Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher is the darkest sports film ever made — a slow-burning true-crime drama about the relationship between Olympic wrestlers Mark and Dave Schultz and their wealthy patron John du Pont, who would eventually murder Dave in cold blood. Bennett Miller, who also directed Moneyball, creates an atmosphere of creeping dread that transforms a wrestling film into a psychological horror story.

Steve Carell is unrecognizable and terrifying as du Pont — a lonely, delusional billionaire who buys his way into the wrestling world because he craves the respect that his inherited wealth cannot provide. Channing Tatum delivers the performance of his career as Mark Schultz, a gold medalist living in his brother's shadow, desperate enough for validation to become du Pont's protege. Mark Ruffalo is heartbreaking as Dave, the good brother whose warmth and competence become the very things that doom him.

Miller shoots the film with forensic coldness — long takes, muted colors, oppressive silence. The wrestling scenes are brutal and unglamorous, stripped of any cinematic excitement. Foxcatcher argues that wealth without merit is a form of madness, and that the American dream of patronage — the rich man who supports the artist — is often a prison disguised as a palace.