From Eddie the Eagle to Invictus: Mirror writers reveal their favourite biopics
Oppenheimer is not only “the destroyer of worlds”, his acclaimed biopic is a smasher of records.
Christopher Nolan’s film about the physicist, dubbed the “father of the atomic bomb”, has taken £736million at the box office worldwide. This beats the record £734.5m by Bohemian Rhapsody, about Freddie Mercury. Oppenheimer is tipped for awards glory but does its huge success mean it is the best biopic? Here our columnists pick their greatest of all time…
Eddie the Eagle
Imagine if you’d said this to ski-jumping no-hoper Michael Edwards as he was desperately trying to qualify for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary: One, he was about to become one of the most famous and best-loved people in Britain. Two, his life story would in 2016 be turned into a big-budget biopic featuring one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Eddie the Eagle, inset , would have thought you were as crazy and deluded as the British Olympic selection committee thought he was. But it happened. And the movie, starring Taron Egerton as Edwards and Hugh Jackman as his trainer Bronson Peary, right , is one of the most uplifting “plucky outsider overcoming the odds” stories ever. IAN HYLAND
Invictus
The inspiring biopic of Nelson Mandela (2009) using rugby to unite South Africa and not another series about Harry Windsor’s games. Directed by Clint Eastwood with Morgan Freeman playing the saintly leader and Matt Damon a White captain of the Springboks, watching the movie gives me teary eyes.
'Putting an actor in a fat suit to play an obese character is ableist hogwash'
Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon in Invictus (Keith Bernstein)As had seeing in 1995 a newly elected President, in the team’s green jersey, embracing skipper Francois Pienaar when on home turf they unexpectedly beat New Zealand to win the World Cup. Just a few years earlier Mandela was prisoner of an apartheid regime worshipping the Boks. Only he could embrace old enemies to bring a nation together. KEVIN MAGUIRE
The Elephant Man
As an oddball teenager with an unhealthy interest in the macabre, I’d been fascinated by old freak show photographs of the hideously deformed Joseph Merrick It hardly seemed possible that such a monster could be a man, but John Hurt’s touching portrayal in the 1980 film alongside Freddie Jones, right , gave him the dignity his life lacked.
The film was also memorable because director David Lynch set this Victorian London biopic in black and white, novel for the Day-Glo decade. I have never forgotten the look of peace that came over Hurt’s face, even under all those early 80s prosthetics, as Merrick finally got his wish to lie down like a normal man – and breathe his last. SIOBHAN McNALLY
Erin Brockovitch
I mean, they had us at Julia Roberts, right? I’d pretty much watch her do anything, and have – like 2010 cringefest Eat, Pray, Love. But 2000’s Erin Brockovich, directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Susannah Grant, was a properly inspiring, Girl Power movie about an unlikely underdog who triumphed against all odds.
Julia (main picture) played an unemployed single mum who became a legal assistant and single-handedly (ish) brought down a power company accused of polluting the water supply in Hinkley, California. That it was based on a true story of a real woman (inset) who helped to win a settlement of $333m – at the time, the largest ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit – made it only more enjoyable. POLLY HUDSON
Schindler’s List
Chilling, sobering and powerful, Schindler’s List is a masterpiece that portrayed the atrocity of the Holocaust with all human nature laid bare. The 1993 Spielberg film stars Liam Neeson at his finest as Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who employed Jews to save their lives, a man transformed from profiteer to hero.
Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler (©NBCUniversal All Rights Reserved)Ralph Fiennes as a despicable SS officer made the flesh crawl. Filmed in black and white, with a haunting musical score, it was as cinematic as it was brutal and tender. That moment when the little girl in the red coat walks through the violence and hides under the bed is one of many scenes from this movie that will stick with me forever. SARA WALLIS
Walk The Line
The Man in Black (2000) strides on to the stage and in that unmistakable gravelly voice says “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”. A mean, moody and magnificent musician…but how did it all begin in Depression-era Arkansas? Cue a stellar, Academy Award-winning film starring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny and Reese Witherspoon (she got the Oscar) as his second wife June Carter Cash.
The storyline intimately takes us from Johnny’s abusive father, the death of his brother in a sawmill accident, US Air Force service and buying his first guitar, marriage to first wife Vivian, his inexorable musical rise, and falling in love with June to his descent into alcoholism and drug addiction.
It’s not a pretty watch at times, but his musical talent and love for June shines through for an upbeat ending and the two lead actors perform all the songs themselves quite brilliantly. Ultimately, it’s a beautifully told story of a tempestuous but enduring relationship and, as Ring Of Fire says, Love is a burning thing… NIGEL THOMPSON
Inside tragic life of 'the Elephant Man' as plans for statue are scrapped
Joy
Jennifer Lawrence lured me into seeing 2015 movie Joy with her droll take on its premise, laughing that her friend, director David O’ Russell, had texted her at 4am asking her to star as Joy Mangano, the inventor of the Miracle Mop. “I can just imagine David looking at someone mopping and being like, ‘Yeah, that’s my next screenplay,’” she deadpanned.
I was in. But its simplicity is the best thing about this biopic - it doesn’t have to squeeze in a giant back catalogue of hits, whitewash an artist’s hellraiser years or offer an alternative history for them. It’s just a really great story about a woman who invented a really great mop - and a wonderfully simple mop, at that. Sometimes the simple things in life are the best. ASHLEIGH RAINBIRD
Vice
The best is obvious… the story of a boy and his mother who lead a struggling resistance against an enemy of our own making. Time and time again they refuse to give up hope, even when the machines have won. OK, The Terminator franchise is not a biopic but my real favourite teaches us the same lesson.
Vice (2018), the story of former US Vice President Dick Cheney - the George W Bush Whisperer who led us into Iraq - is pure cinematic mastery. The end credits run midway through the film - at the point where we all may wish the story finished. But then, Cheney’s story sadly starts again as a fateful phone call makes him the puppet master of a grim reality. Through the clever filmmaking and witty dialogue the message is not lost. Like the terminators, Cheney was empowered by the people, but that power grew beyond all control until we were thrust into an unwinnable war. JESSICA BOULTON
The Glenn Miller Story
It has to be The Glenn Miller Story, released in 1954 but seen as a teenager in 1960. I loved the music, and I was fascinated by the mystery of the bandleader’s wartime disappearance on a flight over the English Channel in 1944. James Stewart is brilliantly cast as the enigmatic musical genius, and husky-voiced June Allyson is the perfect adoring wife.
James Stewart as Glenn Miller (Getty Images)But it’s the sound track that sticks in the mind. Numbers like Moonlight Serenade, In The Mood and String Of Pearls I played over and over again to my girlfriend. I even bought her a string of pearls. I could watch it again any time, and get the same emotional lift. PAUL ROUTLEDGE
Hidden Figures
One of the great underrated movies of our time, 2016's Hidden Figures it’s a film documenting the racism and sexism that Katherine Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson overcame to become the Nasa scientists who each played a huge role in sending astronaut John Glenn (the first American to orbit the Earth) into space in 1962.
Taraji P. Henson - who plays Jaden Smith’s mum in the remake of The Karate Kid - is brilliant as Katherine, the mum-of-three dealing with everyday office racism as she proves herself to her boss Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner, and ultimately her country. It is a film about triumph over adversity. Soon after I watched it, for obvious reasons I showed it to my kids. You should show it to yours. A magnificent movie. DARREN LEWIS
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