16 'Based On A True Story' Movies That Played Fast And Loose With The Truth
The more creatively bankrupt Hollywood gets, the more they rely on real life to tell the stories they’re too lazy to write. We’re maybe three or four Avengers away from a full-on reenactment industrial complex. The problem is that real life is usually a little too complex for a tight two-hour dramedy. That’s when Hollywood finds the power to make things up was inside them all along.
Braveheart
Military scholars have a lot to say about Braveheart’s battle scenes — especially that of Stirling Bridge, which, in the movie, did not contain a bridge — but the weirdest fact fudged is the age of Isabella of France. She was only three years old at the time of the events depicted, so she definitely couldn’t have gotten down with Mel Gibson.
Amadeus
Unlike the pair depicted in Milos Forman’s admittedly kickass biopic, Mozart and Salieri were at most friendly rivals. Salieri almost certainly had no hand in Mozart’s death, as he probably died of the same thing everyone did in the 18th century — lack of access to antibiotics.
U-571
Don’t bring up U-571 around any English people. Then prime minister Tony Blair called the movie, which depicts American forces capturing a U-boat’s Enigma machine, an “affront” to the British soldiers who not only carried out the mission before the U.S. even entered the war but died doing so.
The Imitation Game
Speaking of the Enigma code, Alan Turing wasn’t solely responsible for the machine that broke it, no matter what Benedict Cumberbatch says. Not only was his machine built in collaboration with other scientists, it was just a faster version of one that already existed. That’s the real imitation game.
The Greatest Showman
Don’t let the old razzle dazzle fool you. P.T. Barnum was an unscrupulous huckster that exploited the disabled and oppressed, who certainly had no love for him. Neither did singer Jenny Lind, who was much more modest and selfless than the hussy in the film.
Good Morning, Vietnam
The real Adrian Cronauer “faced more apathy than opposition” to his Air Force Radio show, probably because he wasn’t nearly as subversive as his fictional counterpart, being a “lifelong card-carrying Republican.” In fact, if he’d done what Williams did in the film, “I’d still be in Leavenworth,” he said.
Cool Runnings
The Jamaican bobsled team that competed in the 1988 Olympic Games was recruited from the country’s military, not its sprinting cast-offs. Also, they crashed due to excessive speed and driver error, not an act of God. They didn’t even carry their sleigh to the finish line.
The Pursuit of Happyness
Chris Gardner didn’t have it quite as bad as his fresher counterpart. For one thing, he wasn’t arrested for unpaid parking tickets before his big interview — it was for domestic violence. Also, for those four months he trained, he didn’t actually know where his son was, as his mother had left town with him.
The Revenant
The real Hugh Glass never had a documented relationship with a Pawnee woman, let alone any half-Pawnee children. He also didn’t have to sleep inside a horse and probably didn’t look like Leonardo DiCaprio. He did kick that bear’s ass, though.
The Sound of Music
The marriage between the real Maria and Captain von Trapp was more of convenience than true love, and the children described their roles as reversed — their father was gentle and supportive, while Maria was the hothead. There was also no escape in the dead of night from the Nazis — the family simply boarded a train for Italy.
The Boston Strangler
Unlike Tony Curtis’s portrayal in 1968’s The Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo didn’t have multiple personalities. One expert witness diagnosed him as schizophrenic, but others argue that schizophrenia makes the kind of planning necessary to serial kill pretty difficult.
Dallas Buyers Club
Dallas Buyers Club is the heartwarming story of a homophobe’s realization that he, too, can get HIV, but the real Ron Woodroof was openly bisexual. The film’s claims about different methods of treatment are pretty sketchy, too.
Flamin’ Hot
The only person who believes Richard Montañez invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos appears to be Richard Montañez. McCormick developed the seasoning in 1989, years before Montañez had the opportunity. He also wasn’t a janitor but a machine operator.
Titanic
Okay, okay, the little ditty about Jack and Rose never happened, but there were real people in James Cameron’s boat drama, including Lieutenant William Murdoch. In the movie, he shoots a bunch of passengers in a panic before turning the gun on himself, but in reality, Murdoch was a hero who went down with the ship.
Cocaine Bear
A Tennessee black bear really did get into a stash of cocaine dropped from a plane in 1985, but in real life, the movie pretty much ended there. “Cocaine Bear” quickly died of a heart attack before it could do anything cool.
Catch Me If You Can
It turns out rumors of Frank Abagnale, Jr.’s elaborate cons were greatly exaggerated. He never scammed nearly the amount of money he’d claimed, spent most of the ‘60s and ‘70s in jail after getting consistently caught, and only impersonated a Pan Am pilot for a few weeks, mostly to stalk a woman. Ironically, his most successful scam was conning movie audiences.
