The Best of 2014: What's Your Favorite Biopic?

Biopics are technically movies that depict full lives of famous people. We allow the term and genre to be loose these days, because we;re typically more interested in parts of those lives rather than the whole span from birth to death. Not every potential real-life movie subject deserves or requires such scope. So, not every biopic has to play out like Boyhood with year-by-year beats in the story of someone;s existence.This year saw the release of many biopics of the more preferable piece-of-life variety. One of my favorite movies of any kind this year, Selma, is set over only a couple of months in the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. (if we don;t count the opening scene). Some would argue that it;s not actually a biopic because of this. Or because it;s more a movie about an event than a person involved in that event. But Selma does concentrate on King;s involvement, so I count it by the loosening of the label.Another popular biopic this year is The Imitation Game, which primarily focuses on Alan Turing;s work for British intelligence trying to break the code of the Nazi;s Enigma machine during World War II. But it also jumps around to two other points in Turing;s life: his schooldays in the 1920s and his arrest for indecency in the 1950s. It;s more of a man;s life story, but it;s still not a portrait of Turing in his entirety. The Theory of Everything, which is often compared to the Turing film, is mainly set in the 1960s when its subject, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, met his wife and was diagnosed with motor neurone disease while at school.I can;t think of any fully biographical movie that came out this year unless we count documentaries, such as Life Itself, about film critic Roger Ebert, and The Internet;s Own Boy, about Reddit codeveloper Aaron Swartz. Both deal a lot with their subject;s death, but they also go all the way back to their start, too. Other great documentary biopics in 2014 includeElaine Stritch: Shoot Me(obviously about Stritch),Finding Vivian Maier(again obviously, Maier),The Salt of the Earth(Sebastiao Salgado)andMaidentrip(Laura Dekker).Among the celebrated biopics of any shape and scope this year are those about people serving in the military, namelyUnbroken(Louis Zamperini) and American Sniper(Chris Kyle). There are the obligatory musical biopics, such as Get on Up (James Brown), Jimi: All Is by My Side(Jimi Hendrix)and Jersey Boys(Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons).Also movies about artists, including Big Eyes (Margaret Keane and Walter Keane) and Mr. Turner (J.M.W. Turner). True sports stories like Foxcatcher (Mark Schultz, Dave Schultz and John du Pont) and Million Dollar Arm (J.B. Bernstein, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel). And along with Selma, biopics on people trying to change the world include Cesar Chavez (Cesar Chavez).What is your favorite biopic of 2014?Here are some responses received so far via Twitter:@thefilmcynic Belle.— Kristy Puchko (@KristyPuchko) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Mr. Turner.— Damien Straker (@DStraker90) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic MR. TURNER.— Matthew Lucas (@matthew_lucas) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Theory of Everything!! Didn;t know much about Hawking and the performances were incredible! Eddie Redmayne blew me away.— Philipp Schepp (@JPSchepp) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic @JMOursler @thinkovision Meanwhile my unpopular answer is The Imitation Game. I love that movie. (Do not unfollow.)— Tomris Laffly (@TomiLaffly) December 19, 2014@thefilmcynic The Better Angels.— Jordan Raup (@jpraup) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic All Is By My Side— JD Goldman (@BreakingPOORLY) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Foxcatcher.— Jack Giroux (@JackGi) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Foxcatcher, but only because I don;t consider Selma a biopic.— Noah Gittell (@ReelChanger) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Life Itself— Luke Banack (@RadioLuke) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Only Lovers Left Alive (Adam and Eve)— John Oursler (@JMOursler) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Abuse of Weakness— John Oursler (@JMOursler) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic I;m just going to say it: Get On Up. If not for Chadwick Boseman;s performance as James Brown, the whole movie would be meh.— Keith Adams (@BigBrother1988) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Selmaaaaaaaaa.— kateyrich (@kateyrich) December 18, 2014@kateyrich @thefilmcynic That is indeed the correct (only?) response.— Mel Valentin (@FyodorFish) December 18, 2014@thefilmcynic Selma.— William Goss (@williambgoss) December 18, 2014@JMOursler @thefilmcynic Gonna go with the easy one: Selma.— Inkoo Kang (@thinkovision) December 18, 2014Join in the next discussion:and