We all know when we attend a movie based on “real events” that Hollywood is always going to take a few liberties to hit the right beets in any given screenplay. But some movies are more factual than others, and a few are just complete fiction from the very beginning.
On-screen, you can claim almost anything, and it can be hard to know who to trust without doing a little digging, but here are just a few movies to trust and few to keep in mind when they claim they’re based on reality.
Real - Hidden Figures
The 2017 film, Hidden Figures, told the story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three of a large group of African American women who worked at NASA, starting with the Mercury program, as human computers.
The story was unknown to many but is true. Katherine Johnson is still alive today at the age of 101. While some of the scenes in the movie are fiction, the work the women did and the discrimination they had to face are all too real.
Fake - 300
Zack Snyder’s 2006 CGI insanity that is 300 is technically based on a Frank Miller comic book, but the story itself is supposed to be about the real-life battle between King Leonidas and his Spartan warriors against the might of Persia.
What Snyder offers audiences is nowhere near what actually happened. In fact, Leonidas likely had some thousand warriors join him on the battlefield, rather than just his 300 most loyal fighters.
Real - Goodfellas
Like The Irishman from last year, Goodfellas was Martin Scorcese’s real-life mob story for 1990. Based on the memoir Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, it documented the true story of Pileggi’s rise and fall in the mafia and, later, his falling into the witness protection program.
Like The Irishman, it also starred Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro. Goodfellas was nominated for six Academy Awards upon its release, and it certainly didn’t hurt that it’s based on some real-life events and people.
Fake - Texas Chainsaw Massacre
It may be a relief to learn that, despite its claims, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it actually is complete fiction (though still a disturbing film to watch). Leatherface was based on murderer Ed Gein, but the plot and general story are completely made up, the claim that it was a true story was only meant to increase the attendance as well as the horror of the movie overall.
Obviously, the claim snowballed, and now many people still are under the impression The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is something that really took place.
Real - All The President’s Men
As the world sits through another impeachment trial, it’s important to remember that this, although under different circumstances, has happened before. It’s a good time to go back and watch All The President’s Men, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
They star as reporters who did not dabble in “fake” news, but rather exposed the connection between the 1972 burglary of the Democratic Party Headquarters and President of the United States, Richard Nixon.
Fake - The Blind Side
Just because the story isn’t real doesn’t mean the movie isn’t good, after all, Sandra Bullock earned an Academy Award for her role in The Blind Side in 2009. Yet, the realness of that story about NFL star Michael Oher is definitely up for debate.
Oher himself said he always knew how to play football that, despite being taken into the Tuohy home, and the love they showed him, he did not learn how to play football from Leigh Anne (which is really most of what the movie shows). The Blind Side seems to have been a little blind to what Michael Oher’s life was really like.
Real - Apollo 13
In reality, Tom Hanks’ Jim Lovell never said, “Houston, we have a problem.” During the real mission, it was Kevin Bacon’s, Jack Swigert. However, Apollo 13 is otherwise a very honest depiction of the problem-prone third Apollo mission.
From Fred Haise getting sick to the round the clockwork of the “steely-eyed missile men” in Mission Control, the problems were high stakes enough at the time that the film needed to enhance very little to make it worthy of the viewing public’s time.
Fake - The Amityville Horror
Like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror thought it could increase the fear in its audience by claiming it too was based on real events.
It all started because the novel on which the film was based also claimed to be based on true events, which is obviously pretty misleading. While there was a real murder in Amityville New York, in a particular house, there were never any actual haunting instances that cursed the home for all times afterward.
Real - The Imitation Game
The 2014 film starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley and went on to earn eight Academy Award nominations. The little known story about the father of computer technology, Alan Turing, was largely buried because other than being a genius mathematician, Turing was also gay, and persecuted by the British government for most of his life.
The Imitation Game also led to more real-life change, as the Alan Turing Law came into effect in 2017, pardoning all men who were once either cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.
Fake - The Blair Witch Project
Here we are again with horror films. The Blair Witch Project took the world by storm in 1999 not only because it claimed to be a true story but also because it was shot as if it were a true story. The whole film is put together on what is supposedly found footage.
Supposedly, film students hiked into the woods in 1994 to try and get footage to the “Blair Witch” but were lost, there project and camera only being located about a year later. The actors in the film were listed as “missing” and “deceased” while the film was being promoted. Obviously, in real life, everyone who worked on the project was very much alive.
