The Best Movies Based on True Stories (2024)

With apologies to Disney fans, you won’t find Pocahontas on this list of the best movies based on true stories. Not because it’s animated, or because of the story’s distance from reality (her actual name wasn’t even Pocahontas!), but because there are simply much better movies based on real events: just see A League of Their Own, The Big Short, or Marie Antoinette.

Sure, those movies have plenty of fictional elements, too; when it comes to translating “real” stories for the screen, artistic license and composite characters are just par for the course. What is important about the best movies based on true stories, though, isn’t that names and dates are precisely on the mark, but that the directors, writers, actors, set designers, and makeup artists create moments that bring us face to face with the events that have shaped our world. The best films have the power to make themes, characters, and lessons timeless and relevant to audiences today.

Besides, reality, as it stands, can be a little much—and at the end of the day, the Hollywood version is often more fun. We all need an escape sometimes, even if art mimics life and the truth is stranger than fiction.

The Sound of Music (1965)

Based on a memoir by Maria von Trapp (née Kutschera), Robert Wise’s version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical absolutely holds up six decades later. The songs are moving, Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer are charming, and the threat of Nazism is never not terrifying.

How to watch: Stream on Disney+, Prime Video

A League of Their Own (1992)

“There’s no crying in baseball!” That’s the memorable line from drunken, washed-up Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) when one of his players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which entertained sports fans during WWII, makes a bad throw and sheds some tears. There’s great acting from the coach and his players—Geena Davis, Madonna, Lori Petty, and Rosie O’Donnell—in this Penny Marshall-directed, family-friendly adventure through one of America’s lesser-known patches of sports history.

How to watch: Stream on Fubo, YouTube TV

Hidden Figures (2016)

This film is a window into Segregation by way of a Disney film, but it’s good! Celebrating the incredible—and incredibly relegated—Black female math minds that helped develop NASA at the height of the cold war, one of Hidden Figures’ many wins is its restraint. In this Theodore Melfi drama based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s book of the same name, you never feel engulfed in a crusade for redemption or subjected to melodrama. This is in no small part thanks to Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe, who head a top notch cast that manages to stay tethered to the earth while reaching for the stars.

How to watch: Stream on Disney+, Prime Video

Walk the Line (2005)

My big question about this film—for which Reese Witherspoon won a well-deserved Academy Award for her portrayal of June Carter—is why she and Joaquin Phoenix (who plays Johnny Cash) had to sing the songs themselves. The result is impressive, and doesn’t hurt this tender retelling of their romance and the early stages of Cash’s career, but it’s puzzling nonetheless. Feels like messing with perfection. At the same time, this is a near-perfect movie, so who am I to complain?

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video, Apple TV

The Big Short (2015)

I didn’t know what a “collateralized debt obligation” was until Selena Gomez explained it from a poker table in Adam McKay’s mesmerizing, incisive, and fast-paced exposition of the 2008 financial crisis, based on the book by Michael Lewis. While McKay employed less heavy-handed modes of explication in his previous film, Vice (about Vice President Dick Cheney), here he hits the nail on the head, spoon-feeding us terribly complex financial situations so that we can digest the stakes facing his well-constructed characters, played by the likes of Steve Carrell, Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, and Ryan Gosling.

How to watch: Stream on Paramount+, Prime Video

Elizabeth (1998)

Honestly, you can watch this movie just for the costumes. Yes, there is a heart-rending love story between Cate Blanchett’s Queen Elizabeth I and Joseph Fiennes’ Earl of Leicester. And yes, that would-be love story gets caught up in a dastardly murder plot that threatens England’s very sovereignty. But it’s fine to ignore all that—and even bypass Blanchett’s Oscar-winning portrayal of the Virgin Queen—and just absorb the glamorous, gold-laced frocks and astounding sets. Which, by the way, won Oscars too.

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video

Marie Antoinette (2006)

The people were eating stones in the 17th century while the queen shopped for shoes—how do you get an audience to swallow that? In Marie Antoinette, director Sofia Coppola moved away from the tradition of creating a classic historical drama and instead explored the interior life of a teenager with this candy-colored, sincere, and mischievous look at the young queen who wouldn’t be. Featuring Kirsten Dunst and a terrific, anachronistic score featuring The Strokes, New Order, and Phoenix, the film is about as much fun as you can have without actually losing your head.

How to watch: Stream on Apple TV, Prime Video

Ray (2004)

Quite simply as good as biopics get, mostly because of Jamie Foxx’s Oscar-winning turn as soul music pioneer Ray Charles, who struggled with his loss of sight and addiction—and ultimately defined not only an entire genre of music, but also how Black artists and their audiences should be compensated, valued, and treated.

How to watch: Stream on YouTube TV

Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

Adapted from John Guare’s cruelly hilarious play of the same name, Six Degrees of Separation features the best acting Will Smith has ever done and may ever do. Smith plays a young con-man who inserts himself into the lives of some pretentious Upper East Side art lovers. Told in segments by those conned, the story is based on a real-life con man named David Hampton who managed to insinuate himself into affluent circles by convincing people he was the illegitimate son of Sidney Poitier.

How to watch: Stream on Tubi

La Vie en Rose (2007)

From her childhood in a brothel to her status as the voice of a nation, the story of Edith Piaf— featuring the breakout, Oscar-winning performance of Marion Cotillard—is pitch-perfect. Depicted via a series of Piaf’s memories, the film takes us through her meager beginnings singing on a street corner to the pinnacle of her global fame, shedding light on her experiences with addiction, romance, loss, and everything in between. It’s beautiful, well-paced, and, as my own grandmother—a fan of Piaf’s—might say, “romantic as hell.”

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video

Milk (2008)

With Sean Penn in the title role, director Gus Van Sant brings us an engaging and emotionally compelling take on the political career of Harvey Milk, who became the first openly gay man to hold office in California when he was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. Real footage mixes with deft camera work to drive the superb storytelling, while stand-out performances from Penn (who won an Oscar) and the supporting cast make Milk the kind of film—and politics—we wish we had more of.

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video

Persepolis (2007)

A film that might reorder the thinking of anyone who believed they were a real rebel growing up, Persepolis is based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel of the same name. The film recounts her punk music-loving childhood in Iran under the oppressive shadow of the Iranian Revolution and then the Iran-Iraq War. Styled after the book, the crisp and clean animation is as vivacious as our heroine as she pushes back against her beloved home country’s oppressive sexism, intolerance, and brutality.

How to watch: Stream on Apple TV

Goodfellas (1990)

Since 1985’s After Hours, Martin Scorsese has looked to already-existing source material—a strategy that has had its ups (The Wolf of Wall Street) and downs (Gangs of New York). But every scene in Goodfellas will make you glad he took those risks. Based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi (widower of Nora Ephron), Goodfellas is the story of Henry Hill, who began working for the mob as a child in 1950s Brooklyn. With performances from Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, and even Scorsese’s own mother, it’s an absolutely gorgeous, vicious, riveting picture. And, as gripping and harrowing as this film can be (those uncomfortable with realistic violence should avoid), it’s also a masterclass in camera work. Never has a life of crime looked so good, literally.

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video

The Social Network (2010)

This story of how one rejected Harvard nerd created the social media company that redefined our lives absolutely jumps off the screen, thanks to Aaron Sorkin’s sprung-trap dialogue and applause-worthy turns from actors Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg (as Mark Zuckerberg), Armie Hammer, and even Justin Timberlake. The coup de grâce? An entrancing score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. (For an extra dose of fiction-meets-reality, watch the January 2011 episode of SNL hosted by Jesse Eisenberg, where he and Zuckerberg meet IRL; it’s awkward.)

How to watch: Stream on Max

24 Hour Party People (2002)

Shot in documentary style, Michael Winterbottom’s exciting and hilarious meta-narrative about the punk, new wave, and rave scenes of Manchester in the 1970s and 1980s is as fun as it is informative. Steve Coogan portrays Anthony Wilson, a BBC personality who both documented and played a major role in developing bands like New Order. The music is phenomenal, and the cinematography makes it seem real—but more than anything, this film feels like a window into gritty, intense, and rebellious worlds of music that suddenly feel immediately important.

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

What many people miss about Dog Day Afternoon—the story of a bank robbery gone very wrong, based on John Wojtowicz’s real-life attempted robbery of a Chase—is that it’s very funny and sweet, too. Al Pacino (as Wojtowicz) and his Godfather co-star John Cazale (as Sal, a fellow crook) have absolutely crackling chemistry, making this film a joy to watch—even as things turn dark. Fun fact: the real John Wojtowicz wrote the New York Times to complain that people might believe too much of the film, which he said was only 30% accurate.

How to watch: Stream on Paramount+

The Killing Fields (1984)

An absolute nail-biter based on the real-life experiences of journalists Dith Pran and American Sydney Schanberg, The Killing Fields delves into the horror spread by Pol Pot’ Khmer Rouge as they took over Cambodia in 1975 and began mass executing millions of political opponents, ethnic minorities, intellectuals, and religious practitioners. When Schanberg is forced to leave without Pran, he must use all his resources to get his colleague out before it’s too late.

How to watch: Stream on Netflix, Apple TV

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

In 1994, when ethnic Hutus began slaughtering Tutsis by the tens of thousands, Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, must figure out how to hide and house thousands of refugees. Tackling any subject as serious and involved as the Rwandan genocide of 1994 takes a careful hand, and director Terry George makes countless adept moves with assists from Don Cheadle’s and Sophie Okonedo’s sensitive performances. This film is smart, intentional, dramatic without being heavy-handed, but also truthful; we cannot look away.

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video, Tubi

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

A defining film of New Hollywood, Arthur Penn’s gangster flick about a real-life Depression-era bank-robbing duo (starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty) is as close as any major American film comes to being New Wave. A female gangster took the lead. The anti-hero archetype was challenged by Beatty’s Clyde. Their love had real flaws. The violence exploded. It all ended in an unprecedented and magnificent hail of bullets—and moviemaking was forever changed. (And let’s not forget the countless runway collections and beauty looks inspired by Dunaway’s iconic costumes!)

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Put plainly, Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning film based on the memoirs of Solomon Northup, a Black man born free in New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, can be difficult to watch. But therein lies its importance. Few films before have shown the horrors of enslavement as vividly or as candidly, and none compare with this film’s demonstration of the legal and religious justifications or delve into the unimaginable gender conflicts tied up in the horrific institution. Again, putting it plainly: this film goes deep.

How to watch: Stream on Apple TV

City of God (2002)

Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Paulo Lins, who grew up in Rio de Janeiro’s Cidade de Deus favela, the film follows two men who take very different paths: one documenting the crime with his camera, the other rising to become a drug lord. With shocking violence and terrible beauty, two decades of poverty are carefully brought into relief by directors Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund.

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video

Schindler’s List (1993)

People can debate whether the best way into a topic as momentous as genocide is documentary or fiction; in the history of film, there are excellent examples of the middle road taken—The Pianist, Sometimes in April, The Killing Fields—but Schindler’s List may be the very best. Steven Spielberg’s black and white, beautifully shot film about a Nazi factory owner who endeavors to save his own slave laborers from the death camps was based on Thomas Keneally’s historical fiction novel Schindler’s Ark, which relied on interviews with real survivors. Where the needle falls between fact and fiction matters less than the balance Spielberg strikes between demonstrating the holocaust’s horrors and creating complex characters not with melodrama, but subtlety.

How to watch: Stream on Prime Video