Did the screenwriter even read the book? Perhaps just a one paragraph summary. Nearly every important event of his life is left out, and almost none of the events in the movie are in the book. This might be an entertaining inspirational movie, if they hadn't used John Nash's name and the title of his biography. It's not about him. It is 99% fiction. The real story of his life is much more bizarre and would make a better movie. Crowe really knows how to play the part of a tortured soul, but he did it better in "The Insider". I think he could have done it here with a story actually based on the life of John Forbes Nash, Jr. I hope someone makes a movie or miniseries about the real man.… Expand

This is the worst film I've ever seen.

I have a beef. The film-makers have inserted an utterly false line into the script: Nash says he was helped by "the newer anti-psychotic medications." As the biographer (Sylvia Nasar) makes clear, Nash took no drugs of any kind after 1970, and damn few before. What is so perverse about his line is that Nasar and others have indicated that Nash's mind might have been saved because he took so few of these drugs. In whose interest was the line inserted? … Expand

Jennifer Connelly was the only redeeming factor in this otherwise ridiculous film. No insight was provided on what his mathematical formula actually DID for us, nor did it accurately portray his life. The screenplay was insanely choppy and Crowe's acting is soooooo overrated that I can't bring myself to understand why he is being hailed as one of the year's best... oh wait - it's Hollywood. And for a mystery, on doesn't really have to think much and for a thriller, the films if hardly thrilling. Connelly, however, was incredible. Her acting was simply extraordinary. That alone can make the movie watchable. The viewer looks forward to seeing her shine. Grade: C-… Expand

Crowe should not win for his performance. It stunk. If anyone deserves the best actor nod come Oscar time, it's Guy Pearce for Memento - not Crowe in his ridiculously overblown performance.

I have lost all faith in the Golden GLobes. Whoever gives them the most money gets the globe. The oscars are similar, but they are not influenced by money as much. "Mulholland Drive" and "LOTR" and "In the Bedroom" were SO much better than this heap of crap that I can't even believe it. In a perfect world, "Mulholland Drive" would win everything.

As a drama: 0 As a comedy: 10. One of the most hilariously over-acted, pretentious films in years. Great to watch while drunk.

What a pile of drivel!

I'll give this movie one point - Russell Crowe's acting was the only thing keeping me in the theater. Otherwise, this is just Hollywood manipulating the tiny minds of middle America once again.

So while I was watching the movie I thought it was close to being a really good movie. But the more I watched the more doubts I started getting. At some point, I wasn't sure whether Nash actually achieved anything or was that also all just his hallucination. Some plots of the movie were really confusing and some were completely not needed. I must admit I was tricked into shedding a tear at some parts, but when I walked out the theater I felt ashamed because a sudden thought hit me, "I was expected to cry at that moment." It made me feel really low and robot-like since it was all pre-planned. If seriously, this movie doesn't allow any freedom of thinking and doesn't leave you any space to ponder. It's all pre-determined. When I came home, I read some of John Nash's biography. What really caught my attention is that his mental illness was always more of a side-note on his biographies but not as a main thing. But the movie is trying to make his mental-illness the main focus point and that doesn't seem right. What about his accomplishments? This movie was made more into "Matrix", "Sixth Sense" wannabe movies, but it didn't even relate to the main point of Nash's life, his mathematical accomplishments. … Expand

Russell Crowe was wonderful but this was a totally Hollywood product, giving us a fictionalized version of the real story, cleaning up the uglier details. This film certainly did not deserve the Oscar. And how did Ron Howard let that awful make up job on Jennifer Connelly as an old woman end up on film.

No one who has read the book, or knows the truth about Nash's life, or about schizophrenia, can endorse or enjoy this bogus bloat of a movie.

Actually, despite some reviews below, Crowe most definitely did not deserve the Oscar. Of those nominated, it belonged to Denzel. However, I would have much rather seen it go to Guy Pearce for Memento or Gene Hackman for The Royal Tenenbaums. This movie is one pretentious mess, from start to finish. I hated it.

An unintentional comedy. The story is so contrived that it crosses into hilarity. i was laughing at all the wrong moments. How this film actually got any positive reviews is beyond me. It's simply a disaster. A preposterous disaster.

Worse that it won Best Screenplay than Best Picture. What a horrible film this is. It completely trashes the novel and turns it into Hollywood drivel. A catastrophic mess.

I used to think the life of a geek was unbelievably dull, hardly better than a Hollywood cliche. I was wrong. But the sequel about Connelly's Dependent Personality Disorder should be riveting.

Sugar-coated, inaccurate and manipulative drivel that is only rescued from the depths of utter unwatchability by Connely's stand-out performance.

Heartlessly inaccurate, exploitative, and slandering. It takes mental illness along with John Nash's life and unsympathetically lies to you just to earn Oscars. It portrays the mentally ill as violent and the mental health world as an incompetent sham of an institution. It fabricates and overstates virtually every aspect of John Nash's life for the sake of more melodrama. It9;s not impossible to think that the mentally ill were further stigmatized and slandered by this astronomically overstated portrayal of both schizophrenia and John Nash's own experience with it. It's so mind-bendingly insensitive and callous to its source material that it's an unrestrained travesty that it exists, much less win eight Oscars. It shamelessly deceives solely for that purpose alone. Deserves no praise, since it is all manufactured exclusively for that.… Expand

Beautiful Mind is "Rain Man" and "Dead Poets Society" all in one. This is not a true story, it is not John Nash's life - forget the facts, it is Hollywood looking for an oscar, a formula Ron Howard knows well. Total wimsical bollocks.

I hate Russell Crowe. I really do...he's an awful actor and yet wins all the Oscars. Doesn't make sense. Firstly, why would they make a movie about mathematics?? If you're a computer geek, (no offense) you might just enjoy this movie, but that's even a stretch. I would have to watch this movie in increments of 20 minutes...and yet I still couldn't finish. Why oh why did this win Best Picture??? I don't get it! Definitely don't waste your time with this movie. It'll be a complete waste!… Expand

This movie will probably offend anyone who's dealt with schizophrenia. It childishly suggests this devastating disease can be conquered if you just set your mind to it and have the love of a "good woman".

Abysmally played out and perhaps the most manipulative film about a psychological disorder ever made. Quite simply, the worst film of the year.

Despite Connelly's devastatingly wonderful performace, there is nothing of worth here. The plot is a labyrinthian mess, progressing at unfollowably fast speeds one moment, and like a turtle in cold tar the next. Crowe is so ridiculously over-the-top in this performance that leaves no room for caring about him - and the story is so manipulated that you would prefer not to. But perhaps the most irritating aspect here is that it promotoes the assumption that schizophrenia can be conqered with love, which is, sadly, very untrue. Another pathetic choice for Best Picture by the Academy. … Expand

too conventional and too sweet considering that it's about an unconventional life of a genius mathematician. certainly not the best of 2001 ( a great year for movies).