Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as Jane and Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything

Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix in Jimi: All Is By My Side

Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady

Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandella in Invictus

Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs in Jobs

Audrey Tautou as Coco Chanel in Coco Before Chanel

Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart in Amelia

Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo in Frida

Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler in Downfall

Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb as Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in Sid and Nancy

Geoffrey Rush as Peter Sellers in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

Denzel Washington as Malcolm X in Malcolm X

Daniel Day‑Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln

Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray

Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in I’m Not There

Michael Douglas as Liberace in Behind The Candelabra

Ben Kingsley as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in Gandhi

Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in The Doors

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote in Capote

Jennifer Lopez as Selena Quintanilla in Selena

Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in Milk

Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali in Midnight In Paris

Will Smith as Muhammad Ali

Hannah Taylor-Gordon as Anne Frank in Anne Frank: The Whole Story

Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos in Monster

John Hurt as Joseph Merrick in The Elephant Man

Bill Hader as Andy Warhol

James Franco as James Dean in James Dean

Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash

Anthony Hopkins as Picasso in Surviving Picasso

Marion Cotillard as Édith Piaf in La Vie En Rose/la Môme

Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf

Sam Riley as Ian Curtis in Control

John Goodman as Babe Ruth

Gary Busey as Buddy Holly

Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman in Chapter 27

James Stewart as Glenn Miller in The Glenn Miller Story

When selecting the cast for a biopic, or biographical movie, the director must walk a fine line between selecting someone for their physical similarity vs. selecting them for having the thespian talent required to play the part. Here’s a list of actors who definitely succeeded on the physical similarity side of things, via Bored Panda (via Bored Panda