where the film falls short. Bertelli’s screenplay leaves some emotional threads unresolved in ways that feel less like intentional ambiguity and more like underdevelopment. Viewers who need a degree of closure may find the ending frustrating rather than provocative.

The film is also an uncompromising watch. Its runtime of one hour and forty minutes feels longer because Bertelli demands active engagement in every scene. This is not background viewing.

Final Verdict

This Agon movie review lands firmly in strong recommendation territory, with one important caveat: know what you are walking into. Agon is not a comfortable film. It is not designed to be. Bertelli has crafted a debut that refuses to glamorise sacrifice, refuses to reward suffering with triumph, and refuses to let you leave the cinema feeling reassured.

This Agon movie review confidently recommends Bertelli’s debut to anyone who values serious cinema.

That refusal is exactly what makes it extraordinary.

Quick Facts

This Agon movie review rates the film 4 out of 5 stars.

Director: Giulio Bertelli
Cinematography: Mauro Chiarello
Composer: Tom Wheatley
Editors: Tommaso Galone and Francesco Roma
Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes
Distributor: MUBI
Streaming: Available on MUBI

Sources:

Media Credits: Featured Image Composite by Clip Cinema Hub. Includes official stills courtesy of The Match Factory and archival media via Variety. This image has been transformed for news reporting and educational review.

Primary Reporting: Variety (MUBI Acquires Giulio Bertelli’s Sports-Tech Drama Agon).

Official Data: MUBI Official Site (International Distribution and Streaming Details).