The biography, or biopic, is an evergreen film genre--Hollywood never gets tired of based-on-a-true-story movies about famous people, and neither do audiences, apparently. Two of these sorts of movies--Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Bradley Cooper's Maestro--dominated the 2024 Oscar nominations, with Oppenheimer earning the most nods of any film this year.

Casting an actor to play a real, famous person can often be a pretty tall task. We love to get hung up on the look of the person, often at the expense of the substance, which is unfortunate because very often the right person for the job doesn't necessarily look right for the part at first glance. On the other hand, sometimes you have somebody like Austin Butler, who looks so much like the real Elvis Presley that his performance in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis felt like a CGI fever dream the first time I saw the trailer. But that movie worked because Butler actually delivered an excellent performance on top of just looking right for the part.

My point? Looks aren't everything. But they are something--you don't usually want your actor to not be recognizable as the person they're playing, unless that's the actual purpose of the casting. Such as with Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, in which six different actors played Bob Dylan. But most biographical films aren't quite as creatively ambitious as that.

With that said, let's take a look at some of the most notable biopic films, and compare the looks of their stars with the real people they were portraying in their respective films, starting with this year's Oscar frontrunners.

Cillian Murphy as J Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer

J Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)

Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein and Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre in Maestro

Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre

Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte in Napoleon (2023)

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Zac Efron as Kevin von Erich in The Iron Claw

Kevin Von Erich (born 1957)

Denzel Washington in Malcolm X (1992)

Malcolm X (1925-1965)

Ben Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi in Ghandi (1992)

Mahatma Ghandi (1869-1948)

Colin Firth as King George VI in The King's Speech (2010)

King George VI (1895-1952)

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote in Capote (2005)

Toby Jones as Truman Capote in Infamous (2005)

Truman Capote (1924-1984)

Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln (2012)

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

The cast of Straight Outta Compton with the real-life people

Front row: Neil Brown Jr as DJ Yella, O'Shea Jackson Jr as Ice Cube (also his real-life father!), Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Aldis Hodge as MC Ren, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre

Back row: DJ Yella, Ice Cube, MC Ren and Dr Dre.

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in Milk (2008)

Harvey Milk (1930-1978)

Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004)

Ray Charles (1930-2004)

Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon in Nixon (1995)

Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon (2008)

Richard Nixon (1913-1994)

Will Smith as Muhammad Ali in Ali (2001)

Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

Tom Hanks as Mr Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

Mr Rogers (1928-2003)

Reese Witherspoon as June Carter in Walk the Line (2005)

June Carter (1929-2003)

Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line (2005)

Johnny Cash (1932-2003)