Outbreak is a 1995 American medical disaster film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and written by Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool.

The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, and co-stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey and Patrick Dempsey.

[2] The single biggest threat to man's continued dominance on the planet is the virus.In 1967, during the Stanleyville mutinies, a virus called Motaba, which causes a deadly fever, is discovered in the African jungle.

To keep the virus a secret, U.S. Army officers Donald McClintock and William Ford destroy the camp where soldiers were infected, killing all occupants.

Twenty-eight years later, Colonel Sam Daniels, a USAMRIID virologist, investigates an outbreak in Zaire which wiped out an entire village aside from two survivors (the shaman and a young boy).

Daniels learns about Operation Clean Sweep, a military plan to contain the virus by bombing Cedar Creek, incinerating the entire town and its residents, ostensibly to prevent Motaba's expansion to pandemic proportions.

Back in Cedar Creek, Salt mixes Betsy's antibodies with Ford's serum to create an antiserum; although Schuler has died, they save Keough.

[6] Producer Lynda Obst has stated it was due to the production of Outbreak that her film adaptation of The Hot Zone was dropped by 20th Century Fox, despite having, in her words, "the better package and ... the better script".

[8] It topped the U.S. box-office list its opening weekend with a gross of $13.4 million,[9] and spent three weeks at number one before Tommy Boy's release.

The website's consensus states: "A frustratingly uneven all-star disaster drama, Outbreak ultimately proves only mildly contagious and leaves few lasting side effects.

[15] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it three and a half stars of four, calling Outbreak's premise "one of the great scare stories of our time, the notion that deep in the uncharted rain forests, deadly diseases are lurking, and if they ever escape their jungle homes and enter the human bloodstream, there will be a new plague the likes of which we have never seen.

"[16] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post also enjoyed the film's plot: "Outbreak is an absolute hoot thanks primarily to director Wolfgang Petersen's rabid pacing and the great care he brings to setting up the story and its probability.

"[17] David Denby wrote for New York magazine that although the opening scenes were well-done, "somewhere in the middle ... Outbreak falls off a cliff" and becomes "lamely conventional".