Outbreak is a 1995 American medical disaster film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and loosely based on Richard Preston's nonfiction book, The Hot Zone. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Morgan Freeman, and co-stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland and Patrick Dempsey.
The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus, Motaba, in Zaire and later in a small town in the United States. It is primarily set in the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. Outbreak's plot speculates how far military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly, contagious disease.
The film, released on March 10, 1995, was a box-office success and Spacey won two awards for his performance. A real-life outbreak of the Ebola virus was occurring in Zaire when the film was released.
