Synopsis
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.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Morgan FreemanNelson Mandela
- Matt DamonFrancois Pienaar
- Tony KgorogeJason Tshabalala
- Patrick MofokengLinga Moonsamy
- Matt SternHendrick Booyens
- Julian Lewis JonesEtienne Feyder
- Adjoa AndohBrenda Mazibuko
- Marguerite WheatleyNerine
- Leleti KhumaloMary
- Patrick LysterMr. Pienaar
Recommendations
- 88
Chicago Sun-Times
Clint Eastwood, a master director, orchestrates all of these notes and has us loving Mandela, proud of Francois and cheering for the plucky Springboks. A great entertainment. Not, as I said, the Mandela biopic I would have expected. - 83
Entertainment Weekly
How is Invictus as a sports movie? Let's just say that its lump-in-the-throat climax is predictable, but that doesn't mean it's less than earned. - 80
Time
Damon, beefed up for the occasion, makes Pienaar a stalwart yet courtly figure. Freeman infuses Mandela's speeches with the same gentleness and gravity he's brought to his numerous God roles and the Visa Olympics commercials. But the real deity here is Eastwood, still chugging away handsomely in his 80th year. - 80
Variety
Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion. - 75
ReelViews
Eastwood has crafted something that works both as a sports drama and as an examination of the birth pains of the racially unified South Africa. - 70
Newsweek
The wonder of Invictus is that it actually went down this way. - 67
Austin Chronicle
Narratively, we all know where the trajectory of the story is headed, thus the culminating match (nearly 20 minutes) takes up too much screen time without adding anything new to the drama. - 60
The Hollywood Reporter
A temperate, evenhanded perhaps overly timid film about an intemperate time in South Africa.
