Movie Description
The Imitation Game is a 2014 historical drama film directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Graham Moore, based on the 1983 biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. The title of the film quotes the name of the game Alan Turing proposed for answering the question "Can machines think?", in his 1950 seminal paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". The movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch as British cryptanalyst Alan Turing, who decrypted German intelligence messages for the British government during the Second World War. Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Charles Dance, and Mark Strong co-star as well.
The movie was released theatrically in the United States on November 28, 2014. The Imitation Game grossed over $233 million worldwide on a $14 million production budget, making it the highest-grossing independent film of 2014. It received eight nominations at the 87th Academy Awards, winning for Best Adapted Screenplay, five nominations in the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, and three nominations at the 21st Screen Actors Guild Awards. It also received nine BAFTA nominations and won the People's Choice Award at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival.
The film was criticized by some for its inaccurate portrayal of historical events, and for downplaying Turing's homosexuality, a key element of Turing's original struggles. However, the LGBT civil rights advocacy organization the Human Rights Campaign honored it for bringing Turing's legacy to a wider audience with its subtle and realistic approach.