Good Will Hunting

Storyline

Directed by Gus Van Sant and written by then-unknown childhood friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck—who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in one of Oscar history's most emotional moments—Good Will Hunting is an endearing, deeply moving triumph of the human spirit. Matt Damon stars as Will Hunting, a 20-year-old janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in South Boston who possesses a photographic memory and mathematical genius that exceeds the greatest minds in the world. When Fields Medal-winning MIT professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) discovers that Will anonymously solved a fiendishly complex combinatorial algebraic equation on a hallway chalkboard, he rescues Will from jail following a street fight. Lambeau offers a plea bargain: Will must study advanced mathematics and attend mandatory therapy sessions. After rejecting numerous psychologists, Will meets Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams in an immortal, Oscar-winning performance of profound warmth and emotional vulnerability). As Sean breaks through Will's protective psychological armor of childhood trauma and abandonment, Will confronts his fear of intimacy with Harvard student Skylar (Minnie Driver) and learns the life-altering truth: 'It's not your fault.' A timeless, beloved masterpiece.