Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.
Nominated for 2 Oscars. 12 wins & 38 nominations total
Top Critics Reviews
fresh:
[T]he epitome of Hollywood filmmaking in ways both good and bad: uplifting, overlong, ambitious in scope but simple in moral vision, well-crafted but inured to irony.
– Christopher Orr,
The New Republic,
11 Dec 2009
fresh:
The story of how Nelson Mandela chose the white-supported national rugby team, the Springboks, to become a symbol of national reconciliation is uncharacteristically optimistic for Eastwood.
– Liam Lacey,
Globe and Mail,
11 Dec 2009
rotten:
Freeman-as-Mandela is an actor all dressed up with no place to go -- at least, nowhere we didn't already know he was headed.
– Dana Stevens,
Slate,
11 Dec 2009
fresh:
What Eastwood has done is to assemble a cast of American and South African actors and allow them to create something moving, exciting, and improbably true.
– Jonathan F. Richards,
Film.com,
15 Jan 2010
fresh:
A noble and compassionate work that in its later scenes manages successfully to invest our emotions in the triumph of an important - if overlong! - sporting victory.