Amongst all working U.S. filmmakers, few have constructed as devoted and fervent a following of critics and cinephiles as Michael Mann. Mann’s acolytes have secured such sleekly hard-boiled style works as “Thief” and “Warmth” a everlasting place within the American canon, whereas staunchly advocating for the deserves of extra divisive titles like “Blackhat” and “Miami Vice” — the latter, launched to blended opinions and reasonable field workplace in 2006, as we speak attracts reverent crowds at repertory screenings. Such is the facility of Mann’s males (and girls): At 80, Mann has made simply 12 movies in a profession spanning 5 a long time, however his legacy is wholly safe.

The Academy, nevertheless, has by no means fairly joined the cult. Solely as soon as has a Mann movie related with a large swath of Oscar voters: That may be 1999’s scorching Massive Tobacco takedown “The Insider,” a box-office disappointment that nonetheless boasted sufficient artistry and gravitas to land seven nominations, together with Greatest Image and Greatest Director — solely to lose all of them, dented partially by an argument over alleged factual distortions that haven’t outlasted the movie’s popularity.

The one Mann movie to win an Oscar, in the meantime, is 1992’s “The Final of the Mohicans,” an enormous, lovely, Daniel Day-Lewis-starring adaptation of the epic James Fenimore Cooper novel that appeared like prime Oscar bait within the early fall, solely to be near-forgotten by the point nominations rolled round — scoring only one, for Greatest Sound, and taking it house. In any other case, his movies have both under-performed (see “Ali” and “Collateral,” every rewarded with a scant two nods regardless of sturdy pedigrees) or been ignored totally. (He was additional nominated as a producer of Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes epic “The Aviator”; that misplaced too.)

That document will not be precisely unintentional. Mann focuses on robust, terse, unsparing style cinema, which is never the Academy’s bag. (Although even with that prejudice famous, he’s been unfortunate: 5 years earlier than “The Silence of the Lambs” ran the desk on the Oscars, Mann made the primary Hannibal Lecter movie, the icy, unnerving “Mankiller,” which made nary a ripple with audiences or awards voters.) Mann doesn’t do mild sentiment or uplift; even his baitiest initiatives (and early in 2001, all of us thought a Muhammad Ali biopic may hardly miss) are couched in voter-repelling violence and malaise. That’s the best way Mann and his admirers desire it: In that regard, Oscar-less-ness is a badge of honor.

All of which is to say there are are not any secure bets to be made concerning “Ferrari,” which bowed on the Venice Movie Pageant Thursday — Mann’s first movie in eight years, and his first to premiere in competitors at a serious pageant since his debut “Thief” performed Cannes method again in 1981. Like “Ali,” it finds the filmmaker as soon as extra dipping a toe into prestige-biopic waters, and as soon as extra doing it on his phrases, with imposing if not essentially crowd-pleasing outcomes.

Specializing in a key 12 months within the lifetime of Italian race-car magnate Enzo Ferrari — taking in his crumbling marriage to longtime spouse Laura, their joint grief over the loss of life of their son Dino, his recognition of an illegitimate second son with mistress Lina Lardi, and the endurance of the Ferrari model by means of a interval of economic bother and surprising sporting tragedy — it’s grand-scale, doubtlessly melodramatic materials that Mann tells with a sometimes cool head, its contained emotions solely intermittently bursting to the floor. Some will respect its restraint on this regard; others may need for extra conventionally cathartic storytelling and, in Adam Driver’s chilly, aloof Ferrari, a extra outwardly sympathetic protagonist.

Both method, we’re a good distance from the extra rousing, rah-rah racing spectacle of 2019’s monster hit (and Greatest Image nominee) “Ford vs. Ferrari,” wherein Enzo Ferrari featured as a supporting character. Others could want to draw comparisons to Ridley Scott’s current “Home of Gucci,” one other examine of an iconic Italian enterprise empire that attracted a lot buzz and precursor consideration, solely to be largely dismissed by Oscar voters. (It acquired a single nomination for make-up and hairstyling.) However “Ferrari,” as stoic and disciplined as “Gucci” was flagrantly kitsch, isn’t that film both — although each, curiously, lead with Driver quietly underplaying towards larger, brasher competitors within the ensemble.

Neither Driver’s efficiency nor the late Troy Kennedy Martin’s screenplay — tailored from Brock Yates’ biography “Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine” — go straightforward on the protagonist’s chilly self-involvement and lack of empathy for these round him, a courageous artistic alternative that nonetheless could not win Driver factors from the appearing department, who are likely to desire their performances extra emotionally demonstrative.

Enter, then, Penélope Cruz, the raging storm to Driver’s phlegmatic calm, and the last word coronary heart of a movie that typically prefers to maintain it hidden. Because the offended, lonely, grief-ravaged Laura, emotionally estranged from her husband even earlier than she learns of his second household, she enters the movie with weapons actually a-blazing, fiercely voicing her rage in a ripe Italian accent. Cruz will get to steal a number of extra scenes with such gale-force diva-tude — seething even when silently signing monetary affidavits — earlier than she will get to extra quietly unload her anguish.

The Academy likes Cruz in one in every of two modes: the entertaining Mediterranean spitfire act that gained her Greatest Supporting Actress in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” and the extra nuanced, spiraling emotional chaos that just lately nabbed her a Greatest Actress nod for “Parallel Moms.” Her work right here (which can presumably be pushed in supporting) successfully combines the 2, making it “Ferrari’s” grabbiest For Your Consideration part.

No different forged member, from an underused Jack O’Connell to an oddly accented Shailene Woodley, will get a lot of a look-in. The actual different stars of “Ferrari,” unsurprisingly for a Mann image, are its ace below-the-line contributors, from cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (an Oscar winner two years in the past for “Mank”) to veteran editor Pietro Scalia (twice a winner, for “JFK” and “Black Hawk Down”) to manufacturing designer Maria Djurkovic (a nominee for “The Imitation Sport”).

It’s Scalia’s sometimes very important, rhythmic reducing — important to its white-knuckle racing sequences, climaxing with a vivid, unshakable restaging of the 1957 Mille Miglia crash — that make the obvious play for recognition right here, in tandem with sharp, juddering sound work from a workforce led by two-time winner Andy Nelson (“Saving Personal Ryan,” “Les Misérables”). These, in spite of everything, are the 2 awards that “Ford vs. Ferrari” took house, although one want solely discuss with Ron Howard’s 2013 racing biopic “Rush” — a snazzy tech showcase that gained an enhancing BAFTA and obtained exactly zero Oscar nominations — to do not forget that a lot relies on how the movie fares total.

So it’ll be attention-grabbing to see how “Ferrari” performs and gathers momentum as scorching distributor Neon steers it by means of the season, from Venice to a plum closing-night berth on the New York Movie Pageant to an eventual theatrical launch on Christmas Day. If audiences take to the movie, the movie may very well be in play for nominations throughout the board, all the best way as much as Greatest Image and Greatest Director — the place Mann’s department friends would possibly really feel he’s owed one other admiring tip of the hat. If not, effectively, it may come by means of anyway, as “The Insider” did all these years in the past, or fall by the wayside: Via his profession, Mann has identified all awards-season outcomes besides outright victory.