John Forbes Nash, Jr., is best known as the subject of the Hollywood movie, A Beautiful Mind, which was nominated for eight Oscars. The movie was based on his biography of the same title, which focuses on his life, his mathematical genius, and his struggle with schizophrenia.

In 1978, Nash was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize for his discovery of non-cooperative equilibria, now called Nash equilibria.  In the late 1980s, Nash used e-mail to gradually link with working mathematicians, who realized that he was "the" John Nash and that his new work had value. They formed part of the nucleus of a group that contacted the Bank of Sweden's Nobel award committee, and were able to vouch for Nash's mental health ability to receive the award in recognition of his early work.Nash won the Leroy P. Steele Prize in 1999.

Nash's recent work involves ventures in advanced game theory, including partial agency.

In 1994, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (along with two others), as a result of his game theory work as a Princeton graduate student.

Between 1945 and 1996, he published 23 scientific studies.