A Trusted Friend in a Complicated World
Updated on Jul. 29, 2025
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Released: 2024
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “We here to become human again.”
At the unforgiving titular correctional facility in New York, a group of men serving hard time stage plays as a mental and emotional escape. The group’s new production is a silly comedy, but it gives them a purpose as they learn their lines, rehearse and stage the show.
Magnetic Oscar nominee Colman Domingo plays John “Divine G” Whitfield, who spent nearly 25 years in prison and was indeed a key member of the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program at Sing Sing. Without resorting to cliches, this drama shows determination and humanity at its finest.
Released: 2023
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
There’s a reason why audiences and Oscar voters were, um, blown away by Christopher Nolan’s epic drama, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2024. Despite a heady historical subject matter—the creation of the Manhattan Project and atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945—and a challenging nonlinear, three-hour-long narrative, Oppenheimer is an ultra-intriguing and technically excellent look at one of the most pivotal chapters in 20th century history.
Oscar-winning actor Cillian Murphy stars as the deeply conflicted American scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Rami Malek and Casey Affleck round out the first-rate ensemble.
Released: 2023
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “A shoe is just a shoe until somebody steps into it. Then it has meaning.”
A historical footnote: In 1980, a Nike marketing whiz named Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) doggedly attempted to sign then–NBA rookie Michael Jordan to a shoe contract. This lucrative partnership is still intact more than 40 years later, and it led to Air, a totally terrific movie—with an awesome ’80s soundtrack, to boot.
In fact, considering that Air Jordan sneakers now epitomize corporate American culture, it’s a minor miracle that director Ben Affleck (who also plays Nike CEO Phil Knight) delivered such a shaggy underdog story about gumption, optimism and faith. It also features a standout performance from Viola Davis as Jordan’s no-nonsense mom, Deloris.
Released: 1997
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.”
More than 25 years after its release, our hearts still go on for James Cameron’s classic Academy Award–winning romantic drama. Set against the tragic 1912 sinking of the grand ocean liner, Titanic tells the tale of Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet), two fictional characters who defied their onboard class restrictions—she was a wealthy first-class passenger; he was a starving artist from steerage—and fell hopelessly in love. Thanks to Cameron’s stunning visuals (including a heart-racing CGI recreation of the ship’s sinking) and an amazing soundtrack, audiences will never let go of Titanic.
Released: 2013
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”
It is nearly impossible for movies based on a true stories to avoid taking any creative license, but 12 Years a Slave comes very close. One of the most harrowing kidnapping movies, Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning film recounts the incredible journey of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free Black man tricked and sold into slavery in 1841, and his eventual rescue more than a decade later.
The film is also one of the best book-to-movie adaptations because it doesn’t shy away from the brutality detailed in Northup’s memoir—specifically, the horrific whipping of Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o). Although 12 Years a Slave has a “happy ending,” with Northup reuniting with his family, his harrowing journey can’t be easily shaken.
Released: 2012
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “This is what I do. I get people out. And I’ve never left anyone behind.”
Here’s a gripping spy thriller based on the very real extrication of six American diplomats from Iran in 1980 by CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directed the movie). But the next time you sit down and watch Argo, just keep in mind that some of the characters—including the acid-tongued movie producer played by Alan Arkin—never existed and the big, climactic sequence set on an airport tarmac never happened. Still, we should still thank our neighbors in Canada for helping out with the top-secret mission.
Released: 2016
Rated: PG
Memorable quote: “On any given day, I analyze the velometer levels for air displacement, friction and velocity. And compute over 10,000 calculations by cosine, square root and lately analytic geometry by hand.”
Biopics about the Space Race usually focus on the White male astronauts privileged enough to set foot in a spaceship. But what about the people who got them to the moon and back safely? Hidden Figures tells the story of three brilliant Black female mathematicians working for NASA in the early 1960s: Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe).
Even though they were subjected to racist laws at every turn—Katherine had to run across the Langley Research Center campus just to use a segregated bathroom; Mary couldn’t take night classes at an all-White school to become an engineer—these women persevered. And in the process, they changed the trajectory of the American space program.
Released: 2018
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “We are alone. No matter what they tell you, we women are always alone.”
One of the most critically acclaimed movies based on true stories, Roma is a semi-autobiographical tale of writer-director Alfonso Cuarón’s childhood in Mexico. The film follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the beloved Mixteca live-in maid for a wealthy Mexico City family in the early 1970s. Cleo must delicately walk the murky line between employee and family member, especially when she faces an unplanned pregnancy.
Aside from being one of the best Hispanic movies, Roma is also a gorgeously shot stunner. Best Director Oscar winner Cuarón not only opts for black-and-white instead of bright, garish ’70s colors, but he also manages to find the beauty in the mundane. For starters, just sit back and behold the opening shot of water cascading over the concrete as Cleo washes the driveway.
Released: 1993
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “There will be generations because of what you did.”
The winner of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece about the horrors of the Holocaust remains a triumph. Schindler’s List recounts the story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a German businessman who saved more than 1,000 European Jews from Nazi slaughter during World War II by employing them in his factories.
Although Schindler himself didn’t help draw up the list in real life (per historical accounts), there is no denying the instrumental role Schindler played in his Jewish employees’ survival. The beautiful closing scene, featuring Schindler’s real-life widow and many of the people he saved, illustrates this fact.
Released: 1967
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “I’m Miss Bonnie Parker, and this here’s Mr. Clyde Barrow. We rob banks.”
Fun fact: When Bonnie and Clyde was released back in the day, it received fairly rotten reviews. But in retrospect, this riveting portrayal of Depression-era criminals Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) is considered one of the greats. Director Arthur Penn’s decision to graphically recreate Bonnie and Clyde’s historically accurate deaths by gun ambush was a Hollywood game-changer: Soon afterward, films began including similarly violent sequences, such as Sonny Corleone’s and Tony Montana’s bullet-riddled murders in The Godfather and Scarface, respectively.
Released: 1992
Rated: PG
Memorable quote: “There’s no crying in baseball!”
During World War II, Major League Baseball was on the brink of failure because so many men were fighting overseas. To keep the national pastime alive (and to boost morale), some of the owners decided to create the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Nearly 50 years after the AAGPBL’s inception, A League of Their Own finally told the story of this groundbreaking sports decision. The movie, starring Geena Davis, Tom Hanks and Madonna, remains a hilarious and poignant home run.
Mind you, all characters in the film were fictional—and the plot was restricted to the White, heterosexual experience. Cut to 2022, when a reimagined series based on the movie premiered on Prime Video. This version of A League of Their Own included Black and LGBTQ+ characters central to the narrative.
Released: 2013
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “AIDS … I got AIDS. Won’t you come in, join the party.”
Dallas Buyers Club is based on the true story of Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), a Texas man diagnosed with AIDS in the mid-1980s. Woodroof, as in the movie, spearheaded a drug distribution service—called the Dallas Buyers Club—that provided unapproved AIDS treatments to patients unable to afford AZT, the commonly prescribed drug to AIDS patients at the time.
McConaughey earned a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as the (initially) homophobic Woodroof. The film does take creative liberties, however, with the character of fellow AIDS patient Rayon (played by Jared Leto in an Oscar-winning performance). It turns out that the transgender Rayon was a fictional creation meant to showcase Woodroof’s developing tolerance for the LGBTQ+ community.
Released: 2011
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “When your enemy’s making mistakes, don’t interrupt him. Let him keep going. Say, ‘Thank you.'”
It’s Moneyball time! Yes, Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) really did use analytics to build a winning team in the early ’00s and subsequently ushered in a new baseball mentality. But the truth behind the team’s success in 2002 wasn’t so simple. Many experts in the sport insist that the film, co-written by Aaron Sorkin, left gaping holes in the narrative as a way to maintain its “Cinderella story.” (There were indeed a few stud players among the also-rans.)
Also, please note: Jonah Hill’s Peter Brand—the economics whiz who introduces the idea of using analytics—is a composite character heavily based on Beane’s real-life colleague Paul DePodesta.
Released: 2001
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “I am only here tonight because of you. You are the only reason I am. You are all my reasons.”
A Beautiful Mind is a fascinating biopic about the life of Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash Jr. (Russell Crowe). The film correctly presents Nash as a gifted mathematician who spent most of his life battling mental illness. But despite its box-office success and Best Picture win in 2002, many critics have blasted the film for its historic inaccuracies. In addition to poorly portraying Nash’s paranoid delusions, the film ignores the nuances of Nash’s complicated relationship with his wife, Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly).
The truth? Although Nash married Larde in 1957, they divorced three years later. After several decades of living together platonically, the couple remarried in 2001.
Released: 1976
Rated: PG
Memorable quote: “Get out your notebook, there’s more. Your lives are in danger.”
The quintessential cinematic account of the Watergate scandal, All the President’s Men is based on the book of the same name by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman). The film documents the eventual downfall of President Richard Nixon, starting from the 1972 break-in at the Watergate complex, followed by Woodward and Bernstein’s meticulous reporting of the corruption within the Nixon administration that culminated in Nixon’s resignation. Alas, the identity of the mysterious “Deep Throat” source wouldn’t be revealed until three decades after the film’s release.
Released: 2014
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “Our lives are not fully lived if we’re not willing to die for those we love, for what we believe.”
Presenting Selma, Ava DuVernay’s critically acclaimed drama about the historic 1965 voting-rights march led by Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. DuVernay doesn’t avoid depicting the brutal attacks the marchers received at the hands of Alabama state troopers that Bloody Sunday. And a line from John Lewis (Stephan James) during crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge still haunts. In response to being asked if he can swim, the future Georgia congressman says there weren’t any pools open to Black people where he grew up. That line of dialogue came directly from Lewis’s must-read memoir.
Released: 2000
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “So before you come back here with another [lame] offer, I want you to think real hard about what your spine is worth, Mr. Walker. Or what you might expect someone to pay you for your uterus, Ms. Sanchez. Then you take out your calculator and you multiply that number by 100. Anything less than that is a waste of our time.”
Julia Roberts won an Oscar for her portrayal of environmental crusader Erin Brockovich in this beloved biopic. The film presents Erin as an undereducated yet super-savvy single mom of three who talks her way into a legal-clerk job. She quickly discovers that a major energy corporation is knowingly contaminating the groundwater in a small California town. Soon, Erin is leading a class-action suit against Pacific Gas and Electric without so much as a law degree.
According to the real Erin Brockovich, the film was “98%” accurate: While Roberts’s Erin was a former Miss Wichita, Brockovich herself never held a beauty-queen title from Kansas. She was, in actuality, a former Miss Pacific Coast.
Released: 2000
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “If you think Mick Jagger will still be out there trying to be a rock star at age 50, then you are sadly, sadly mistaken.”
Boasting an excellent soundtrack and very memorable movie quotes, Almost Famous is a semi-autobiographical film based on writer-director Cameron Crowe’s experiences as a teenage reporter for Rolling Stone in the 1970s. While Crowe did indeed cover acts like the Eagles, Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers Band, he made most of his main characters fictional. This included his 15-year-old alter ego, William Miller (Patrick Fugit); Kate Hudson’s ethereal groupie, Penny Lane; and the rock band at the center of the movie’s story, Stillwater. That said, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s sardonic music critic, Lester Bangs—who serves as William’s sardonic tour guide through the debauched world of rock ‘n’ roll—was very much the real deal.
Released: 2020
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “They don’t care nothin’ about me. All they want is my voice. Well, I done learned that. And they gonna treat me the way I wanna be treated, no matter how much it hurt them.”
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is more dramatization than direct reenactment, but it’s a stellar addition to Netflix’s selection of movies based on true stories. The film is an adaptation of August Wilson’s 1982 play of the same name, which depicts a fractious 1927 recording session by famed blues singer Ma Rainey (Viola Davis). Although the plot is entirely fictional, the film’s moments continue to resonate. Rainey is constantly fighting for control over her career from her White male producer and manager. Meanwhile, Rainey’s trumpeter, the fictional Levee—played by the great Chadwick Boseman, in his final role—is pushing for his own musical ideas despite constant pushback.
Released: 1990
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”
Martin Scorsese’s mafia masterpiece Goodfellas is everything a gangster movie should be: A little drama, a little humor (“How am I funny?”), a lot of shocking violence and one incredible three-minute-long tracking shot inside the Copacabana. It also features several unforgettable performances from the likes of Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco and the late Ray Liotta. The narrative follows the story of mobster Henry Hill (Liotta), who started his life of crime at an early age in the 1960s and rose to glory before eventually becoming an FBI informant.
In case you’re wondering, Hill had one daughter and one son, while in the film he had two daughters. But Hill, who died in 2012, described the film as mostly accurate.
Released: 2002
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “I never went to medical school. I’m not a lawyer, or a Harvard graduate, or a Lutheran. Brenda, I ran away from home a year and a half ago when I was 16.”
Leonardo DiCaprio plays con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. through the ages in the rollicking Catch Me If You Can. Frank started passing bad checks as a teenager, then passed himself off as a pilot, a lawyer and a doctor all over the country before he was apprehended in France at age 21. While Abagnale and his crimes are real, the film may be a bit of a con too. It was always known that Tom Hanks’s dogged FBI agent, Carl Hanratty, was an invented character. And a book published in 2021 suggests that most of Abagnale’s story was fabricated. One example: Public records prove that Abagnale was in prison during the time he was supposedly globe-trotting as an airline pilot.
Released: 2014
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.”
The Theory of Everything chronicles theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne in an Oscar-winning performance) and his tumultuous relationship with his first wife, Jane (Felicity Jones). Hawking, as depicted in the movie, suffered from a degenerative motor neuron disease that robbed him of his ability to speak and move almost all of his body. The scene in which Jane and Hawking try to communicate through a spelling board, shortly after Hawking has lost his voice, is a heartbreaking one. Still, The Theory of Everything doesn’t avoid the difficulties in the Hawking’s 30-year marriage, which ended in divorce in 1995. (Hawking died in 2018.)
Released: 2021
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “The Irish were born for leaving. Otherwise, the rest of the world would have no pubs.”
Kenneth Branagh’s critically acclaimed Belfast is a lovely coming-of-age story based on his loving yet tumultuous childhood. The film’s protagonist, Buddy (Jude Hill), is a 9-year-old boy living among the sectarian violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969. Branagh has said that this setting, and the subsequent decision by Buddy’s father to move the family to England, very closely mirrored his experiences.
There are so many reasons Belfast belongs on any list of the best Irish movies. But if we had to pick one, it would have to be the joyful performance of “Everlasting Love” by Buddy’s Ma and Pa (played by Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe).
Released: 2010
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “You really don’t need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this. If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.”
“A movie about Facebook” seemed ill-conceived in theory, but The Social Network turned out to be a dynamic and timeless classic. Jesse Eisenberg is pitch-perfect as the obnoxiously arrogant Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, who, in the movie, ostensibly invents Facebook as a way to meet women after being dumped by a girlfriend. (Zuckerberg maintains he was dating now-wife Priscilla Chan before Facebook even existed).
The film also takes liberties with Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who’s portrayed as a Zuckerberg confidante later unfairly removed from the company. The reality was a bit more complicated, as Saverin ran unauthorized ads on Facebook for a rival outlet. Alas, Saverin signed a nondisclosure agreement upon his settlement with Zuckerberg, so the truth is not posted.
P.S.—A sequel is reportedly on the way!
Released: 2018
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “I’m a 51-year-old who likes cats better than people.”
Leave it to a real-life writer to whip up fantastical tales. For Can You Ever Forgive Me? the Oscar-nominated Melissa McCarthy stars as charming curmudgeon Lee Israel. Down on her luck in a fly-infested apartment and unable to secure an advance on her forthcoming book about Funny Girl inspiration Fanny Brice, the New York City writer resorts to forging letters from deceased celebrities (including Brice) and selling them to collectors and local bookstores. She even corrals a fellow thief (Richard E. Grant) to help her. The FBI ultimately catches on, and Lee receives her comeuppance.
For the rest of the story, read Israel’s 2008 memoir of the same name. It turns out the film is highly accurate, with Lee really needing money to treat her sick cat.
Released: 2010
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “I have a right to be heard! I have a voice!”
The King’s Speech is an inspirational story of how King George VI (Colin Firth)—Queen Elizabeth II’s father—overcame a debilitating stutter just in time to lead the United Kingdom in World War II. Its main focus is the relationship between the king and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who draws out his royal client’s deep-seated traumas as a form of healing. A critical darling, it defeated The Social Network for the Best Picture Oscar in 2011.
However, like many films based on the royals, it uses historical details only as a basic structure. To start? Here, His Majesty and Logue didn’t start working together until around 1936 and initially clashed with each other. In reality, Logue and the future king had known each other since 1926, and they got along almost instantly.
Released: 2002
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “If I’m going to die, I prefer to die in my own home. I’m staying put.”
The Pianist is based on the autobiography of the same name by a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor and musician named Wladyslaw Szpilman. Szpilman is portrayed by Adrien Brody, who gives an indelible, Oscar-winning performance of a man determined to survive the Nazi-sanctioned killings of his people. There are many gut-wrenching scenes, but the standout is one of the few hopeful ones: A starving, disheveled Szpilman is discovered by a German officer—and instead of being arrested, Szpilman is invited to play the piano (Chopin’s “Ballade in G Minor”), offering both men a brief respite from their mutual despair. It was directed by Roman Polanski, who escaped from the Krakow ghetto as a child.
Released: 1989
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “You can march like the White man, you can talk like him. You can sing his songs, you can even wear his suits. But, you ain’t never gonna be nothing to him, than an ugly [ … ] chimp in a blue suit.”
By nature, war movies based on true stories are both informative and gut-wrenching. That includes Glory, a tribute to the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, which was one of the first Black regiments in the Civil War. While most of the characters in the film are fictional—the exception is Matthew Broderick’s character, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, who commanded the 54th regiment—Glory‘s impact can’t be denied. Denzel Washington earned his first Academy Award for his performance as Private Silas Trip, a formerly enslaved man who, in an evocative scene, is publicly whipped for procuring basic necessities for his fellow soldiers.
Released: 2019
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “You always charge a guy with a gun! With a knife, you run away.”
Considering The Irishman is a gangster movie directed by Martin Scorsese and stars both Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as actual mobsters—labor union official Frank Sheeran and labor leader Jimmy Hoffa, respectively—the quality is considerably high. (The film also features a rare latter-day acting performance from Joe Pesci.) But even Scorsese has admitted that a compelling story was more important than the actual history. To wit, the movie is based on I Heard You Paint Houses, a controversial 2004 book by former homicide detective Charles Brandt. The controversy? Many of Sheeran’s claims about his involvement in Hoffa’s mysterious 1975 death have been refuted by investigative reporters and FBI agents.
Released: 1995
Rated: PG
Memorable quote: “Houston, we have a problem.”
Houston, we have a compelling and feel-good movie. In April 1970, the Apollo 13 lunar mission—helmed by astronauts Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton)—is unexpectedly aborted after an onboard explosion. The shuttle begins losing oxygen and its electrical supply rapidly, forcing the astronauts into a race against time to return to Earth safely.
While Apollo 13 received widespread praise for its accuracy (not to mention its heart-racing sequences in space), it turns out that Lovell never delivered the iconic line “Houston, we have a problem.” Instead, Swigert gave the SOS to Mission Control by saying, “OK, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”
Released: 2019
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “This city, this whole country, is a strip club. You’ve got people tossing the money, and people doing the dance.”
The absurdly entertaining Hustlers chronicles the story of several enterprising New York City exotic dancers who, in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, scammed finance bros by getting them blackout high on drugs and letting them ring up their credit card spending. There’s a valuable lesson in here, as the women get too greedy in their quest to topple the patriarchy and achieve the American dream.
As for accuracy? Adapted from Jessica Pressler’s 2015 New York magazine article “The Hustlers at Scores,” the film’s main characters are fictional, but the backstories of Destiny (Constance Wu) and Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) closely resemble some of those of the real-life women profiled in Pressler’s article.
Released: 2012
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “I’m going to smoke everyone involved in this op, and then I’m going to kill bin Laden.”
Zero Dark Thirty is a riveting dramatization of the manhunt and military raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. The film stars Jessica Chastain as Maya, a CIA analyst who was key in tracking down the terrorist behind 9/11 at his Pakistan compound. For privacy reasons, the characters in Zero Dark Thirty, including Maya, are fictional, even though many are based on actual CIA operatives and military personnel directly involved in the bin Laden mission. Chastain’s performance as the tenacious Maya, as well as director Kathryn Bigelow’s tense recreation of the Navy SEALs’ infiltration of bin Laden’s compound, makes this one a must-watch.
Released: 2018
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “God bless White America.”
We’re in the 1970s. Ron Stallworth, the first Black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department, has managed to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan through a series of phone calls and a colleague who served as Stallworth’s in-person proxy. BlacKkKlansman, director Spike Lee’s powerful adaptation of Stallworth’s memoir, illustrates how volatile race relations in the early 1970s remains relevant today.
While real-life figures like Stallworth (John David Washington) and Klan Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace) are central to the story, the character of Detective Philip “Flip” Zimmerman (Adam Driver) is a fictional stand-in for Stallworth’s top-secret inside man. He doesn’t reveal his identity in the original memoir either.
Released: 2014
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes … hollow.”
The Imitation Game, which centers on English cryptographer Alan Turing, is equal parts enthralling and devastating. Benedict Cumberbatch embodies the brilliant mathematician who decrypted the German military code machine Enigma during World War II. (Turing’s work in code-breaking is believed to have accelerated the Allied victory.) But Cumberbatch leaves an unforgettable impression on audiences in the way he tackles Turing’s lifelong misery as a gay man living in a country where homosexuality was a crime. By the film’s final gut-wrenching scene, Turing is a shell of his former self. The real Turing took his own life in 1954, as homosexuality wasn’t legalized in the U.K. until 1967.
Released: 2009
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “You threaten my son, you threaten me. You so much as cross into downtown, you will be sorry. I’m in a prayer group with the D.A., I’m a member of the NRA, and I am always packing.”
You don’t have to be a sports fan—or even or even a fan of sports movies based on true stories—to fall in love with The Blind Side. That’s because, at its core, The Blind Side tackles how family comes in all different forms. It’s the poignant tale of NFL star Michael Oher, a poverty-stricken Memphis teenager taken in by the wealthy Touhy family. Oscar winner Sandra Bullock plays the tough-as-nails matriarch Leigh Ann Touhy, who showers Michael with equal doses of love and motivation and helps him to achieve his full potential on-and-off the field. As demonstrated during a pressure cooker of a game, Leigh Ann will go full mama bear on anyone who dares to trash-talk her adopted son.
Sorry to say that the real-life story is much messier: In 2023, Oher sued the Touhy family, alleging that they misrepresented their relationship with him in the film, as well as profited off his life story without compensating him properly.
Released: 2015
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.”
The mark of a great movie about journalism? There’s no eleventh-hour plot twist—and the facts arise from painstaking reporting, not invented shock value. That’s what makes Spotlight such a stellar effort. It picked up a Best Picture Oscar for its unglamorous dramatization of the Boston Globe‘s 2001 investigation into the Catholic Church’s widespread and systemic pattern of sexual abuse. Led by an all-star cast, including Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Stanley Tucci, Spotlight authentically portrays the real-life clergy, lawyers and Globe reporters involved in the groundbreaking case.
Released: 1979
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “I’m coming apart! Oh, mother of God, I’m coming apart!”
Horror movies are creepy enough. Knowing that The Amityville Horror is based on a true story majorly ups the fear factor. In 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered six of his family members in their Amityville, New York, home. About a year later, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the DeFeo house with their three young children. This horror entry depicts the paranormal activity that the Lutzes allegedly experienced during their brief stay in the house. From the moment they move in, George (James Brolin) and Kathy (Margot Kidder) are made to feel unwelcome by the house’s malevolent spirits, whether it’s a swarm of flies besieging a kindly priest (Rod Steiger) or streams of blood dripping down the walls.
Although there’s never been any solid proof of the Lutz family’s claims, The Amityville Horror remains a chilling good time.
Released: 2003
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “I’m not a bad person. I’m a real good person.”
Charlize Theron is nearly unrecognizable as Aileen Wuornos in Monster, and her deep commitment to the character earned her a well-deserved Academy Award. Theron portrays the real-life Florida sex worker who murdered seven of her male clients between 1989 and 1990 before being executed in 2002. And yet, Wuornos is not portrayed as a reckless antihero. We instead learn that she was neglected and sexually abused by her family members, and she grew up without any kind of stability. However, there is one invented scene: Wuornos did not embarked on her killing spree following a brutal rape by one of her clients.
Released: 2003
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “The horse is too small, the jockey too big, the trainer too old, and I’m too dumb to know the difference.”
Seabiscuit is one of those book-to-movie adaptations that will warm your heart for days. Based on Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand, it stars Jeff Bridges, Tobey Maguire and Chris Cooper as the ragtag team behind an unlikely Depression-era champion racehorse. While Seabiscuit‘s inspirational story is a true one—no one ever expected such a small horse to become such a big winner—there is some heightened dramatic tension. Most notably, the decision to portray jockey Red Pollard (Maguire) getting injured immediately before a major race isn’t quite accurate. Pollard was injured, but that occurred months beforehand.
Released: 2006
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “Hi, Mom, it’s me. I’m on the plane that’s been hijacked. I’m just calling to tell you that I love you, and goodbye.”
When terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial flights on Sept. 11, 2001, one plane failed to hit its intended target: United Airlines Flight 93. Instead of striking the Capitol building or the White House (the exact Washington, D.C., location remains unknown), the plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone onboard. United 93 attempts to piece together the events that led to the heroic, in-flight struggle that ultimately diverted the plane away from Washington.
The film uses the 9/11 Commission Report (that included several of the passengers’ last phone calls from the plane) as source material, though the climactic scene depicting the fight to retake the plane in the cockpit had to be left to the filmmakers’ discretion. Of course, that decision doesn’t make the scene any less harrowing.
Released: 2004
Rated: PG-13
Memorable quote: “There will be no rescue, no intervention for us. We can only save ourselves.”
Hotel Rwanda remains an engrossing study in human determination decades after its release. The film dramatizes how hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) used his connections to shelter more than 1,000 refugees during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which took place in the middle of an ongoing civil war in the African nation. Cheadle portrays Rusesabagina as a compassionate individual working tirelessly to save his family and neighbors.
Since then, Rusesabagina says he was kidnapped, tried and imprisoned in Rwanda for two years and seven months. After intervention from the U.S. and other countries, he was eventually released in 2023. At the time, he says he electronically signed a letter promising not to criticize the government.
Released: 2013
Rated: R
Memorable quote: “I will not die sober!”
Combine Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and a so-crazy-it-has-to-be-true story, and the result is The Wolf of Wall Street. In case it’s not obvious from that title, the movie takes a deep dive into the decadent, drug-fueled world of uber-wealthy finance bros. At its center is DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort, a young, eager stockbroker entranced by the promise of endless wealth who eventually resorts to corruption and fraud.
Because it’s based on Belfort’s 2008 memoir of the same name, it’s fair to say that the unrestrained drug use, numerous sex workers and countless criminal activities weren’t censored. Even an insane scene in which Belfort’s yacht capsizes in a storm in Italy and sinks actually happened. Do note, however, that Jonah Hill’s Quaaludes-addicted character, Donnie Azoff, is loosely based on Belfort’s real-life partner-in-crime, Danny Porush.
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