Cinema has had a long fascination with portraying real-life stories on the big screen, either in the form of historical dramas or biopics. However, sometimes, even other genres, like horror and comedy, can directly or indirectly be inspired by true stories.
Some, like Schindler’s List or Hidden Figures, try to be as accurate as they can to the true stories they’re inspired from. Others, like Bohemian Rhapsody or Vice, tend to exercise creative control in fictionalizing a bit of history. Even fictional stories, like Psycho and The Excorcist, are inspired by true characters and occurrences.
Tag (2018) - 6.5
Tag is a simple comedy dedicated to old friendships. While it has all the tropes of a typical comedy and might not be that unique, it’s real-life premise is pretty unconventional.
As documented in a Wall Street Journal article, a real-life group of childhood friends meets every year to play an extreme one-month-long game of tag. The silly tradition reminds them of their simpler days of fun. The film dramatizes this story involving over-the-top traps and settings, creating a wholesome viewing experience.
50 First Dates (2004) - 6.8
50 First Dates might seem like just another Adam Sandler rom-com, but in fact, it’s inspired by a very heartwarming real-life tale of romance. Michelle Philpots was a woman whose memory was severely affected by brain injuries in 1985 and 1990. Desperate to get her love back, her husband reminded her every day of their marriage and tried his best to make her fall in love with him before she fell asleep and her memory reset.
The film stars Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore as a similar couple, as Barrymore’s character suffers from anterograde amnesia.
A Cry In The Dark (1988) - 6.9
A Cry In The Dark is a moving drama based on a real-life case from Australia. Meryl Streep stars as Lindy Chamberlain, a woman wrongly convicted in the death of her infant. The two-month-old baby, in fact, is killed by a dingo in the wilderness.
But the people around her are convinced that she and her husband had a part to play in this strange case of murder. Before trial, the couple was forced to confront merciless judgment from the public and media. The Chamberlains faced such scrutiny in real life and were acquitted just a few weeks before the film’s release.
Find Me Guilty (2006) - 7 (Tie)
Find Me Guilty is a film that displays Vin Diesel’s acting prowess to the finest. Instead of his usual action roles, he plays mobster Jackie DiNorscio in this comedy-drama. The courtroom drama covers the longest federal trial in history when DiNorscio is arrested for a conspiracy involving his crime associates. While the gangster had been serving another sentence for drug charges, he got offers to snitch on his peers for reduced prison time.
Instead, the loud-mouthed kingpin ended up representing himself as a lawyer and played a game of wits with the jury. Much of the film’s dialogue is directly borrowed from the original court transcripts. These real-life transcripts are filled with entertaining moments of sarcasm and bleak humor, as DiNorscio tried his best to win over the court of law.
Frank (2014) - 7 (Tie)
While Frank is a heavily dramatized story, the film’s screenwriter, Jon Ronson, based the titular character and his eccentricities on his own bandmate, Chris Sievey. Sievey was a strange musician who fronted the band The Freshies under the alter ego, Frank Sidebottom. As Frank, the singer often wore a giant paper-mâché mask on his head, making it a regular gimmick.
In Frank, Ronson tries touching upon his friendship with the musician, while explaining how the mask hid his insecurities. To show the mental health issues of the artist, he was also inspired by the lives of singers like Brian Wilson and Daniel Johnston.
Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (2002) - 7 (Tie)
This film is based on an unreliable account a real-life figure. Gameshow host Chuck Barris notoriously claimed that he was a CIA assassin for a brief period of time, documenting it in an autobiography called Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Some have seen it as a cheap publicity stunt, while others did try finding some truth in his account.
The CIA has denied all links with Barris, while Barris himself has been silent about the authenticity of the book or the film. Even if his stint at the CIA was true, George Clooney’s first directorial venture does dramatize the story a bit, to give it the tone of a spy-thriller.
The Terminal (2004) - 7.4
Steven Spielberg has a habit of making films based on real-life incidents. For The Terminal, the director chose an amusing tale of a man who lived in an airport for more than a decade. Mehran Nasseri is an Iranian refugee who was rendered stateless after the protests against the Shah of Iran in the 1970s. He claimed to have lost his refugee papers en route to London and was stranded midway in France, having made Terminal 1 at the Charles de Gaulle Airport his home for 18 years.
The Terminal crafts a slice-of-life drama and a rom-com out of Nasseri’s experiences, with Tom Hanks playing Victor Navorski, a stateless citizen from the fictional European country of Krakozhia.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998) - 7.6
Hunter S. Thompson was a writer who pioneered what is now known as “gonzo journalism,” a style of journalistic writing that is written without any academic claims of verification. To put it simply, Thompson’s writings resonated with a casual first-person narrative that could be partly factual and partly fictional. The very fact that most of his works were written under the influence of drugs makes one further question his objectivity.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a surreal depiction of Thompson’s coverage of a motor race in Las Vegas, as he engages in drug-fueled misadventures. This results in highly-distorted mind-altering experiences that Thompson has in between his writing, as the journalist is played to his weirdest glory by Johnny Depp
BlacKkKlansman (2018) - 7.5
Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman serves as a biting satire, a crime drama, and a biopic all at once, touching upon a heroic tale of one man who dared to go up against the Ku Klux Klan. The plot centers on Ron Stallworth, the first African-American policeman in Colorado Springs Police Department.
After a call with the Klan, in which he pretends to be a white man, Stallworth sends his Jewish colleague in his stead to join the white supremacist organization as an undercover member. The film is an adrenaline-fueled journey of taking down the Klan, with Lee’s screenplay hauntingly referencing modern America.
The Sound Of Music (1965) - 8
The Sound of Music might seem like a sugarcoated Hollywood musical, but the Von Trapp family and their musical pursuits were very much real. A classic family watch, the film shows a family who found a form of escapism in the middle of the Second World War when a woman leaves a convent to serve as their governess. Set in Austria, Julie Andrews plays Maria von Trapp, who introduces the children to music, married their father, and ended up starting a music troupe, of sorts.
In fact, in real life, the Trapp singers were a big hit, having performed in the United States in the 1950s. Even Elvis Presley collaborated with the singers at one point.
