Benedict Cumberbatch was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, a movie now deemed almost entirely fictional.
Benedict Cumberbatch was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, a movie now deemed almost entirely fictional.
When you go to see a biopic, you expect a mostly accurate take on the events being portrayed. You wouldn't expect a movie based on real events and real people to be more than 80 per cent inaccurate.
A new study has been released on how factually correct some ofthe biggest biopics of the decade are, and it's turned up some surprising results.
Infographic site Information is Beautiful has examined 14 movies released in the past six years, all garnered Oscar nominations and wins, to see how accurate their version of events are.
Using three settings (''Flexible'', ''Can bear some dramatic license'' and ''Only the absolute truth''), movie fans can see how truthful the movies are.
The site has revealed that most of them have taken huge dramatic license in presenting the events, with made-up characters and conversations and heightening the events being the most common issues.
The Imitation Game, the Benedict Cumberbatch-led movie about Alan Turing, is the most inaccurate. When set on ''Only the absolute truth'', it is revealed only 18 per cent of the movie is factually correct. Even on the most generous settings, allowing for some creativity from the writers, only 41 per cent of the movie is true.
Some of the inaccuracies include framing it so that it appears Turing and his fellow codebreakers were solely responsible for stopping the war, and portraying Turing as having become depressed due to his chemical treatment when the reality was not the case.
This is how much of The Imitation Game is false.
The most accurate biopic in recent years goes to Selma, the Martin Luther King jnr biopic directed by Ava DuVernay. On the ''absolute truth'', 81 per cent of the movie is deemed factually correct, more than any other on the list. On the softer ratings, it received 100 per cent accuracy. The only discrepancies were several conversations which couldn't be proved.
American Sniper was the second most inaccurate film, with only 29.4 per cent true - and that's not counting the robot baby. The Big Short was the second most truthful with 78.5 per cent.
The Absolute Truth: Biopics by their accuracy rating (in percentages)
Selma: 81.4 The Big Short: 78.5 Rush: 73.3 Bridge of Spies: 68.4 Spotlight: 67.2 The Wolf of Wall Street: 63.1 The Social Network: 61.3 Captain Phillips: 60.1 12 Years A Slave: 56.4 The King's Speech: 56.4 Philomena: 47.7 Dallas Buyers Club: 40.9 America Sniper: 29.4 The Imitation Game: 18.6
