Benedict Cumberbatch is compelling as Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game”. (photo courtesy of The Weinstein Company)

‘The Imitation Game’

Alan Turing might not be a household name, but it should. Mathematics is hardly a sexy field, but few have advanced it like this man. He also might have played a key role in ending World War II. But that’s just part of the story in “The Imitation Game”, a compelling historical thriller that once again proves why Benedict Cumberbatch is everyone’s favorite Brit.

Professor Turing (Cumberbatch) doesn’t have many friends, but his genius knows few bounds. That is the only reason British forces tolerate him. Without such a beautiful mind, the Allies will most assuredly lose. The problem is Enigma, the Nazis’ “un-crackable” encryption device. Sure, British intelligence acquired an Enigma machine, but the greatest cryptanalysts in the country can’t figure out how it works. Making matters worse, the pesky thing resets every day, so any headway made by these math geeks has a shelf life of 24 hours. In short, Turing and his team have very little time to decrypt messages with millions of potential meanings.

But Turing has a plan, one very few people believe can work. To fight a machine, you need a machine. So our eccentric hero develops a gizmo that can sift through all the potential options at a much quicker pace. Sound familiar? It should. We call them computers now.

Unfortunately, his project costs the crown a pretty pound, and his frank, often rude behavior doesn’t lend itself well to finding supporters. Luckily, Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) knows how to calm him and help him engage those around him.

“The Imitation Game” lives and dies on Cumberbatch’s performance, and live it does. Turing is a layered character: a mathematical genius, a gay man during a time when homosexuality was a criminal offense and a tortured soul most likely on the autism spectrum (probably Asperger’s Syndrome). Cumberbatch hits all the notes brilliantly in his finest performance to date (though his Sherlock will always be more memorable). Trust me when I say there will be tears, and an Oscar nom to go with them.

Eddie Redmayne stars as one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, in director James Marsh’s “The Theory of Everything”. (photo courtesy of Focus Features)

‘The Theory of Everything’

Speaking of tears, say hello to another British intellectual. While Turing is limited by the technology and the cultural bias of his time, Stephen Hawking is born in a body that can’t keep up with his incomparable mind. Don’t be fooled, “The Theory of Everything” might parade itself as a film about Hawking’s life and research, but it’s actually about the relationship between the scientist and his wife, Jane.

Based on “Travelling to Infinity, My Life with Stephen”, by Jane Wilde Hawking, the film follows not just the story of Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) and his motor neuron disease — or Lou Gehrig’s Disease — but how Jane (Felicity Jones) cares for her husband over the course of many years. They met in college. A doctor gives Stephen two years to live, and decades later, he presses on, fathering three children and continually contributing to the field of physics. The plotline is simple, but everything else is complex.

At times, it’s a heart-wrenching story, but Redmayne’s performance takes us through an emotional rainbow, including many humorous moments. Apparently Hawking is a very sarcastic, snarky dude. The laughs help soften the blow of what could be an entirely tragic story.

If you place the images of Stephen Hawking next to Redmayne as Hawking, you might declare, “uncanny.” Like the providential casting of Denzel Washington as Malcolm X (seriously, those two look so much alike), Redmayne, who remarkably looks the part, delivers the Best Actor performance of the 2015 Academy Awards. Too bad for Cumberbatch and even the only other frontrunner, Michael Keaton, for “Birdman”; Redmayne easily steals the show.

It’s hard to explain how incredibly Redmayne performs. By the end, when Hawking can no longer speak (hopefully that’s not a spoiler if you’ve never heard of the guy), Redmayne channels the most authentic representation of Hawking. This is all the more shocking considering he was largely an unknown actor until his very distinct jaw got an unnecessarily close up in 2012’s “Les Misérables”. Now, he’s a household name.

“The Theory of Everything” is the only inspirational film you should see this year. My only hope is that Hawking appears on the big screen again in a film entirely dedicated to his academic achievements.

At the very least though, this beautiful film should renew interest in a field of study largely popularized by a sitcom that barely scratches the surface of black holes and big bangs.