Oppenheimer vs The Imitation Game

How (not) to portray the scientific process

This piece is about the following story: A young genius is recruited to aid the Allied war effort in World War 2. He’s involved in a top secret project at a remote location, surrounded by the brightest minds and placed into a strict military hierarchy. He’s involved in a race against the Nazis so he and his team have to work relentlessly and overcome the many challenges of team projects. Failure means the world could fall to fascism. As the project’s technical questions deepen, it becomes clear that its significance points well beyond winning the war; the project has the potential to change the world entirely. The war rages on and the once clear and present danger of Axis victory starts to lessen. The genius and his team have to figure out a way to navigate the seemingly much more morally complex new world order that seems to be emerging. How they deal with the rising tension between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union will put their ideals and loyalties into question. The war is won, the Axis powers are defeated but the celebration is short lived. Our genius is a hero now, but his country finds creative ways to punish him for his “sins”, past and present, real and imagined. In any case, the world is changed, and the viewer is left to contemplate just how seismic that change was and how it could have happened in so little time and by leveraging the brilliance of such a small number of people. And perhaps also contemplate the state and potential of the science of the present day.

So this piece is about the two movies who have this same plot, Oppenheimer (2023), telling the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s involvement in the Manhattan Project, starring Cillian Murphy and directed by Christopher Nolan, and The Imitation Game (2014), telling the story of Alan Turing’s work at Bletchley Park, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and directed by Morten Tyldum. In case someone needs a reminder, the former led to the development of nuclear weapons, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the nuclear arms race, and the current state of the world where humanity has stopped waging wars between great powers at the cost of being only a couple of bad decisions away from possible extinction. The latter led to the birth of computing technology, the successful Allied effort to break German ciphers, the concept of artificial intelligence, and, indirectly, all the digital technology that dominates our lives and may, at some point, come to enslave us.

However, other than having the exact same plot and basically sharing the same story beats, the movies could not be any more different. Some differences are seemingly superficial: Nolan tells the story of Oppenheimer in the non-linear style that he’s known for (plus a few of Oppenheimer’s visions/dreams/nightmares). Tyldum tells the story of Turing in a straight linear narrative with only a few flashbacks of his childhood and a framing device of Turing’s interrogation. Nolan’s movie, on top of following Oppenheimer himself, has entire segments dedicated to Lewis Strauss, Oppenheimer’s sort-of antagonist, embedding his story in black-and-white into the main narrative which is shown in color. Tyldum’s film is, again, kept as a completely focused narrative on Alan Turing’s journey. Oppenheimer, while having a much longer runtime, keeps its momentum going with another one of Nolan’s hallmarks, a liberal use of cross-cutting and montages. By comparison, the editing of The Imitation Game is, again, conventional. Oppenheimer takes a much more detailed look at the communist infiltration and seduction (portrayed rather literally) of Western academia and (other) Soviet intelligence efforts, wading deep into how these efforts changed the world and its effects on Oppenheimer personally. In The Imitation Game communism doesn’t exist and the small Soviet spy subplot is wrapped up as a total British victory with barely any impact on the world or Turing.

The only way by which The Imitation Game attempts to take risks is by a deeper exploration of current social themes. While both movies take some historical liberty to please modern critics and audiences by focusing on the women’s stories, The Imitation Game does it in a much more noticeable way by turning Joan Clarke into both a feminist icon à la Lisa Simpson and Alan Turing’s muse (which some might find contradictory). At the same time The Imitation Game deals with Alan Turing’s homosexuality and tries to thread the needle of being meaningful (although, again, in a way that seems to be an embellishment of what we know of the real Turing’s experience) and being marketable in parts of the world where even the slightest explicit portrayal of homosexuality is expressly forbidden. Oppenheimer (2023) stays focused on Oppenheimer and makes no overt social commentary other than ‘love affairs can be messy’.

So on the surface it seems that Tyldum’s movie is just the more formulaic one, with even its efforts on social commentary being very much in line with the zeitgeist of 2014. At the end of the movie you might be wondering for 5 minutes on whether machines are capable of thinking and maybe 1 minute more on the fact that Britain in the 1940s and 1950s should probably have treated women and gays better. On the contrary, Nolan’s movie will probably haunt you for a long time: you might find yourself thinking for days about the role of science and scientists in a world where humanity seems to be dead-set on destroying itself.

Instead of doing any of that, or discussing my impression as to why Oppenheimer is simply the superior film in more detail, for the rest of this piece, I’ll focus on their portrayal of the scientific process. While I wouldn’t exactly claim that either the Manhattan Project or the effort to break the German military code are representative of modern academia, I think Hollywood portrayals of science offer a good opportunity to close the growing distrust between academics and the general public. Another reason to have this discussion is that such portrayals are formative of academics’ self-image and a lot of us might benefit from a critical re-evaluation of said self-image.

The two movies, on top of their many other differences, are, almost unwittingly, perfect representations of two competing views on science and scientists. The Imitation Game shows Alan Turing as a visionary clearly ahead of his time, whose genius simply can’t be understood by neither his peers nor the public. Cumberbatch portrays him as asocial, incomprehensible, and superior to his surroundings. In 2014, Cumberbatch was best known for playing Sherlock in the titular show, a character who displayed much of the same characteristics as the Turing we see in the movie, so it seems clear to me that Cumberbatch’s acting choices aligned with the director and producers’ vision of Turing. Even though this has nothing to do with the real-life Turing as best we know.

In the movie, Turing ends up virtually solo-carrying the entire Allied decryption research effort. He alone believes that computation technology can be useful, he alone is able to convince the civilian and military leadership of this idea, and he basically even builds the world’s first computer all on his own. His colleagues offer some ideas here and there but their main contribution amounts to being a ‘human’ foil to Turing’s ‘machine’-like thinking and Keira Knightley telling a life-long bullying victim something along the lines of “being an ass to others [due to a suspected autism spectrum disorder] is a male privilege”. It’s noteworthy that in the very minute Turing gets put in charge of the project, he begins firing people and calling them stupid (and, by implication, calls the military stupid for putting those people on the project in the first place).

In contrast, in Oppenheimer (2023), Oppenheimer is a pretty social guy. Sure he’s brilliant, but, as Matt Damon says in the movie, “brilliance is taken for granted in [his] circles”. In fact, the movie invests time into establishing his scientific limitations - he’s shown to be quite useless in the lab and the character later admits to this. Even in his strongest suit, theory, he’s not at all above anyone else around him; when Teller comes up with a piece of calculation he doesn’t immediately understand, he rushes to talk to Einstein to get help. The few times Oppenheimer disses his colleagues are reserved for establishing the state of physics at the time the movie is set (“Albert Einstein was the greatest physicist of his time, but that was 20 years ago”) or in his efforts to stall the development of hydrogen bombs which he views as dangerous (“Teller’s designs were always wildly impractical”). Cillian Murphy portrays Oppenheimer as he probably was in real life: with a diverse set of interests, in-touch with politics, active in the issues of his day, and with good social skills. Someone who’s just a really competent scientist, good team leader, and otherwise intelligent human being.

Accordingly, the movie shows the Manhattan Project as a result of a massive team effort. Oppenheimer’s direct contribution to the design and assembly of the bombs is negligible. His role is limited to putting the right people into the right places and then managing them. When he’s put in charge, Oppenheimer begins setting up a research center and hiring the best people he can.

To hammer home the similarities and differences between the movies, let me cite my favorite scenes in both: when the Genius meets the General in the job interview that gets them on the project. In the Imitation Game, Turing goes to Bletchley Park and is interviewed by General Tywin Lannister. Tywin lists his accomplishments but makes fun of him for being weird. He clearly doesn’t like him and is on the verge of kicking him out. Turing convinces him by magically deducing the purpose of the secret project being the breaking of the German Enigma codes, something he had no way of knowing. Tywin is bewildered and perhaps mildly impressed. The interview concludes something like this: “TYWIN: Breaking Enigma is impossible. TURING: Good. Let me try, then we’ll know for sure”. The next second we cut to a scene where Turing is already on the project for reasons only known to God while his relationship with Tywin is still stuck at being, to put it mildly, adversarial.

In the corresponding scene of Oppenheimer (2023), it is General Matt Damon who comes to Berkeley. Damon begins the interview by humiliating his adjutant, the physics community, and then breaking into a flurry of insults against Oppenheimer himself in every possible way that a human being can get insulted. His achievements, his personality, his values, his private life. It’s a test that Oppenheimer passes with flying colors by seeing through it, not getting defensive, throwing some punches back, and ultimately just staying on topic and showcasing his knowledge. By doing so not only does he get the job, he ends up establishing the kind of working bromance that can only exist between two competent, grounded, and well-meaning people of complementing skills and shared respect. Oppenheimer passes a test in arrogance, gets what he wants by showcasing his skills (his knowledge of the German team, their abilities, and their hindrances), and makes a valuable human and professional connection.

What’s my ultimate point? You might be thinking I’m just writing this to argue why Oppenheimer is the superior movie and the superior depiction of a successful scientific process. And yes I kind of feel that way. But that’s not one of the two messages that I want to convey.

My first message is that I’m kind of sick and tired of the Imitation Game’s Alan Turings, both real and fictional. The Imitation Game rehashes all the tropes about the supposed association between genius and a lack of social skills. This trope needs to die. Yes, a lot of scientists are on the autism spectrum and that makes them look weird for most people sometimes. A lot of them are not though. Moreover, a lot of non-scientists are on the autism spectrum, but they don’t get featured in our culture all that much. The stereotype, on top of being just based on very little truth, is incredibly harmful for the perception of science. People look for every reason to distrust science, and the perception that scientists struggle to connect to others is a handy excuse. Finally, it is bad for scientists’ self-image. I’d argue that the scientists who do the most damage to science are the ones who think of themselves as lone misunderstood geniuses who are better than their colleagues. In fact, I see a lot of people who seem to reverse the stereotype as if to say “I’m weird and asocial, therefore I must be onto something”. I’m so grateful for Oppenheimer (2023) for going against the usual Hollywood depiction of the scientific process and pushing back against this. We need a lot more messages out there that science, when done well, is a collaborative process with effective, sometimes harsh, but always respectful communication, both within the scientific community and between scientists and civilians.

The second message, sort of undercutting the first, is that we shouldn’t be deluded into thinking that we’re in the world of Oppenheimer (2023). Oppenheimer (2023) exists in a world where pretty much everyone is well-meaning and competent. Even though the movie’s line-up of scientists, generals, and politicians disagree wildly about questions of nuclear policy, they are all masters of their craft and they all want America and/or the world to thrive. In this fictional world, it’s easy to staff our research teams and civilian oversight boards with the best of the best. It is also a lot easier to be respectful of others than in The Imitation Game or in the real world. In reality, many scientists are petty gloryseekers, talentless hacks, shameless grifters, or some combination of each. Civilian oversight is often incompetent and hostile, the information environment is flooded by foreign powers seeking to divide and weaken us and drown out actual scientific findings, and the public's trust in science has gone down the drain. In short, many non-fake scientists are put in situations when, yes, they indeed know better than the others in the room, wherever that room may be. A lot of times they know a lot better. We do, in fact, have to find ways to deal with situations that match the ones shown in The Imitation Game. It is therefore an incredibly useful source of information for scientists, not necessarily on how to behave, but how to get a measure of our regular surroundings.

If you are a scientist, or even if you’re not, when you go to work, do you feel you’re in The Imitation Game? Are you surrounded by people who are not on your level in some way, with whom you struggle to connect? Do you find yourself with the urge to put them down? As the movie says, “We engage in violence because it feels good”, but usually the reason it feels good is because we believe we deserve to punch (even if verbally) and the other deserves to be punched. If you do feel the urge, independently on whether you act on it, chances are you are in the wrong place.

Or do you feel like you’re in Oppenheimer? In your workplace, do you get to feel as if you’re part of a team of Einsteins and Tellers, all working for a shared vision in their own preferred way? Are you proud to call these people colleagues and that these people call you one?

How you rate your institute or lab on the Imitation Game-Oppenheimer scale is, I think, an incredibly important piece of information for you. I consider myself lucky as I think the one I’m currently in resembles the world of Oppenheimer in many important ways. And if I wouldn’t feel like that, I’d be a lot more inclined to look for alternatives.

July 13, 2025.