At the 87th Annual Academy Awards back in 2015, two of the best biographical movies in film history went head-to-head, eventually walking away with just a single award each. The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch received eight nominations and took home a win for screenwriter Graham Moore for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Theory of Everything won Eddie Redmayne a single award for Best Male Lead after the film received a total of five nominations.
The Theory of Everything follows the story of exceptional British physicist Stephen Hawking, his quest for a single unified equation that explains everything in the universe, and the tragic decline in his health. The film stars Eddie Redmayne (Fantastic Beasts, Les Miserables) as Hawking himself alongside Felicity Jones (Rogue One, Inferno), Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones, The Iron Lady), Simon McBurney (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation) and of course, a favourite from the Harry Potter universe, David Thewlis (Wonder Woman, Dragonheart). The Theory of Everything was nominated for five Oscars in 2015; Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score and of course, Best Picture, competing on several fronts with The Imitation Game.
The Imitation Game tells the story of mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing and the race to decipher the Enigma code during World War II using Turing's codebreaking machine. The film demonstrates the hardships that Turing and his team endured at the offices at Bletchely Park as well as the hardships Turing himself suffered after the war due to persecution over his sexuality and his eventual suicide by self-administered cyanide poisoning. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Turing with support from Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean, Atonement), Mark Strong (Kingsman, Sherlock Holmes) and Rory Kinnear (Skyfall, Spectre). The biopic received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Editing and Best Production Design; a grand slam total of eight nominations.
2015 was a tough year at the Oscars with exceptional hits on the board such as Whiplash, Selma, American Sniper, Gone Girl, Interstellar, Boyhood, Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler, Still Alice and of course the two titans of the year, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Birdman: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, both taking home four awards each. The decisions were surely almost impossible for the Academy to make but in terms of nominations alone, the two biopics shone brightly among other nominees with harrowing real-world stories of two of the greatest minds of the 20th (and indeed the 21st) Century.
The Theory of Everything follows the story of exceptional British physicist Stephen Hawking, his quest for a single unified equation that explains everything in the universe, and the tragic decline in his health. The film stars Eddie Redmayne (Fantastic Beasts, Les Miserables) as Hawking himself alongside Felicity Jones (Rogue One, Inferno), Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones, The Iron Lady), Simon McBurney (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation) and of course, a favourite from the Harry Potter universe, David Thewlis (Wonder Woman, Dragonheart). The Theory of Everything was nominated for five Oscars in 2015; Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score and of course, Best Picture, competing on several fronts with The Imitation Game.
The Imitation Game tells the story of mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing and the race to decipher the Enigma code during World War II using Turing's codebreaking machine. The film demonstrates the hardships that Turing and his team endured at the offices at Bletchely Park as well as the hardships Turing himself suffered after the war due to persecution over his sexuality and his eventual suicide by self-administered cyanide poisoning. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Turing with support from Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean, Atonement), Mark Strong (Kingsman, Sherlock Holmes) and Rory Kinnear (Skyfall, Spectre). The biopic received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Editing and Best Production Design; a grand slam total of eight nominations.2015 was a tough year at the Oscars with exceptional hits on the board such as Whiplash, Selma, American Sniper, Gone Girl, Interstellar, Boyhood, Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler, Still Alice and of course the two titans of the year, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Birdman: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, both taking home four awards each. The decisions were surely almost impossible for the Academy to make but in terms of nominations alone, the two biopics shone brightly among other nominees with harrowing real-world stories of two of the greatest minds of the 20th (and indeed the 21st) Century.
