16 Benedict Cumberbatch Things to Watch After You See Doctor Strange
By Lacy Baugher
Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game”. (Photo: Studio Canal/Black Bear Pictures)
The Imitation Game
The Imitation Game was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture. Bedlington Cumbersome even snagged a nomination for Best Actor. Which, by the way, he completely deserved. This movie is definitely highbrow Serious British Drama, but it’s also really, really well done.
Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, British mathematician, cryptographer and all-around genius who cracked the previously unbreakable German Enigma code during World War II. Turing basically built the world’s first computer to do so, and saved untold numbers of lives around the world. (It’s been estimated his work shortened the war in Europe by two years.) And he did all of this while hiding a massive secret about his personal life – that he was homosexual. Unfortunately, Turing ended up getting arrested and prosecuted for being gay in the 1950s. He chose to undergo chemical castration in order to avoid prison, and was so haunted by this decision that he eventually committed suicide in 1954.
Cumberbatch is fantastic in this movie. Yes, we all make fun of the fact that he apparently lives for playing tortured geniuses, but he is so good in this. Other notable Brits in the cast you will probably reconigze and/or like include Keira Knightley, Alan Leech, Charles Dance, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong and more.
This is a heartbreaking, five-box Kleenex movie, but it’s definitely worth your puffy eyes the next day.