A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American biographical
drama film about the mathematician John Nash who
won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences,
played by Russell Crowe. The film is directed by Ron
Howard based on a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman,
who adapted the 1998 biography by Sylvia Nasar. In
addition to Crowe, the film's cast features Ed Harris,
Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg,
Judd Hirsch, Josh Lucas, Anthony Rapp, and
Christopher Plummer in supporting roles. The story
begins in Nash's days as a brilliant but asocial
mathematics graduate student at Princeton
University. After Nash accepts secretive work in
cryptography, he becomes liable to a larger
conspiracy and begins to question his reality.