Plot
In 1987 Olympic wrestling champion Mark Schultz speaks at an elementary school in place of his older brother Dave. Both won gold medals at the 1984 Summer Olympics, but Mark feels overshadowed by Dave. Mark is contacted by philanthropist and wrestling enthusiast John E. du Pont, an heir to the du Pont family fortune, who arranges to fly Mark to his estate in Pennsylvania where John has built a private wrestling training facility. John invites Mark to join his wrestling team, Foxcatcher, to be paid to train for the World Championship. Mark accepts the offer, with John urging him to enlist Dave as well. Dave declines, to avoid uprooting his wife and two children, so Mark moves to Pennsylvania alone.
Mark stays in a homey guest house and is greeted there by John. Through training with his new teammates and John's financial support, Mark excels with Foxcatcher, winning gold at the 1987 World Wrestling Championships. John praises him, and they develop a friendship. John introduces Mark to cocaine, which he starts to use regularly. He confides in Mark, whom he now calls a true friend, telling him how his mother Jean du Pont paid a boy to act as his friend. John organizes an over-50 masters wrestling tournament, which he wins after his opponent is paid to lose the final. Jean tells her son that wrestling is a "low sport" and that she does not like seeing him "being low". One day Mark and his teammates take the morning off from training to watch mixed martial arts on television. Angered by this (as well as Mark's bitter refusal to be in his brother's presence in Foxcatcher), John slaps Mark and berates him, saying that he will enlist Dave by any means necessary while also demanding that Mark work out his differences with his brother as soon as possible.
Dave decides to move with his family to Pennsylvania so he can join Foxcatcher. His self-esteem damaged by John, Mark decides to work and train alone, pushing away both John and Dave. As Foxcatcher prepares to enter the preliminaries for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, John's mother is escorted into his gym to watch him coach his team. He awkwardly demonstrates basic maneuvers for her and the other wrestlers. Jean leaves in disgust after seeing him give his back to his student.
At the 1988 Olympic Trials in Pensacola, Florida, Mark performs poorly, losing his first match against Rico Chiapparelli. Enraged, Mark destroys his room and goes on an eating binge, before Dave manages to break into his room, shocked to discover Mark's condition. They work feverishly so Mark can make his weight class. As Mark trains, John arrives and attempts to speak with him, but Dave turns him away. Mark competes well enough to win his match and make the Olympic team. Dave notices that John is absent, who left for Pennsylvania as his mother died.
After returning to the estate, Mark tells Dave that he needs to leave Foxcatcher to get away from John, having accepted a coaching role at Brigham Young University, and unsuccessfully asks Dave to leave with him. For a documentary funded by John about his exploits with Foxcatcher, Dave reluctantly praises him as coach and mentor. Mark loses his matches in Seoul on purpose, after which he leaves Foxcatcher. While Dave continues to live on John's estate and train with Foxcatcher, as a condition for his remaining, he gets John to continue to support Mark financially.
Later, John is sitting alone in his mansion's trophy room watching the documentary about Foxcatcher, which ends with Mark complimenting him at a ceremony depicted earlier. John calls his bodyguard and drives to Dave's home, where he finds him in the driveway working on his car radio. As Dave approaches John's car to greet him, John threatens him at gunpoint before shooting him three times and driving away. Dave's wife Nancy rushes out to him, and he dies in her arms. Setting a trap for John at his home, the police ambush and arrest him. The film ends with Mark competing in a cage fighting match with the crowd's cheers ringing in his head.
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