Director Ron Howard is known for making some of the most critically acclaimed yet accessible films of the past two decades, including “Cinderella Man,” “Frost/Nixon,” and “A Beautiful Mind.” This fact makes the subject of his latest film, “Rush,” the chronicle of a long-standing rivalry between two Formula One drivers, somewhat curious, as Formula One has not garnered the kind of fanfare in the United States that it has in Europe, where it is one of the most popular professional sports. But the unfamiliarity of the subject is one of the things that makes this film so intriguing.

Chris Hemsworth plays the British driver James Hunt, a hotheaded playboy who is as much of a loose cannon off the track as he is on it. Daniel Bruhl, who most famously played Nazi sharpshooter Frederich Zoller in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds,” is Hunt’s archrival, the ultra-focused Austrian driver Nicki Lauda. Both men are obsessed with winning the F1 World Championship, but Lauda, as the less ostentatious of the two, is not exactly a media darling. “It helps if people like you,” Hunt tells him in one scene that defines the nature of the men’s rivalry.

That’s how most of the movie goes, with the two drivers sniping at each other verbally and physically and then settling things on the racetrack, in a number of grueling, down to the wire contests. But, in the movie’s final third, the story takes an unexpected twist, which of course I will not reveal, that makes this a completely different and even more satisfying film. Now, I freely admit that I find auto racing of all forms to be rather repetitive and dull. But Howard makes it absolutely riveting, depicting every race with a grueling intensity that makes each contest seem like as much of a struggle to survive as to win.

The soundtrack, which is filled with a lot of big, nasty classic rock tunes, only adds to the atmosphere. And it helps that both characters are impeccably drawn and played to perfection by the two leading men. Hemsworth has an irresistible swagger on screen that makes him likable even when his character is not, and Bruhl makes the dogged Lauda noble and compelling. Olivia Wilde is also in the movie as a romantic interest for Hemsworth, but their undercooked relationship is one of the movie’s few weak points.

The British press has criticized Peter Morgan’s script for dumbing down the complexities of Formula One in order to appeal to an American audience. But I find that to hardly be a valid criticism as most Brits are probably well-versed in the Hunt-Lauda saga and would be hard to satisfy regardless, much as I was dissatisfied with the Jackie Robinson biopic “42,” knowing Robinson’s story well even before seeing the film. I found Rush to be a slickly made and tremendously exciting film that will appeal to all audiences, even those with no interest in auto racing.

Grade: A-