Right Now, These Are The 12 Greatest Films Based On True Stories:
We all know the score: when that white text pops on the screen and says “based on a true tale,” we are likely to assume that only about 30% of the movie is true. There are a lot of different types of non-fiction movies on the market, from simple biopics to stories that are loosely based on facts but still have a bit of truth to them.
Still, there’s nothing more exciting than starting a story and then learning that it’s based on something real. We could pick up a book, yet we might as well just sit up straight in front of the TV as well as let the nice blue light teach us history. Truth may be weirder than fiction, yet in Hollywood, the lines between “truth” and “fiction” aren’t always clear.
When a movie says it’s “based on a true story” or “inspired by real events,” the facts are usually only in the most basic parts of the plot. It’s something that people have grown used to. And really, why wouldn’t they? After all, movies aren’t news.
Tick, Tick… BOOM:
What’s not to like about Andrew Garfield singing? In Lin Manuel Miranda’s first movie as a director, Garfield plays Jonathan Larson, the writer of the record-breaking Broadway show Rent.
Even though it’s called Miranda, it’s not really a show. Instead, it’s about all the mistakes that occur before the big break. Not only do we not get to see him make RENT, but the movie is mostly about the show, which Larson was eager to start before it even had a twinkle in its eye.
A dark cloud hangs over the film because Larson sadly died the night of the movie’s first preview, so he never got to witness what RENT turned out to be. The lesson is to focus on life as it is rather than what it might be in the future, but it doesn’t make the story feel sad. Instead, it makes it stronger.
Rocketman:
This year’s Bohemian Rhapsody was Rocketman, which is a much better movie, which is good news for everyone. It chronicles Elton John’s life, from his youth in Middlesex to his record-breaking success in pop music, marriage, rocky relationships, as well as battles with addiction.
The movie, which stars Taron Egerton from Kingsman as the bespectacled singer, isn’t just a biopic; it’s also a true story with a lot of songs and dances that are very Eltonian.
Escape From Alcatraz:
The title pretty much says it all. The Birdman of Alcatraz, which came out in 1962, may be the most famous movie set in the world’s most famous jail. However, director Don Siegel’s tough-guy thriller starring Clint Eastwood was lean, mean, and pulpy, like other movies Siegel and Eastwood have worked on together like Dirty Harry.
It’s based on a story by J. Campbell Bruce, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Eastwood plays Frank Miller, a lifer who planned a daring escape from the Rock the exact same year that the Burt Lancaster movie came out.
The Big Short:
You don’t have to worry if you didn’t understand anything about the 2008 financial crash; The Big Short will explain it in a way that you can understand. Little wins.
Adam McKay’s in-depth look at the housing bubble that changed the world is based on Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. He breaks the fourth wall and shows Margot Robbie in the bathtub to give a basic how-to guide for “shorting” the market.
Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Jeremy Strong, and everybody else in the kitchen sink play men who made money by watching other people lose money. Christian Bale plays the man who saw it all coming.
Look, we’re still not sure what “shorting” really means, and we’re not going to put our hands upon our hearts just yet to say we understand, but it’s been fun.
Fighting With My Family:
A lot of families run their own business, like Mom’s dental office or Grandpa’s grocery shop. The knight family of Britain works in a very unusual area; they are all professional wrestlers.
Stephen Merchant from “The Office” wrote and directed “Fighting with My Family,” which was produced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and stars Florence Pugh from “Midsummer” as WWE star Paige and tells the story of her rise from a working-class wrestling family.
Nick Frost from Shaun of the Dead and Lena Headey from Game of Thrones play her parents, Julia “Sweet Saraya” Knight as well as Patrick “Rowdy Ricky” Knight. The Rock is also in the movie, of course, as himself.
Bad Education:
At the end of 2004, Robert Kolker, a reporter for New York magazine, revealed the largest school fraud case in US history. Superintendent Frank Tassone as well as his assistant superintendent, Pam Gluckin, stole millions of dollars from a rich Long Island school district and were able to hide it for years.
Director Cory Finley really digs into the juicy source material to make a smart, stylish, and sometimes funny crime thriller. Hugh Jackman as well as Allison Janney give career-high performances as the two bad guys.
Spotlight:
Following the 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of the Boston Globe research team who found that Catholic priests in Massachusetts sexually abused many children, Spotlight’s subject matter is very sad.
After that, similar crimes were found in churches all over the world, starting a chain reaction that is still being found today.
The movie, which stars Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schrieber, as well as Michael Keaton, shows how boring reporting can be, how workers can be useless, how it can take months to find lost leads, and how stress can affect a person personally. But the movie is also filled with kindness, particularly in the way it treats its victims.
Ray & Liz:
Britain is very good at making dark movies about working-class life, as well as Ray & Liz is the newest addition to that long line of dark movies. Back in the late 1990s, photographer Richard Billingham was praised for his stark images of his drunken father Ray and chain-smoking mother Liz.
Their frantic and limited lives are the subject of his initial full-length movie, which shows scenes from his neglected and severely poor youth and scenes of his parents as they got older.
The Bling Ring:
The criminal group at the center of the crazy Vanity Fair story that inspired Sofia Coppola’s crime comedy is like the Plastics from Mean Girls if they were even more shallow and turned their shallow wealth into theft.
In the beginning of the 2010s, some teens in Los Angeles utilized social media to find out where celebs like Audrina Patridge as well as Megan Fox were. They then broke into their homes and stole everything they had.
Coppola changes the story to make a point about wealth and social standing within the digital age, but Emma Watson’s performance as the crew’s immoral bling boss makes the biggest mark.
Lion:
Lion is a story that is very close to being true to life. Saroo Brierly is played by Dev Patel. He is an Indian adoptee who was found lost as a kid in Calcutta after falling asleep within a train cart and was taken in by Nicole Kidman as well as David Wenham, who play new parents.
Saroo can’t stop looking for and remembering his hometown on Google Earth because he wants to find his family again. He is completely consumed by this painful and hard work.
We won’t give anything away, but get ready to cry. The amazing story by Saroo came from his book A Long Way Home. It’s a touching look at identity and family in all their different forms.
Trial By Fire:
Three little girls died within a house fire in Texas in 1991. Cameron Todd Willingham, their 23-year-old jobless father, was found guilty of starting the fire and killing his girls and given the death penalty.
Five years after he was put to death, a story by David Grann within The New Yorker would bring attention to the case across the country. The article showed that Willingham’s guilt was based on flawed fire science as well as a jailhouse source who later changed their story.
The movie’s name comes from the title of Grann’s piece. Jack O’Connell, who was in Unbroken, plays Willingham, and Laura Dern, who is always great, plays actress Elizabeth Gilbert, who became one of the men’s strongest supporters.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas:
Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo roman a clef was tried to be made into a movie for decades before Terry Gilliam finally did it. The result shows why directors like Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone gave up on their plans to make a plotless drug trip about the death of the 1960s, which works much better on paper.
Still, it’s a crazy ride, with Thompson’s friend Johnny Depp playing the author, as well as rather, his slightly made-up character Raoul Duke, as a Wile E. Coyote high on mescaline. Taking Gilliam’s bizarre journey literally might take a whole chem lab to fully grasp, but it still gets across Thompson’s main point: that America was corrupt, spoiled, and doomed.
