[PJ-Comix]

Your turn. Name the most factually accurate movies you've seen and why.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Reefer Madness!

[Varsity Flight]

Twelve O’Clock High

Memphis Belle

The Battle of Midway (John Ford)

[Half Vast Conspiracy]

Top Gun.

100. Percent. Real.

[ZinGirl]

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.

[Drew68]

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.

[Perdogg]

The Lord of the Rings

[aomagrat]

“Spinal Tap” was a pretty accurate representation of the average heavy metal band.

[Varsity Flight]

Twelve O’Clock High

Memphis Belle

The Battle of Midway (John Ford)

Add:

Jim Thorpe, All American

and of course, Knute (with Ronald Reagan)

[TigersEye]

Conan the Barbarian. The ancient sites they’ve been finding in Turkey make it seem more and more accurate all the time.

[americas.best.days...]

Definitely Ed Wood. Definitely.

[INVAR]

Twin Towers is as spot-on accurate as survivors McLoughlin and Jimeno not only helped write the screenplay but were involved in the production from start to finish.

[Rockingham]

Your question puts the focus on history, especially war movies. With minor exceptions, Tora, Tora, Tora and The Longest Day were both highly accurate, with the studio and its principal executive (20th Century Fox and Daryl Zanuck) determined to get the story and visuals correct through a quasi-documentary style.

The later A Bridge Too Far took a similar approach, being based on a history by Cornelius Ryan as The Longest Day was. Although fictional, the 1945 war film They Were Expendable accurately reflects the courageous losing fight that American forces in the Philippines made against the Japanese in 1941 and 1942.

As is often the case, historical accuracy tends to undermine dramatic quality. Of all the movies referred to above, They Were Expendable is the most engaging. Virtually unwatchable are the accurate but leaden Midway and MacArthur.

[untwist]

Although the overall story was fiction loosely based on truth, I remember hearing WWII veterans who were there say that the portrayal of the D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan was very true to what really happened.

[a fool in paradise]

Plan 9 From Outer Space

“Can you PROVE that it didn’t happen?!!!” - Criswell

[prof.h.mandingo]

Midway without Chuck Heston and love story crap was really pretty good. Saw it when it came out. Whole fraternity turned out. We cheered like maniacs when we blew up the Jap carriers.
Old man was in the Pacific with the Seabees.
Another really good one is the FIRST PART ONLY of Gladiator with the Romans wiping out the Germans. A little showy but it shows the Roman war machine as it was during that time period. They really were the U.S. army of that period.
Hard to find but look it up on youtube is Waterloo. Using the Russian army and not caring if they got killed for real makes this one a must see. The aerial views of the British squares are fantastic.
Plummer is a great Wellington. All the classic lines from Nap. and Wellington are included. Just the shear scale is amazing considering no computer enhancement.
Zulu Dawn is another good one.
Not as accurate but I always will love Zulu.
The Patriot has some major problems, like pistols that are accurate at a ridiculous range, but the line up and shoot aspect of the first battle is pretty good. I know the siege cannons are not right but it does get some of it right.
Have fun.

[RedStateRocker]

“Titanic” was not *too* bad. ‘Apollo 13’ got most of the facts right from what I know, not sure as to the personalities.

I always got a kick our of ‘300’ because I think that movie is *EXACTLY* the way the Spartans would have liked to view themselves; obviously it wasn’t ‘accurate’, but I bet to a man they would have enjoyed it.

In the fiction sense, the one I would most like to see would be a dead-on version of ‘Starship Troopers’; *NOT* the POS of that name that was made, but if they’d just follow Heinlein’s book it would be an awesome movie.

[Inyo-Mono]

Having been a fan of movie Westerns and real historical writings on the Old West period from 1865 to 1899, I muttered under my breath “They finally got it right!” the first time I saw Tombstone. I have read hundreds of historical books on that period and with, as you say “some liberties with truth” it was very accurate to the time, the clothing, guns and holsters, language, and 19th Century feel, etc. were all right on the money.

[Hugin]

Zulu! is one of the most accurate ever. All of he battle scenes are meticulously accurate to real life accounts. The only liberty the writers took was the portrayal of the missionary. He didn’t have a pretty young daughter, and he wasn’t a peacenik as depicted in the movie. In fact he helped bring ammo and water to the soldiers.

Khartoum is fairly accurate, except for the portrayal of the Mahdi who was not western educated and had never been outside of the Sudan. Neither did Gordon go meet with him. Other than that though it’s pretty much factual.

[yarddog]

“A Man Called Peter” went right by the book and the book was written by his widow. It starred Richard Todd who had an interesting part in “The Longest Day”.

Richard Todd was really in the Battle of the Bulge and in the movie he portrays a guy who meets Richard Todd.

[central_va]

Shallow Hal