The Imitation Game
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: November 28, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 49 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
10
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanFeb 2, 2015
This suspenseful drama reveals pieces of its puzzle steadily and slowly, until the final heartrending picture can be seen at last. Remarkably, it comes from a screenwriter who had never had a feature film produced and a director who had never made one in English. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerDec 11, 2014
The film works as well as it does due to the genius of Benedict Cumberbatch and the way he has inhabited Alan Turing’s persona. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 25, 2014
Another must-see movie this year-end awards season (the other one is The Theory of Everything) is the brilliant encapsulation of one of the greatest stories of our time — the genius, heroism and ultimately shameful destruction of Alan Turing. Read full review
100
TimeRichard CorlissNov 21, 2014
On its bright face, The Imitation Game, written by Graham Moore and directed by Morten Tyldum, fits into that cozy genre of tortured-genius biopics that sprout like kudzu just in time for the Oscars. But that’s not fair to the film, which outthinks and outplays other examples of the genre. Read full review
91
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 23, 2014
Cumberbatch radiates such intelligence — with Sherlock and this, egghead Benedict is his speciality — that gaps are easily excused. From sets and costumes to Alexandre Desplat's musical score, The Imitation Game is everything classy that Hollywood wishes it could be. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 27, 2014
The disturbing, involving, always-complex story of British mathematician Alan Turing is a tale crafted to resonate for our time, and the smartly entertaining The Imitation Game gives it the kind of crackerjack cinematic presentation that's pure pleasure to experience. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsDec 27, 2014
Many of the people reading this review are doing it on a computer. And all of them are reading it in English. It’s not much of stretch to say that you could credit both of those things to a man named Alan Turing. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 18, 2014
In the end, however, the genius behind all the innovations of Bletchley was destroyed by the pettiness of a society that didn't understand him. The Imitation Game doesn't hide this dark aspect and it makes the production sobering and engrossing. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 11, 2014
The film that director Morten Tyldum has made from Hodges’s book is a shinier, less trustworthy thing, but it’s ripping old-school Oscar bait, and if it sends moviegoers off to check the facts, all the better. Read full review
88
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreNov 27, 2014
It does a poor job of showing the tragedy of Turing’s hidden life but a better job at making a bigger case — unconventional people make unconventional thinkers. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaNov 27, 2014
The Imitation Game is most on its game when it primarily sticks to being a John le Carre-lite espionage version of “Revenge of the Nerds.” Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 26, 2014
It's been a long time since intellectual sparring created such excitement onscreen. I've heard a few critics dismiss this mind-bender as hopelessly old-hat. Ha! If so, long live retro. ​ Read full review
83
Portland OregonianJeff BakerDec 27, 2014
Cumberbatch's scenes with Knightley are a model of how a buttoned-up character can open and reveal himself. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyNov 27, 2014
The film is anchored by yet another hypnotically complex Cumberbatch performance. He's turning greatness into a habit. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJan 9, 2015
A finely etched character study, with Cumberbatch on towering form. Set coordinates for the Oscars. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottDec 27, 2014
While Graham Moore's screenplay isn't without its flaws, it brilliantly weaves into the story a case that being different shouldn't necessarily be a negative thing. In fact, The Imitation Game argues in no uncertain terms that those differences can be something to celebrate, not to "cure." Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 11, 2014
When it's good, The Imitation Game is very good. Cumberbatch is terrific, which is not surprising, given the marriage of role and actor. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 25, 2014
Even with all its elisions and distortions it tells a cracking good story. Turing is played with captivating strangeness by Benedict Cumberbatch. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinNov 10, 2014
A superb thriller and a worthy biopic of a real hero. It’s also simultaneously an encouraging follow-up for Headhunters’ Morten Tyldum, an impressive debut for screenwriter Graham Moore, and a big-screen career highlight for Benedict Cumberbatch. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 13, 2014
Its various riffs on codes, whether moral, sexual, societal or German, are plain to see rather than enigmatic or enlightening. Luckily it’s all anchored in a storming performance from Cumberbatch: you’ll be deciphering his work long after the credits roll. Read full review
80
VarietyScott FoundasAug 31, 2014
So innately compelling is Turing’s story — to say nothing of Benedict Cumberbatch’s masterful performance — it’s hard not to get caught up in this well-told tale and its skillful manipulations. Read full review
78
Film.comJames RocchiSep 1, 2014
Strong, stirring, triumphant and tragic, The Imitation Game may be about a man who changed the world, but it’s also about the world that destroyed a man. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaFeb 2, 2015
It's a good story, a sad story, a story of triumph and prejudice and terrible hypocrisy. And Cumberbatch aces it all - another smartly realized but deeply soulful performance from an actor who seemingly can do no wrong. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 27, 2014
The Imitation Game is vibrant and lively, engaging you on three levels: The fascinating way the Nazis managed to outwit the rest of the world until Turing came along, how his giant contraption (essentially the world’s first computer) will work, and what will happen to him and everyone he knows when the truth about him is finally revealed. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 11, 2014
The Imitation Game is the one film that might have been better off longer. Starting the story in 1938 and just going through Turing’s life chronologically might have taken an extra 20 or 30 minutes, but it would have been worth it. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 11, 2014
As MI6 head Stewart Menzies, Strong is my favorite of the supporting players — witty, knowing, deserving of his own movie and yet comfortably a part of this one. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 11, 2014
Viewers may get the sense that The Imitation Game leaves Turing’s essential mysteries intact, but they will nonetheless find even the most public contours of his story ripe with drama, excitement and deeply affecting resonance. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigNov 27, 2014
"Imitation" illuminates Turing's brilliance in an engrossing and moving film that features a standout, Oscar-worthy performance by Benedict Cumberbatch. Read full review
75
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezAug 31, 2014
The Imitation Game is entertaining and well-crafted, but one still can’t help but wish the drama had a bit more bite and nerve throughout. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 27, 2014
The Imitation Game is a highly conventional movie about a profoundly unusual man. This is not entirely a bad thing. Read full review
70
The DissolveScott TobiasNov 26, 2014
The constant in The Imitation Game is Benedict Cumberbatch’s terrific performance as Turing, which has much in common with his delightfully mercurial Sherlock Holmes, but with an underpinning of repressed emotion and quiet despair. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 24, 2014
Turing will survive this film with his enigma intact, but the movie itself is the opposite of enigmatic, and Cumberbatch merits more. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyAug 31, 2014
Dominating it all is Cumberbatch, whose charisma, tellingly modulated and naturalistic array of eccentricities, Sherlockian talent at indicating a mind never at rest and knack for simultaneously portraying physical oddness and attractiveness combine to create an entirely credible portrait of genius at work. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesDec 23, 2014
What lingers is the feeling that the filmmakers may pay lip service to Turing’s sexuality, but they prefer to keep his sex life strictly theoretical. Careful, there: No tracking dirt on the nice clean prestige picture. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloNov 25, 2014
The Imitation Game is at its best when it focuses on the collision between cryptography and proto-programming. (No individual can truly be said to have invented the computer, but Turing comes close.) Read full review
67
IndieWireMichael NordineAug 31, 2014
It's a reserved, almost conservative performance, and in holding so much back so much of the time, Cumberbatch makes his few outward displays of emotion far more impactful. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereDec 11, 2014
Although sturdy enough in the middlebrow entertainment department, and handsomely mounted in a stiff upper-lip, prestige period-piece sort of way, The Imitation Game is ultimately a frightfully ordinary sort of seasonal ritual. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle SmithNov 27, 2014
Turing’s tale needs to be more widely known, and while The Imitation Game may not be a great film, it is an important one. Read full review
60
CineVueJoe WalshDec 23, 2014
The Imitation Game's approach is successful as entertainment but not totally satisfactory in providing greater insight into its subject. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 27, 2014
It’s a marvelous story about science and humanity, plus a great performance by Benedict Cumberbatch, plus first-rate filmmaking and cinematography, minus a script that muddles its source material to the point of betraying it. Those strengths make the movie worth seeing, but the writing keeps eating away at the narrative’s clarity — and integrity — until it’s impossible to separate the glib fictions from the remarkable facts. Read full review
60
TheWrapInkoo KangNov 27, 2014
The romance of patriotism and pain, depicted here in lush greens and velvety blues, makes “The Imitation Game” enjoyable enough to render it a vindication of the formula. It disappoints as biography, but makes for a great yarn, even if you've heard it before. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNov 25, 2014
Ultimately, though, director Morten Tyldum’s conventional approach doesn’t do full justice to his tragically unconventional hero. Read full review
60
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 10, 2014
What Cumberbatch delivers is an impressively rounded character study of someone variously kind, prickly, aggressive, awkward and supremely confident. But it's almost too nuanced. Accuracy isn't all, but fumbling in the dark isn't always fun. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 10, 2014
The Imitation Game is a film about a human calculator which feels... a little too calculated. Read full review
58
HitfixGregory EllwoodAug 31, 2014
Where Imitation Game ultimately falters is in tackling Turing's later years and subsequent demise. In some ways, this period is meant to bookend the film, but instead just leaves unanswered questions while diminishing actual historical events. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensNov 27, 2014
Throughout The Imitation Game, there’s a sense the filmmaker is trying to shield viewers from the story’s most difficult parts — whether it’s the horrors of war, the technical complexity of the Enigma code and its solution, or the bleakness of Alan Turing’s final fate. I wish Tyldum had trusted the audience enough to let us in on the worst. It would have made his movie so much better. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonNov 25, 2014
Tyldum has robbed his own film of emotional depth — this Turing is as simple as Morse code. Rather than a complex human portrait, this is an assemblage of triumphs, tragedies and tics. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezOct 27, 2014
Given the liberties the film takes, it's surprising that it refuses to penetrate Alan Turing's carnality and allow Benedict Cumberbatch to truly wrestle with the torment of the man's sexuality. Read full review
30
SalonAndrew O'HehirNov 27, 2014
This could have been a story of immense heroism, tragic sacrifice and agonizing historical irony, and it hints in that direction, in its stiff-upper-lip fashion, before retreating into a vain search for a happy ending and an effort to turn itself into “The King’s Speech.” Read full review
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