13 Movies Based On Real Events That Aren’t As True As They Seem

The world of cinema has always shown a special interest in bringing good stories and biographies from real life to the screen. But for a film to keep the attention of the masses without becoming a documentary, it is often necessary to add fictitious elements to make the script more interesting, be it, for example, inventing villains and even changing the protagonists’ personalities so that many do not know what to do. what is a lie and what is true. These are the famous poetic licenses.

O awesome.club gathered for you 13 films based on real events that, in order to hook the audience, ended up gaining more elements of fiction than reality. Check it out!

The film, which won a well-deserved Oscar for Leonardo DiCaprio, was inspired by a man who lived approximately in the year 1700 and was called Hugh Glass, very popular at the time for his exploits. To avoid disappointment, maybe it’s good to clarify right now that the epic battle between him and the bear is real. Well, maybe it is… the truth is that it is not known if Hugh Glass really existed, if it was an invention or a true story that went through many fictional modifications, until it became a legend, before it debuted in cinema.

There is no document that proves Hugh’s existence, other than reports in the newspapers. What is speculated is that he was a pirate, who likely did not have a Native American partner, let alone children with her, as shown in the film, nor did he jump off a cliff onto a horse, we regret to report.

This film tells the story of Formula 1 drivers: James Hunt, played by Chris Hemsworth, and Niki Lauda, ​​played by Daniel Brühl. It focuses on the rivalry between these 2 legends of the sport in the year 1976, in which one of them was champion.

It also reports personal and professional events of these pilots. Did they actually compete in the aforementioned races? Yup. Were they rivals? Obviously, the 2 aspired to achieve the same goal. Were they mortal enemies? Definitely not! In fact, it was the exact opposite, the 2 got along very well. Niki Lauda said in this regard: “We were friends (…). he was a very competitive guy and very fast. In many ways, we were the same. I had a lot of respect for him at the circuit… He was a very solid rider”.

Furthermore, Lauda, ​​who died in 2019, claimed he was not as serious and strict as he was portrayed in the film, although he admitted to being more cautious than Hunt: “I was more disciplined than he was.”

The story is inspired by Chris Kyle, who, as the film’s name reveals, was one of the deadliest snipers in his country, earning major military awards. The film attempts to portray how his vocation success led to conflicts in his private life. The actor played the role so well, he received 6 Oscar nominations and won several awards. But to make the film more interesting, they probably had to resort to certain “excesses” in fiction, which took away some of the credibility of the narrative.

An important villain of the film is called Mustafa, a sniper from the rival country who, in a way, is an enemy of the main character. A somewhat unnecessary enemy, as it had practically no relevance to the protagonist in real life. Chris Kyle has written a book about his memoirs, and of all the pages he has devoted just one paragraph to Mustafa. He wrote that in real life he didn’t even know him: “I never saw him, but I learned that other snipers attacked a sniper in his country, I think it was him.”

Another important aspect in the film is the highlight indicating the “good” and “bad” characters. Okay, a movie needs a leading man to sympathize with, and it’s even better if it’s the handsome face of Bradley Cooper. It also needs a villain to create a certain tension. But since this film is based on a real war between countries, critics judged that, in this case, it was necessary to show that there were no “blacks and whites”, that is, strictly good or bad people, but a lot of grays in the story.

The film is based on the story of Philippe Petit, a famous French tightrope walker who, in 1974, pursued the incredible goal of walking on a rope that connected the tops of the Twin Towers in New York. And what a success! But why is it listed here, then? That is, he walked the rope and exceeded the goal, no one can deny it.

For starters, unlike in the movie, Phillippe took 6 years to achieve his feat, much longer than shown in the feature. Also, he didn’t do well on the first try, and after getting depressed about it, his girlfriend Annie had to travel to see him and motivate him.

By the way, far from being an unconditional girlfriend, as seen in the film, in these circumstances she reacted like many people when they saw her partner wanting to do an illegal activity and at the risk of losing his life (no one asked for permission to connect a cable to the Twin Towers and walk around): “I was scared. It was inhumane to want to walk there. I just wanted to say: Stop!”

As if that weren’t enough, the film omits a small detail about this relationship that, unfortunately, did not have a happy ending. After the victory to “celebrate” his triumph, Phillippe was unfaithful to Annie. This led to the end of the relationship: “I saw Philippe discover what it meant to be famous. He had an amazing time in his life and he was starting something else, a new life.”

Argo premiered in 2012 and won the Oscar for best picture. The story is inspired by Tony Mendez, a former CIA agent who participated in a major operation to rescue 6 American diplomats who were taken hostage with the taking of the US Embassy in Tehran (Iran) on November 4, 1979.

The rescue plan consisted of passing the 6 diplomats as part of a film crew looking for locations to shoot a film called argo🇧🇷 And as crazy as this plan sounds… It’s totally true!

But without falling into too many spoilers, we can say that the airport scene with all the challenges the protagonists had to overcome is actually totally false — we’re sorry if that was your favorite part of the movie. The truth is that the plane tickets that the diplomats managed to escape with were purchased in advance by the Canadians — who played a very important role in the rescue, although the film didn’t go into much depth about it.

Also, Tony Mendez’s character wasn’t going through a crisis when it all happened; in fact, he probably never went through a crisis like the one narrated in the film. He didn’t mention this in his autobiography, so this fact was probably a device used only to improve the plot.

The film was a blockbuster, but not without criticism. When ex-combatants saw the film, they said the story “didn’t give the fighters the recognition they should have received, but that it actually devalued them.”

One of the controversies is due to the fact that the film shows the fight between the pilots to avoid the Japanese bombers, although only the protagonists Affleck and Harnett are shown. “There’s a lot of fiction and Pearl Harbor and fiction don’t go together. It doesn’t make me proud. One would think they were the only riders up there that day,” said other veterans. For survivors, soldiers are not represented fairly.

Other details were also invented. One of the pilots was personified as dyslexic, although the real war veteran on whom his role is based was not; and put the Affleck character on Eagle Squadron, when American airmen on active duty were banned from joining the squadron.

All these details made the film take third place in the ranking of “The 10 Most Inaccurate Military Films Ever Made”. In this regard, the producer of the feature defended himself by arguing that: “We tried to be precise, but certainly the film was not intended to be a history lesson”.

The Titanic sank, of course. It is worth clarifying that Jack and Rose are fictional characters, so the beautiful romantic scene in which the protagonists watch the last sunset of the ship together is not real. But the truth is that the film has secondary characters inspired by real passengers, and one of the “fictional freedoms” adopted made director James Cameron need to publicly apologize to the family of police officer Murdoch.

During the film, the police officer accepts a bribe and commits suicide, after shooting two lower-class people. But witnesses said that that night the man helped passengers and behaved like a hero. “I realized that it was probably wrong to portray a specific person, in this case First Officer Murdoch as the one who had shot,” the director confessed. Furthermore, it is unknown how the vast majority of historical figures appearing in the film died and many of these scenes are entirely fictional.

The film is a great example of self-improvement and shows everything a father is capable of doing for the love of his son. And while he respected some important events in Chris Gardner’s true story, he also took some liberties. The producers omit the fact that one of Chris’ conflicts with his wife Jackie occurred over an episode of domestic violence, in which the police had to intervene. It was for this reason that he arrived badly dressed for his interview with Dean Witter; he was in prison for 10 days and didn’t have time to buy a better outfit than a paint-stained jacket and sneakers.

One of the saddest scenes in the film, where Chris is stolen a bone density scanner and he is run over while trying to retrieve it, actually never happened. It is also not true that in the Dean Witter Reynolds training program that Chris entered, he was not paid. He had a salary, although it should be noted that the income was very low, but enough to survive.

Finally, a minor detail is that Christopher Jr., son of the protagonist, in real life was 2 years old when all the events took place, and not 5, as in the movie. The reason for this change occurred because, in this way, the child could establish deeper dialogues with the father.

Catch Me If You Can is a film inspired by a young forger and imposter named Frank Abagnale Jr. The role was played with such charm by Leonardo DiCaprio that it’s hard to think that all of his criminal acts weren’t so successful.

One of the aspects that the film highlights is Frank’s love for his family, but the truth is that…