Brad Pitt turned sixty and then made the highest-grossing sports film ever released. It is a strange late-career turn for an actor who spent the 1990s being treated as a face rather than a performer, and who responded by quietly becoming one of the most consequential producers in American film. The acting is the part people discuss. The production company is the part that changed the industry.
Quick Bio / At a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | William Bradley Pitt |
| Date of Birth | December 18, 1963 |
| Birthplace | Shawnee, Oklahoma; raised in Springfield, Missouri |
| Occupation | Actor and film producer |
| Production Company | Plan B Entertainment, founded 2001 |
| Academy Awards | Best Supporting Actor (2020); Best Picture as producer (12 Years a Slave) |
| Recent Film | F1: The Movie (2025) |
| Marriages | Jennifer Aniston (2000–2005); Angelina Jolie (2014–2024) |
| Children | Six, with Angelina Jolie |
| Partner | Inés de Ramón |
Missouri to Los Angeles
Early Life
William Bradley Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, on December 18, 1963, and grew up in Springfield, Missouri. His father managed a trucking company; his mother worked as a school counsellor. It was a conservative Southern Baptist household, and he has spoken over the years about moving away from that framework.
He studied journalism and advertising at the University of Missouri and left two weeks short of graduating, driving to Los Angeles with a few hundred dollars.
Thelma & Louise
After several years of small television parts, Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise in 1991 changed everything with roughly fifteen minutes of screen time. The role made him a star before he had demonstrated he could act, which shaped the next decade of his career and most of the criticism of it.
Proving the Point: 1992–1999
He answered the criticism by working with directors rather than chasing leading-man vehicles. A River Runs Through It came in 1992, Interview with the Vampire and Legends of the Fall in 1994.
Then two David Fincher films bracketed the decade. Se7en in 1995 and Fight Club in 1999 established the register he is best in — charismatic, unstable, faintly amused. In between, Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys in 1995 brought a Golden Globe win and his first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.
The Franchise and the Prestige Run
Ocean’s and Blockbusters
Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven in 2001 and its sequels gave him a commercial franchise built on ensemble charm rather than action. Troy followed in 2004 and Mr. & Mrs. Smith in 2005.
The Nominations
His strongest stretch as a lead ran through Babel in 2006, Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford in 2007, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008 and Bennett Miller’s Moneyball in 2011 — the last two both earning Best Actor nominations.
Quentin Tarantino cast him in Inglourious Basterds in 2009 and again, a decade later, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. That second performance, as stuntman Cliff Booth, won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2020.
Plan B Entertainment
Pitt co-founded Plan B in 2001. It became one of the most critically successful production companies of the century, and its record is genuinely unusual for a star vanity outfit.
Plan B produced 12 Years a Slave, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2014 — giving Pitt an Oscar as a producer six years before he won one as an actor. It also produced Moonlight, Best Picture in 2017, along with The Big Short, Selma and a long run of films that would have struggled to get financed without it.
F1: The Movie
Joseph Kosinski’s F1: The Movie was released in 2025, with Pitt as Sonny Hayes, a veteran driver brought back to lead a failing Formula One team and mentor a younger driver played by Damson Idris.
It became one of the highest-grossing films of 2025 and the highest-grossing sports film of all time. At the 2026 Academy Awards it received four nominations, including Best Picture, along with Sound, Film Editing and Visual Effects. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has confirmed a sequel is in development.
Pitt has described the production as one of the most extraordinary experiences of his career.
Marriages, Children and the Legal Years
Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston from 2000 to 2005. He married Angelina Jolie in 2014, after a decade together, and they have six children.
Jolie filed for divorce in 2016. The dispute ran for more than eight years, and a settlement was filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court on December 30, 2024. Its terms are confidential; neither the financial arrangements nor the custody details were disclosed, and both parties waived future spousal support. A separate dispute over the French vineyard Château Miraval has continued beyond the divorce itself.
He has been in a relationship with Inés de Ramón.
The Career in One Line
Pitt spent the first half of his career being told he was too handsome to be taken seriously and the second half producing the films that won Best Picture. The 2025 box office record is a footnote to that, not the headline.
Related profiles: Adrien Brody and Goldie Hawn.
