By now, it’s likely fair to assume that most audiences are aware of Benedict Cumberbatch through his landmark role as Doctor Strange in the MCU, appearing in such pivotal Marvel films as Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Despite his excellence in that role, the greatest Cumberbatch performance of all time can be seen in the 2014 war thriller The Imitation Game, which sees the celebrated thespian taking on the role of real-life mathematician Alan Turing.

The film is a fascinating dive into the true history of how the Allied forces turned the tides of World War 2, and secured a victory over the Nazis.

The Creators

The Imitation Game was written by Graham Moore and directed by Passengers filmmaker Morten Tyldum, based on the biography of Alan Turing authored by Andrew Hodges. A number of talented performers join Benedict Cumberbatch in the cast, including Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Allen Leech, Rory Kinnear, Mark Strong, and Game of Thrones‘ Charles Dance.

A Team Of Cryptographers

If you’re unfamiliar with Alan Turing and his incredible contributions to the war, The Imitation Game lays it all out, detailing his early life, his pivotal role in cracking the German’s Enigma machine, and his horrendous treatment by the British government in the years following the conclusion of World War 2.

The narrative begins as Turing is recruited by Commander Alastair Denniston to join a team of cryptographers analyzing Nazi coded messages. The messages, sent by the Enigma machine, are nearly impossible to crack, though Turing’s brilliant number-crunching mind is considered the last-ditch effort to figure it out.

Not The Easiest Guy To Work With

Like many genius mathematicians, Alan Turing holds a major type-A personality, making him highly difficult to work with, and especially maligned by his superiors. Still, the others cannot deny his savant-like mental capabilities, especially after Prime Minister Winston Churchill himself promotes Turing to head the entire team.

As the plot of The Imitation Game carries on, Turing brings on a specialized team of super-geniuses, who each contribute to cracking the code until the Enigma machine is finally defeated.

Turing’s Horrific Persecution

When The Imitation Game first came out, I had freshly graduated from high school, and had no idea of Turing’s legacy or of the bizarre and bigoted laws of 20th century Britain, so the film’s heart-breaking conclusion caught me completely off-guard.

At the risk of spoiling the film, Alan Turing was discovered to be homosexual later in his life, which carried with it a charge of so-called “gross indecency.” Rather than accept a harsh prison sentence for his “crime” of simply being a gay man, Turing was chemically castrated in 1952, which was a common practice for British homosexuals at the time.

Stream It Now

Since premiering in 2014, The Imitation Game has become a major critical success, and currently touts a near-perfect 90 percent certified fresh critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. If you’d like to stream The Imitation Game today, be sure to pull up the incredible film on Netflix. Just be sure to have some tissues on hand for that absolutely miserable conclusion.