Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, the film stars Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo.
Foxcatcher received critical acclaim for the three lead actors' performances, Miller's direction, and the film's visual style and tone.
It was nominated for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, where Miller won the Best Director Award.
[N 3] Through training with his new teammates and du Pont's financial support, Mark excels with Foxcatcher, winning a Gold Medal at the 1987 World Wrestling Championships.
John organizes and funds an over-50 masters wrestling tournament, which he wins after his opponent is paid to lose the final match.
One day, Mark and his teammates in Foxcatcher take the morning off from training to watch mixed martial arts (MMA) on TV.
A documentary funded by John about his exploits with Team Foxcatcher is made, during which Dave is asked to praise him as coach and mentor; he reluctantly does so.
[N 6] Later, John is sitting alone in his mansion's trophy room watching the documentary about Team Foxcatcher, which ends with Mark complimenting him at a ceremony depicted earlier.
Setting a trap for John at his home, the police ambush and arrest him, and the film ends with Mark competing in a cage fighting match with the crowd's cheers ringing in his head.
[N 8] Bennett Miller began developing the project in 2010 after acquiring the rights to the story from Michael Coleman and Tom Heller.
[26] Megan Ellison financed the film through her Annapurna Pictures, also producing alongside Miller, Jon Kilik, and Anthony Bregman.
[29] With du Pont's mansion, Liseter Hall, having been demolished in January 2013, the filmmakers used Morven Park, a historic estate in Leesburg, Virginia, with a similar facade, for exterior filming.
[30] An 1899 mansion, Wilpen Hall, in the wealthy Pittsburgh suburb of Sewickley Heights, Pennsylvania, served as Foxcatcher's stand-in for the interior filming location for du Pont's Philadelphia-area estate.
[29] The scene where the Foxcatcher team watches mixed martial arts on television in 1988 uses footage from Gary Goodridge's win over Paul Herrera at UFC 8, from February 1996.
The site's critical consensus states, "A chilling true crime drama, Foxcatcher offers Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum a chance to shine—and all three rise to the challenge.
[50] Justin Chang of Variety praised the film, writing: "Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum give superb performances in Bennett Miller's powerfully disturbing true-crime saga.
"[52] Budd Wilkins of Slant Magazine, however, gave the film a negative review, writing that it "offers us next to nothing of utility or complexity about du Pont's pathology.
[90] A year after the shooting, du Pont, who had entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, went on trial at the Delaware County Courthouse in Media, Pennsylvania.
After three weeks of testimony followed by seven days of deliberation by the six-man, six-woman jury to consider eight distinct possible verdicts, on February 25, 1997, du Pont was found guilty but mentally ill of murder in the third degree.
According to then-Delaware County District Attorney (and future U.S. Representative) Pat Meehan, du Pont was the richest American ever tried for murder in the United States.
[96] The mansion stood on a 400-acre (160 ha) portion of the property that has now been developed by Toll Brothers into a "master planned community of 449 luxury homes" called "Liseter Estate.