John Forbes Nash, Jr., a prodigy and legend by the age of thirty, dazzled the mathematical world by solving a series of deep problems deemed “impossible” by other mathematicians. But at the height of his fame, Nash suffered a catastrophic mental breakdown and began a harrowing descent into insanity, resigning his post at MIT, slipping into a series of bizarre delusions, and eventually becoming a dreamy, ghostlike figure at Princeton, scrawling numerological messages on blackboards. He was all but forgotten by the outside world—until, remarkably, he emerged from his madness to win the Nobel Prize.

A Beautiful Mind is “a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening.” A true drama, it is also a fascinating glimpse into the fragility of genius.