Although I enjoy fiction as much as the next guy, there’s nothing quite like watching movies based on true stories.
I’ll never forget the day I saw Steven Spielberg’s film about a teen con artist (Leo DiCaprio) who cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks while posing as a pilot, a lawyer, and a doctor.
My jaw dropped when I learned that Catch Me If You Can is based on a true story. I thought that there was no way all of that could have happened – of course, I googled it right away – and it turns out that this kid did it all. Man, I felt like an underachiever.
Although Hollywood did stretch the truth here and there, as Hollywood does, the fact remains that Frank Abagnale is one of the most successful con men in American history. And his incredible life proves that truth sometimes is stranger than fiction.
Of course, Abagnale’s story is not the only one that got the Hollywood treatment.
In fact, some of the best movies are inspired by actual events. Like Schindler’s List, some of them immortalize extraordinary historical moments like when Oskar Schindler saved the lives of over 1000 Jews during the Holocaust. Others, like The Pursuit of Happyness, depict an uplifting rags-to-riches story.
So, if you’re looking for a fantastic film that is (almost) entirely true to life, I’ve got you covered. Please scroll down for my list of the best movies based on true stories.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
6 MEMORABLE MOVIES BASED ON TRUE STORIES
6. Moneyball (2011)
Sony Pictures
IMDB: 7,6
Available on: Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video
Cast: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Robin Wright
Director: Bennett Miller
If you’re wondering whether Moneyball is based on a true story, rest assured that it is! The 2011 sports drama is inspired by Michael Lewis’ best-selling book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.”
It is based on the true story of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), the general manager of the cash-strapped Oakland Athletics, who used a data-driven approach to get the A’s to compete with Major League Baseball’s wealthiest teams.
Billy Beane, you see, has a background in baseball, and he’s also an intelligent guy. He and his cohort Peter Brand (Paul DePodesta in the film, because Brand didn’t want his name in the film) went data mining and then used statistics (which most scouts ignored at the time) to choose players.
As it happens in the underdog stories, no one believed in him at first, but our once failed major-leaguer Billy Beane was not going to let that stop him.
So he got creative with sabermetrics and did the impossible: he turned a losing team around and called a century’s worth of baseball wisdom into question.
You show ’em, Billy Beane! (Is it obvious that I like that name?)
5. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Paramount Pictures
IMDB: 8,2
Available on: Netflix, Prime Video
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
Director: Martin Scorsese
We obviously can’t discuss true-story films without mentioning Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. The movie tells the story of Jordan Belfort, a New York stockbroker, and is based on his insane autobiographical book filled with wild stories and vulgar antics.
Even if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “This is about money. A lot of it”. And you’re right.
Back in the 1990s, Belfort – a guy with a limited financial background but a phenomenal salesman – pulled off a real-life stock-market scam that netted him over $100 million (now that’s what I call chasing the almighty dollar). He also enjoyed nothing more than blowing that money, and let’s just say he was pretty creative in his spending.
Belfort’s life seems so crazy that you must wonder if Scorsese took some creative liberties with the movie. He didn’t. The film closely follows the unhinged stockbroker’s memoir.
Now, Belfort is the epitome of an untrustworthy narrator because he’s always selling something (including himself), but the majority of the debauchery actually happened. Yes, even the most outlandish stories like Belfort crashing his helicopter while stoned and the midget-tossing competition are very much true.
Before being apprehended by the FBI, “The Wolf” made millions of dollars through his ploys. He pled guilty to securities fraud and money laundering, struck a deal to rat out his friends and colleagues, and served 22 months in federal prison.
After his prison stint, the white-collar criminal reinvented himself as a motivational speaker. He’s using the same skills and spinning the same yarns, but this time, entirely legal.
4. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
DreamWorks Pictures
IMDB: 8,1
Available on: Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken
Director: Steven Spielberg
Leonardo DiCaprio plays an angel-faced teenager Frank Abagnale, specializing in impersonation and forgery in Catch Me If You Can. The plot of Spielberg’s enjoyable caper is based on Abagnale’s memoir of the same name.
Unlike Scorsese in The Wolf, Spielberg allowed himself some creative license, so the film exaggerates and overdramatizes certain events while remaining true to Abagnale’s life story. As Abagnale himself stated, the emphasis is on the “story,” and the film is “not a biographical documentary.”
It all started when Frank, a 16-year-old traumatized by his parents’ divorce, ran away from home and became a check forger. He had a great time doing it as well (sorry for the lady he scammed for 400 dollars, but LMAO).
The street-smart kid reportedly used eight identities, carried out numerous credit card schemes, wrote fraudulent checks, forged a driver’s license, and even a pilot’s ID and Pan Am pilot’s license for his ambitious schemes.
Of course, the fraudster was the target of a long-running but persistent FBI investigation.
After being apprehended and serving five years of his 12-year sentence, Frank was paroled on the condition that he assist the FBI in its fraud and forgery investigation. To this day, Abagnale works with the FBI and teaches at their Academy.
It’s safe to say that the man turned his life around. He didn’t just repay the money he stole; the ex-con is now regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on forgery, embezzlement, fraud prevention, and identity theft.
His private firm provides consulting services to financial institutions, corporations, and government agencies worldwide. A Hollywood happy ending, indeed.
3. The Pianist (2002)
Focus Features & StudioCanal
IMDB: 8,5
Available on: Netflix, Prime Video
Cast: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay
Director: Roman Polanski
Director Roman Polanski is a Holocaust survivor, and The Pianist holds a special place in his heart. When his mother died, Polanski escaped the Krakow Ghetto through a hole in a barbed-wire fence when he was seven years old.
Although Polanski’s return to the ravaged world of his childhood, the haunting drama is actually based on the experiences and autobiography of the musician Wladyslaw Szpilman.
Szpilman (Adrien Brody) was a Polish-Jewish composer and pianist for the Polish State Radio who miraculously survived the brutal Nazi occupation of Poland and the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto.
But make no mistake, this is not your typical Hollywood story about a war hero. Wladek was not trying to make a difference in the war; he was a man who lost all he held dear and simply wanted to live to see the end of the war.
And it was his fortitude, the kindness of others, and, of course, his music that enabled him to survive the Holocaust, the worst crime against humanity and a race ever perpetrated.
Against all odds, Wladyslaw made his way across Warsaw, evading Nazi death squads, when he finally came across “the only human being in a German uniform that I knew” – a German officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
After discovering that Szpilman is a pianist, Hosenfeld ordered him to play on a piano found among the rubble, and Szpilman could only do what he was told, which happened to be what he did best. The German officer, moved by his playing, helped him find shelter and kept him alive in the final days of the war by supplying him with food and blankets.
This isn’t exactly a happy ending, at least not in the traditional sense. Szpilman survived, but his friends and family were killed, and his beliefs were shaken to the core.
But in the end, he was left with something: an innate ability to play the piano. It was what ultimately saved his life and what helped him to put it back together again.
2. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
Sony Pictures
IMDB: 8
Available on: Netflix, Prime Video
Cast: Will Smith, Thandiwe Newton, Jaden Smith
Director: Gabriele Muccino
If you like uplifting movies based on true stories, then the already mentioned rags-to-riches tale, The Pursuit of Happyness, is the one for you. The great drama about fatherly love and chasing the American dream is based on the (more or less) true story of Chris Gardner.
In the movie, Gardner (Will Smith) is a hard-working freelance salesman and a caring father who struggles financially to provide for his wife and son.
When the constant strain of financial pressure becomes too much for her, his wife abandons him for a job in New York, confident that he will still take good care of their son (Jaden Smith). After that, Gardner’s life took a turn he had not anticipated.
He talked his way into an unpaid 6-month internship at a prestigious brokerage firm, desperate for a better life and a secure future for his son. But without a life partner and struggling to make ends meet, Gardner soon hit rock bottom.
He found himself and his son evicted from their apartment and forced to live in homeless shelters on good nights and public restrooms on the worst.
The two had to endure many hardships in the 1980s San Francisco, but Gardner kept pushing forward, clinging to hope that his hard work would eventually pay off. And it did.
Gardner not only became a full employee of his brokerage firm, but he rose from an entry-level job to the crown prince of Wall Street, opening his own investment firm, Gardner Rich, in 1987.
1. Schindler’s List (1993)
Universal Pictures
IMDB: 8,9
Available on: Netflix, Prime Video
Cast: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley
Director: Steven Spielberg
Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s epic historical masterpiece, is regarded as a watershed moment in Holocaust storytelling. The film, adapted from Thomas Keneally’s novel, inspired survivors to share their stories and encouraged others to listen.
During World War II, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a vain and greedy German businessman, saw a golden opportunity to make his fortune in German-occupied Poland. The initial plan of the Nazi party member was to manufacture goods for the German army while using Jews as slave labor.
However, after witnessing the nightmarish visions of the Holocaust and the toll it takes on the Jewish people, Schindler’s motivations shifted from profit to human sympathy.
The once morally depraved man finally recognized that his country was doing was wrong and decided to take action. Schindler bought, bribed, and sold everything he owned to save the lives of over a thousand Jews by keeping them employed in his factories.
Schindler’s List is a great and powerful movie based on a true story, critically acclaimed, and regularly listed among the greatest films of all time.
But, more importantly, Schindler’s List is a testament to those who survived the Holocaust and a memorial to those who perished. Its educational and historical significance is immeasurable.
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