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What Are the Most Factually Accurate Movies?
Self | November 7, 2014 | PJ-Comix

Posted on 11/07/2014 5:43:15 PM PST by PJ-Comix

I remember reading about an interview with journalist Lowell Thomas. He was asked what he thought about the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" since he knew T.E. Lawrence and one of the characters in the film was loosely based on him. Thomas replied that he began to take notes when the movie came on the screen but quickly put his notes aside because the Lawrence he knew personally and the one he saw on the screen bore no factual resemblance to each other.

In fact most movies supposedly based on fact in reality are quite inaccurate so it would be easy to ask for your list on factually inaccurate movies. Instead, I am asking for your list of factually accurate movies. That is movies based on real events to come closest to factual accuracy.

Okay, I'll lead off. Because I read the book before seeing the movie, I would say "The Right Stuff." Some liberties with truth were taken but in general the facts of the space program were pretty accurate. Also "Nicholas and Alexandra" for the same reason as before, I read the book and the movie was mostly truthful except perhaps it did not show what a vacuous idiot Nicholas II was.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: g42; movies
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To: knarf

OMG! I remember that. Was played on cable not that long ago. Just wished it wasn’t in ‘musical’ form.


41 posted on 11/07/2014 5:59:55 PM PST by RushIsMyTeddyBear
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To: PJ-Comix

The Manchurian Candidate


42 posted on 11/07/2014 6:00:41 PM PST by King Moonracer (Bad lighting and cheap fabric, that's how you sell clothing.....)
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To: Kirkwood

good choices


43 posted on 11/07/2014 6:02:48 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: King Moonracer

The Manchurian Candidate

That one will become a horror classic.


44 posted on 11/07/2014 6:02:56 PM PST by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: PJ-Comix

Reefer Madness!


45 posted on 11/07/2014 6:03:23 PM PST by Lurkina.n.Learnin (It's a shame nobama truly doesn't care about any of this. Our country, our future, he doesn't care)
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To: PJ-Comix

“Much more accurate than “Pearl Harbor.” I was routing for the Japanese to shoot down Ben Affleck.”

Pearl Harbor was an awful, awful movie. I never could finish watching it. And Ben Affleck was the PERFECT awful, awful actor for such an awful, awful movie.


46 posted on 11/07/2014 6:03:36 PM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: DIRTYSECRET
How about Dr. Zhivago?

Based on a FICTION novel so how could it be accurate?

47 posted on 11/07/2014 6:04:45 PM PST by PJ-Comix (Coakley 2016!!!)
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To: PJ-Comix

Twelve O’Clock High

Memphis Belle

The Battle of Midway (John Ford)


48 posted on 11/07/2014 6:05:29 PM PST by Varsity Flight (Extortion-Care is the Government Work-Camp: Arbeitsziehungslager)
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To: King Moonracer
The Manchurian Candidate

In an eerily predictive sense, certainly so.

49 posted on 11/07/2014 6:06:11 PM PST by COBOL2Java (I'm a Christian, pro-life, pro-gun, Reaganite. The GOP hates me. Why should I vote for them?)
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To: King Moonracer
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich.

I have read the book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn more than once, and the movie, which you can now find on Youtube in 10 parts, or as a whole, is very close to the book.

50 posted on 11/07/2014 6:06:20 PM PST by Mogger (Independence, better fuel economy and performance with American made synthetic oil.)
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To: PJ-Comix

Top Gun.

100. Percent. Real.


51 posted on 11/07/2014 6:06:38 PM PST by Half Vast Conspiracy (I'm done being even remotely civil.)
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To: yarddog

“Turns out that the movie despite saying it was true, was totally made up.”

Yeah, I thought the claim of being “true” was a stroke of genius. It made me laugh because I had a not-too-bright acquaintance that vehemently insisted the movie HAD to be true because it SAID it was true, despite the fact by that time the Cohens had admitted it was all fiction.


52 posted on 11/07/2014 6:07:51 PM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: Osage Orange
I'd have to put "Pocahontas" up there, along with "Bambi."

More seriously, Roberto Rosellini made a number of movies which strove for historical accuracy rather than box-office appeal, such as La Prise du Pouvoir par Louis XIV (The Taking of Power by Louis XIV), which showed how Louis XIV made himself the real master of the French government instead of a figurehead. He also did a movie on the Renaissance and one on the Age of St. Augustine.

53 posted on 11/07/2014 6:08:18 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: PJ-Comix

I always wondered about “Sgt York” with Gary Cooper. I’ve done a bit of reading and it seems accurate. In any case, I truly enjoy the movie and Alvin York is a bit of a hero of mine.


54 posted on 11/07/2014 6:08:45 PM PST by ZinGirl (kids in college....can't afford a tagline right now)
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To: King Moonracer
The Manchurian Candidate

1984 as well - but then, Orwell was off by 100 years...

55 posted on 11/07/2014 6:08:52 PM PST by COBOL2Java (I'm a Christian, pro-life, pro-gun, Reaganite. The GOP hates me. Why should I vote for them?)
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To: PJ-Comix

Sir Walter Scot invented the historical novel where the characters and story are fictional but the setting is accurate.

I think Dr. Zhivago might quality as a historically accurate fictional movie.


56 posted on 11/07/2014 6:09:33 PM PST by yarddog (G)
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To: PJ-Comix
Goodfellas was pretty accurate except that they changed the names of some of the major characters and merged a few others.

Zero Dark Thirty was allegedly too accurate and some folks found themselves in hot water over that film.

57 posted on 11/07/2014 6:09:36 PM PST by Drew68
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To: Half Vast Conspiracy

no offense.....but are you being serious?


58 posted on 11/07/2014 6:09:55 PM PST by ZinGirl (kids in college....can't afford a tagline right now)
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To: PJ-Comix

The Lord of the Rings


59 posted on 11/07/2014 6:10:06 PM PST by Perdogg (I'm on a no Carb diet- NO Christie Ayotte Romney or Bush)
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To: mountainlion
Military training movies were quite accurate

Did you ever see "The Man From Lox"

60 posted on 11/07/2014 6:11:03 PM PST by aomagrat (Gun owners who vote for democrats are too stupid to own guns.)
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