Invictus (2009)

Invictus is a 2009 docudrama sports film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. It is the third collaboration between Eastwood and Freeman after Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), and the first between Eastwood and Damon, followed by Hereafter (2010). The story is based on the 2008 John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation about the events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The national team, the Springboks, were not expected to perform well, the team having only recently returned to high-level international competition following the dismantling of apartheid—the country was hosting the World Cup, thus earning an automatic entry. Freeman portrays South African President Nelson Mandela while Damon played Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks, the South African rugby union team.

Invictus was released in the United States on 11 December 2009. The film is named after a poem of the same name by British poet William Ernest Henley, which serves as a central plot element in the film. The film was met with positive critical reviews and earned Academy Award nominations for Freeman (Best Actor) and Damon (Best Supporting Actor). The film grossed $122.2 million on a budget of $50–60 million.