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Apr 21, 2023 · Whether you love crime capers, sweeping romances or historical dramas, you’ll want to add these movies based on true stories to your must-watch queue.
- The Crown
However, in real life, King George VI, who died of lung...
- The Crown
Jun 14, 2024 · How to watch: Stream on Prime Video. The best movies based on true stories bring us face to face with the events that shape our world, providing timeless lessons relevant to audiences today.
- John Ortved
May 31, 2024 · From controversial court cases to unfathomable true crimes, there’s no shortage of real-life events that have been dramatized for our entertainment. Below, find 30 must-see films based on...
- Samantha Simon
- 20 'Only The Brave'
- 19 'Boys Don't Cry'
- 18 'Alpha Dog'
- 17 'Breathe'
- 16 'Everest'
- 15 'Deepwater Horizon'
- 14 'The Impossible'
- 13 'Changeling'
- 12 'Hacksaw Ridge'
- 11 'United 93'
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Featuring an ensemble cast, including Josh Brolin, James Badge Dale, Jeff Bridges, Miles Teller, Alex Russell, Taylor Kitsch, and Ben Hardy among others, Joseph Kosinski's Only the Brave, based on the GQ article "No Exit" by Sean Flynn, focuses on the true story of a group of elite firefighters, known as Granite Mountain Hotshots, who risk everything to protect a town from a life-changing wildfire. Despite being a commercial flop and grossing just $26.3 million worldwide against a $38 million...
Directed by Kimberly Peirce
Starring Hilary Swank in an Oscar-winning role, Boys Don't Cry dramatizes the real-life story of a young man named Brandon Teena as he navigates love, life, and being transgender in rural Nebraska, ending up falling victim to a brutal hate crime perpetrated by two male ex-convicts. Chloë Sevigny also stars as Brandon's girlfriend, Lana Tisdel. Boys Don't Cry is a controversial movie in this niche subcategory for the way it handles the sensitive topics it tackles, including trans identities. A...
Directed by Nick Cassavetes
Written and directed by John Cassavete’s son Nick, Alpha Dog is based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder of Nicholas Markowitz in 2000. Johnny (Emile Hirsch) and his pals kidnap Jake's 15-year-old brother Zach (Anton Yelchin) and assign his buddy Frankie to be Zach's minder. While they develop a brotherly friendship and Zach parties with his captors, things begin to spin out of control. Part of why Alpha Dog works has to do with its realistic filmmaking and storyline. It’s a power...
Directed by Andy Serkis
Undoubtedly a film to tug on the heartstrings, 2017's Breathe stars Andrew Garfield as Robin Cavendish, a man paralyzed by Polio from the neck down when he was just twenty-eight years old. Cavendish's son, Jonathan, produced the movie as a way to tell his father's story and the inspirational impact Robin had on the lives of people with disabilities at the time. Robin had the idea of installing a built-in respirator on a chair. That idea went on to accomplish at the time unimaginable steps in...
Directed by Baltasar Kormákur
When it comes to great natural disaster movies based on true stories, 2015s Everestis a good pick. As the title suggests, the film is based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster and focuses on the journey of hope, faith, courage, and bravery between two expedition groups as they attempt to descend from the summit during treacherous weather conditions, having made it to the top of the tallest mountain in the world. The film stars Josh Brolin, Jason Clarke, and Jake Gyllenhaal to name a few, and d...
Directed by Peter Berg
This great must-see disaster moviefollows the events leading up to and the aftermath of the explosion and oil spill of the Deepwater Horizon. An inextinguishable fire resulted, and the rig sank after burning for over a day. The incident resulted in approximately 200 million gallons of oil spilling into the ocean over 87 days, eleven deaths, and is the worst oil disaster in United States history. Starring Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russel as Mike Williams and Jimmy "Mr. Jimmy" Harrell, there aren'...
Directed by J. A. Bayona
Starring Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, and a young but talented Tom Hollandin his film debut, 2012's The Impossiblefollows one family's incredible journey to find each other after being separated during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. The movie was considered one of the best films of 2012 and received highly positive reviews for its acting and directing, becoming one of the most well-known true disaster movies. Throughout its entirety, The Impossible is chock-full of incredibly hard-hitting emot...
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring Angelina Jolie in one of her best movie performances (it earned her her second Academy Award nom), Clint Eastwood's intense Changelingis based on the real-life events surrounding the 1928 Wineville Chicken Coop murders in Mira Loma, California. It focuses on a woman who is reunited with a boy who she then realizes is not really her missing son, depicting her struggles as she is vilified as delusional. The critically acclaimed feature is undoubtedly a must-see film based on real-life...
Directed by Mel Gibson
Desmond Doss was a combat medic who refused to carry a firearm or weapon of any kind and heroically saved the lives of an estimated seventy-five soldiers during the World War II Battle of Okinawa. Directed by Mel Gibsonand starring Andrew Garfield in the lead role, 2016's Hacksaw Ridgeis a biographical drama that follows the story of Doss, who became the first conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor. Throughout this heartwrenching film, Doss was often looked down upon for refusing to...
Directed by Paul Greengrass
United 93, which is among the most popular terrorism movies based on a true story, is a docudrama written and directed by Paul Greengrassthat tells the harrowing story of the only hijacked plane that didn't reach its intended target during the 9/11 attacks. While Flights 11, 77, and 175 devastatingly hit their targets, Flight 93 didn't. Instead, it crashed into a Pennsylvania field due to the bravery of the flight crew and passengers on board. The two-time Academy Award-nominated film follows...
- Daniela Gama
- All the President's Men (1976) Film. Drama. Wait, you’re telling us Watergate is an actual thing that happened, and in 1974 two reporters really did take down a sitting US president?
- In Cold Blood (1967) Film. Before true crime podcasts and Dateline NBC marathons, there was Truman Capote, whose account of the 1959 massacre of a family in rural Kansas shocked a nation not yet desensitised to random acts of unspeakable violence.
- Hustlers (2019) Film. Drama. A rare depiction of a r ecession that’s neither a teary drama about farmers losing their homes nor a political screed against greedy one-percenters, Hustlers is instead a hyperkinetic story of economic survival, set in a world hit particularly hard by the 2008 financial crisis: New York strip clubs.
- Argo (2012) Film. Drama. It’s one of those stories too far-fetched for even the most inventive screenwriter to make up. At the onset of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, a movie-loving CIA agent hatched a plot to smuggle six diplomats out of the country by pretending to be a Canadian film crew shooting a fake Star Wars-alike sci-fi flick there.
Nov 13, 2021 · Below is a collection of more than a dozen of the best movies based on true stories and how you can watch them streaming on services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and several...
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Mar 19, 2022 · Movies based on real-life events get made all the time, from 'Selma' to 'Dunkirk': they try to walk the fine line between fact and entertainment.
