Hawking

Hawking (2004) is a BBC biographical drama you can watch online on iFILM. It hands Benedict Cumberbatch one of his first real roles: the young Stephen Hawking as a Cambridge graduate student in the early sixties.

It's 1963, and Hawking is turning 21. At the party he meets Jane Wilde, and the pull between them is immediate. She's drawn to the way he talks about stars and the shape of the universe. Then the diagnosis lands — his body begins to fail, and doctors give him a couple of years. The film runs on a single question: what do you do when the clock is almost out and the work has barely begun?

It's built around the real stretch when Hawking chased the origin of time itself. Director Philip Martin keeps it intimate, ninety minutes, and it's the film that put Cumberbatch in front of a wide audience. Quiet, focused storytelling about science and sheer stubbornness — for anyone interested in the man before the wheelchair and the worldwide fame. Stream Hawking online on iFILM.