Mouse Hunt is a 1997 American slapstick black comedy film written by Adam Rifkin and directed by Gore Verbinski in his feature film directorial debut. It stars Nathan Lane, Lee Evans, Maury Chaykin, and Christopher Walken. The film follows two Laurel and Hardy-like brothers in their struggle against one small but crafty house mouse for possession of a mansion which was willed to them by their father. While the film is set in the late 20th century, styles range humorously from the 1940s to the 1990s.

It used real live mice, along with occasional computer-generated imagery and Animatronic robot mice, and was the first family film to be released by DreamWorks Pictures. They released it in the United States on December 19, 1997, to mixed reviews, but it was a commercial success, earning $125.4 million on the box office against a budget of $38 million.

Mouse Hunt features one of William Hickey's final roles. The film was dedicated to his memory.

String magnate Rudolph Smuntz dies, bequeathing his financially cash-strapped factory and a dilapidated Victorian mansion to his sons Ernie and Lars. Following the will reading, both brothers suffer setbacks in their lives—Ernie, who shunned the family business to become a chef, accidentally loses his restaurant when a cockroach hidden in a box of cigars he inherited from his father's estate contaminates a meal he is serving to the mayor, causing the mayor to suffer a fatal heart attack, while Lars is thrown out by his greedy wife April, after he honored a promise to his late father to refuse letting a rival company, Zeppco International, buy the factory. Lars and Ernie reunite in a diner and learn of each other's misfortunes, leading them to spend the night in the mansion they inherited.

The brothers find themselves unable to sleep because of a mouse making noise, but in trying to catch him, they discover blueprints of the property. Through these, they discover the mansion is a fabled final design by the architect Charles Lyle LaRue and would be worth a fortune if restored. Although they agree to auction the mansion to recover their lives, Ernie spots the mouse and informs Lars they must get rid of him, fearing a repeat of the cockroach incident. Several attempts are made, including using a vicious cat named Catzilla and hiring an exterminator named Caesar, but both fail when the brothers discover the mouse is unusually intelligent.

Their situation becomes further complicated when Ernie borrows against the mansion's mortgage to buy a bathtub and the bank threatens to evict them in two days, unless they reimburse the money. After the factory workers go on strike upon learning they cannot be paid when Lars attempts to run operations on his own, Ernie goes behind his back to secretly meet the Zeppco representatives over their buyout offer upon finding the business card they left. The meeting fails to happen after he is hit by a bus while flirting with some women but is surprised when Lars reveals April will provide the cash, having learnt of the brothers' recent discovery. After more failed attempts to kill the mouse, the brothers overhear a voicemail message from Zeppco, leading them to argue against each other. Their argument unwittingly leads to the mouse being stunned by an orange, whereupon the brothers decide to mail him in a box to Cuba to be rid of it.

Ernie and Lars reconcile, and finish renovating the house for auction. However, on the night it is to begin, Lars discovers the box had been mailed back due to insufficient postage and realizes that the mouse is back in the house. As the auction gets underway, the brothers attempt to flush the mouse out with a garden hose but fail miserably when their actions cause the house to be flooded, washing everyone outside, before the mansion collapses. April leaves with a wealthy bidder, and the brothers, having lost everything again, spend the night in the factory. The mouse, surviving the collapse, follows them, whereupon it takes pity on their situation and uses the factory machinery to convert a block of cheese into a ball of string cheese. Inspired, the brothers end their war with the mouse, renovating the factory to produce string cheese, and finding new joy in their lives.

The film was the third overall release by DreamWorks Pictures; after political thriller The Peacemaker, released in September 1997, and historical drama Amistad, released earlier in December 1997. Two years after first forming as a company, DreamWorks had no live-action films in production, which was a serious concern for financiers. DreamWorks' original goal was to have three movies released by the end of 1996, but a variety of factors delayed the company. Among them were co-founder Steven Spielberg's commitment to fulfilling all his outside obligations, including directing The Lost World: Jurassic Park, a film which wasn't tied to DreamWorks. Spielberg's workload around that time was more than his DreamWorks colleagues had expected. The initial live-action scripts DreamWorks had in development were The Peacemaker, Amistad, Mouse Hunt and family film Paulie (which wasn't released until April 1998). The company's animation division DreamWorks Animation was handled more closely by co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, and also had two films in development, Antz and The Prince of Egypt. Both of these animated films wouldn't be released until 1998, partly due to the long nature of animated film production. Among the initial live-action scripts in development, The Peacemaker was the one that was closest to shooting readiness. In a 1997 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Katzenberg said competition in the live-action arena made it more difficult to put films together. He pointed out that during the last three years, studios went from making 110 to 120 movies a year to 160 to 170, and conceded that with DreamWorks' movie operation it had "gone a little bit slower in terms of how long it's taken for the development.”