BRONSON

BRONSON is a violent, theatrical portrait of Britain’s most notorious prisoner. Inspired by the life of Michael Peterson, who renamed himself Charles Bronson, the film follows a man who spends decades inside solitary confinement yet becomes a cult celebrity along the way.

This is not a biopic in the usual sense. Refn treats Bronson as a performance, a persona built from rage, ego, and a hunger to be seen.

Tom Hardy gives a career-defining performance. He shifts between brute force and warped comedy, often addressing the audience directly as if he is staging his own one-man show. The film jumps between prison cells, bare knuckle fights, and surreal stage moments, blurring reality and self-mythology. Refn shoots much of it like a grotesque cabaret, with violence choreographed rather than hidden.

On release, the film divided critics. Some saw it as glorifying brutality. Others recognised it as a sharp study of masculinity, celebrity, and institutional control. Over time, BRONSON has become a key work in Refn’s career and the film that launched Hardy as a major actor. It remains unsettling, funny, and impossible to ignore.