History Main / VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory

* In general Japanese game developers tend to have extreme liberties with their own Sengoku era and China's Three Kingdoms era, even more than the example of ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' above. Listing these games would be suicidal mission, but let's say the only exceptions are the strategy adaptations such as ''VideoGame/NobunagasAmbition'' or ''VideoGame/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''.

* Netflix's ''Series/TheCrown2016'' is loosely based on the reign of [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen Queen Elizabeth II]]. While the show is well-researched on certain events, it's unclear how accurate the show is in reality since the Royal family is very private about their lives. Charles Spencer, the brother of the late Princess Diana whose life story is featured in Season 4, had to remind viewers that the show is fiction.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTheTitanic'' and its sequel ''In Search of the Titanic'' (aka. ''Tentacolino''). The fact that the [=RMS=] Titanic incident is even referred to as a [[AluminumChristmasTrees legend]] is the least of these two films' problems. The first film actually has the audacity to have ''[[EverybodyLives everyone survive the shipwreck]]'', resulting in a rare [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools negative instance]] of HappilyEverAfter. And that's not even going into the subplots involving whaling, evil sharks teaming up with a whale-hunter to plan the shipwreck of the Titanic, talking dolphins, and a baby-faced octopus. (The last of whom being duped by the villains into placing the iceberg in the Titanic's way in the first place.) The second film drops any sense of relation to the actual incident left and brings Atlantis into the mess.

* ''WebAnimation/OnTheEdge'': ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vrkfSTLnA Death by a Thousand Cuts]]'' references the real-life case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta Junko Furuta]]. However, the criminals in this story ''do'' face justice while the head rapist is tortured by Shigeo for ''43 days''.

* ''WebAnimation/OnTheEdge'': ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vrkfSTLnA Death by a Thousand Cuts]]'' references the real-life case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta Junko Furuta]]. However, the criminals in this story ''do'' face justice while the head rapist is tortured by Shigeo for ''43 days''.

* The codifying trope is probably Jack Webb's Mark VII shows, starting with ''Franchise/{{Dragnet}}'', in which "the names have been changed to protect the innocent." His other productions, including ''Series/AdamTwelve'' also included the disclaimer that everything was based on true events, which is a trifle funny when the episode revolved around Jim's inability to tell jokes or Friday and Gannon's weekend sleepover.

The truth is a funny thing. It's slippery, it's not always [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution self-evident]], it can seem [[RealityIsUnrealistic implausible]], it can even be inconvenient, and more often than not it's just plain boring. Very Loosely Based On A True Story occurs when a writer decides that reality just doesn't pack enough punch in some way, and decides to improve on the historical record. Arguably, this has actually ''saved'' some, er...true stories. For example, ''Film/ThePatriot'' would have been two and a half hours of a group of Minute Men hiding for hours in swamps sniping English troops and then running away had they kept it true to the historical events of the time. Doesn't exactly sound riveting, does it?

** One episode of ''SVU'' combined two current events into one story, with the first half referencing a pregnancy pact, and the second half based off the story of [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Meier a teen who committed suicide apparently after her online boyfriend dumped her and humiliated her. It turned out that the boyfriend didn't exist and was the creation of the mother of the girl's friend that had a falling out with and created the boyfriend to find out what the girl was saying about her daughter.]] The account ended up falling into the hands of other people close to the woman.

** The episode where a husband's fight to remove the feeding tube from his comatose wife leads to his murder was similar to [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case the Terri Schiavo case]]. Needless to say, the people fighting to keep the wife alive are the killers.

** For example, in one episode that featured a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Ann Coulter, one character remarks that she "makes Ann Coulter look like a socialist" or some such remark. There was also an episode where a little boy who apparently got sodomized by a rich pale white guy who donates a lot of money to charity and whose parents deny anything because apparently they were paid off. [[Music/MichaelJackson Sounds familiar?]] Debatable though...
** The episode where a husband's fight to remove the feeding tube from his comatose wife led to his murder was similar to the Terri Schiavo case. Needless to say the people fighting to keep the wife alive are the killers.
** One episode of SVU combined two current events into one story with the first half referencing a pregnancy pact and the second based off the story of [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Meier a teen who committed suicide apparently after her online boyfriend dumped her and humiliated her. It turned out that the boyfriend didn't exist and was the creation of the mother of the girl's friend that had a falling out with and created the boyfriend to find out what the girl was saying about her daughter.]] The account ended up falling into the hands of other people close to the woman.

** For example, in one episode that featured a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Ann Coulter, one character remarks that she "makes Ann Coulter look like a socialist" or some such remark. There was also an episode where a little boy who apparently got sodomized by a rich pale white guy who donates a lot of money to charity and whose parents deny anything because apparently they were paid off. [[Music/MichaelJackson Sounds familiar??]] Debatable though...

** One episode of SVU combined two current events into one story with the first half referencing a pregnancy pact and the second based off the story of a teen who committed suicide apparently after her online boyfriend dumped her and humiliated her. It turned out that the boyfriend didn't exist and was the creation of the mother of the girl's friend that had a falling out with and created the boyfriend to find out what the girl was saying about her daughter. The account ended up falling into the hands of other people close to the woman.

* [[UsefulNotes/HistoricalPeopleToKnowInMLB Ty Cobb]] is victim to both this and HistoricalVillainUpgrade. He had decided to write a memoir in his final years as he was battling cancer, but his publisher chose sportswriter Al Stump as his ghostwriter, a newspaperman of dubious credibility [[https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/who-was-ty-cobb-the-history-we-know-thats-wrong/ who had been banned from several publications for fabricating stories.]] Stump interviewed Cobb for only a few days before he ghostwrote Cobb's memoir (against Cobb's wishes after he read the first draft, [[AuthorExistenceFailure but Cobb died before he could sue the publisher]]) and later wrote a famous magazine article about Cobb's final months depicting him as a murderous criminal. In 1994 Stump wrote another, even less complimentary biography titled, ''Cobb: The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball'', which shortly before his death in 1995 [[MoneyDearBoy he admitted he did for money]]. Beginning in TheNewTens, [[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-knife-in-ty-cobbs-back-65618032/ Stump's version of events has been debunked as fictionalized or heavily distorted]], and Al Stump has since been accused of widespread Ty Cobb memorabilia forgery, to the point that a member of the Society for American Baseball Research has asserted ''all'' of Stump's accounts of Cobb are highly suspect at best and ought to be dismissed out of hand as untrue at worst. Cobb was hardly a gentle soul by any means; he got in fights with hecklers, drank heavily, and pleaded guilty to assault charges on at least one occasion. However, much of Cobb's alleged violence and racism [[https://www.mlb.com/news/ty-cobb-history-built-on-inaccuracies-c178601094 was simply invented]], and he was well-liked and an advocate for baseball's integration during his lifetime.

** The play ends with Abigail Williams running off with Mercy Lewis after stealing her uncle's fortune; the epilogue notes that, "The legend has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute in Boston." In reality, this is at most an unconfirmed rumor: nobody actually knows what happened to Abigail, who disappears from all historical records after the end of the Trials. Mercy Lewis did go to Boston, but it was to live with a relative; there's no indication that her departure was abrupt or secretive the way the fictional character's was, nor is there any reason to think that Abigail went with her.

** In the play, Thomas Putnam is a greedy and conniving man who uses the accusations to increase his own fortune, while his wife Ann is succeptible to the claims because she has [[OutlivingOnesOffspring lost all but one of her children]] and witchcraft gives her something to blame. In reality, while some historians believe that a feud between the Putnams and another family may have played a role in their daughter's accusations, there is no historical evidence to suggest a scheme of anywhere near the magnitude of what the play attributes to Thomas. As for Ann, her heartbreaking loss is at least severely exaggerated; of the Putnams' twelve children, ten outlived their parents. (This was at a time when child mortality rates were greater than 10%, so the two losses, while tragic, would be well within the bounds of normal, not something so exceptional as to suggest supernatural forces were at work.)

* Similarly, ''[[VideoGame/ThreeDUltraPinballThrillRide 3-D Ultra Pinball: Thrill Ride]]'' is based on the RealLife Hershy Park {{Theme Park|s}}.

* ''Literature/ThePrincessBride'': Not the entire book but the [[FramingDevice Frame Story]] is entirely fictional but claims to have been [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis based on a previous work]] by someone named S. Morgenstern. This has caused a great deal of confusion with some people even telling William Goldman, the true author, that they remember reading the original book when they were young.

* ''Literature/ThePrincessBride'': Not the entire book but the [[FramingDevice Frame Story]] is entirely fictional but claims to have been based on a previous work by someone named S. Morgenstern. This has caused a great deal of confusion with some people even telling William Goldman, the true author, that they remember reading the original book when they were young.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/TwentyOne'' (and the book on which it's based, ''Bringing Down the House'') is about the exploits of a blackjack card-counting team based at MIT. While there was such a team in real life, many of the film's key plot points were entirely invented by the book's author (who also co-wrote ''21''). Most of the supporting roles are {{Composite Character}}s, with one possibly based on three distinct individuals, and the Causasian protagonist was [[RaceLift Chinese-American in real life]].
* Used InUniverse in ''Film/ThreeHundred'' -- the basic sequence of events is true to life, but the story is being told by a Greek storyteller who is [[UnreliableNarrator playing up the Spartans' heroism and adding fantastic elements to the story]]. The movie itself is obviously not supposed to even remotely mirror the real battle, what with the giant monsters, the fortune-telling oracle, and the goat-boy. However, the film was still criticized for historical inaccuracy concerning the bits the narrator wouldn't have any reason to lie about (''e.g.'' depicting the Ephors as priests of the Oracle rather than senior magistrates).
* ''Film/{{Adrift|2018}}'' portrays a young couple who get stranded after their boat is caught in a hurricane. The man gets injured, and the woman has to repair, sail, navigate, and tend to her injured fiancé. In real life, she did all of that except the last -- he had been lost in the storm at the beginning, so in the film she's just hallucinating.
* {{Parodied|trope}} in the trailer for Creator/TerryGilliam's ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBaronMunchausen'', which claims that "this story is based on real events. We have the movie to prove it."
* ''Film/AfterEarth'' was reportedly inspired by Creator/WillSmith seeing an episode of the [[RealityTelevision reality]]/{{documentary}} series ''I Shouldn't Be Alive'' in which a father and son crash their car in a remote area and the son has to go for help alone. The finished film takes some liberties with that, given that it's RecycledInSpace.
* ''Film/AguirreTheWrathOfGod'' adheres to the true story of Lope de Aguirre about half the time. While there are instances of ArtisticLicense throughout, the most significant departures are at the beginning and the end:
** The film combines Pedro de Ursúa's independent 1560 expedition, which resulted in Aguirre's rebellion, with a scouting party from Gonzalo Pizarro's 1541 voyage which in actuality was led by Francisco de Orellana.
** The ultimate fate of the expedition: In the film, [[spoiler:they're all picked off by Indian arrows and spears, one-by-one, including Aguirre's daughter, and it ends with a delusional Aguirre ranting all alone at the monkeys swarming his raft]]. In reality, a significant number of them survived the Amazon, reached the Atlantic, seized the Spanish colony of Isla Margarita, and invaded mainland Venezuela, where the rebellion fell apart in the face of loyal Spanish troops and offers of pardon to those who surrendered. Aguirre murdered his own daughter before being captured and shot.
* ''Film/TheAlphabetKiller'' was very loosely based on the story of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_murders three murders in the Rochester, New York area in the early 1970s]].
%%* ''Film/AmericanGangster''. Like many of the examples cited here, the basic outline of the story is true, but there are many differences. Film -- Lucas and his wife are childless, Roberts is embroiled in a custody battle. RealLife -- Lucas and his wife had a daughter, Roberts never had children. This is just ''one'' of many discrepancies.
* ''Film/AnAmericanHaunting'', being an adaptation of an adaptation of a southern United States folk legend, takes several liberties with the story, most notably [[spoiler:Betsy Bell's sexual abuse by her father]].
* ''Film/AmericanHustle'' was very loosely based on the events regarding the FBI ABSCAM in the 70s and 80s. At the beginning of the film it offers the disclaimer, "Some of this actually happened."
* ''Film/TheAmityvilleHorror1979'' is based on a real house in a small town where some murders had been committed; a family who later bought it quickly left, claiming it was haunted and the site of several strange phenomena. However, none of the other owners reported anything out of the ordinary (and the ones who did happened to be desperate to get out of their mortgage). Each subsequent adaptation [[{{Sequelitis}} took things farther and farther from the truth]]; the [[Literature/TheAmityvilleHorror original book]] chronicled several incidents that provably didn't happen, the film made more things up, and the sequels and remakes were entirely fictitious, but all claimed a loose connection to the true story.
%%* Practically any story based on Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, who was killed by the Bolsheviks with the rest of her immediate family. Practically every film based on her takes the approach that one of the many claimants to being Anastasia (usually Anna Anderson, or a made up person) really ''was'' the Princess/Grand Duchess. Considering that [[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/world/europe/01russia.html?ref=science&pagewanted=print the bodies of the last two missing Romanovs have now been discovered]], anything and everything that suggests Anastasia lived is now firmly in Jurisfiction. See DidAnastasiaSurvive.
* {{Parodied|trope}} in ''Film/AnchormanTheLegendOfRonBurgundy'', which opens with a title card claiming that it's a true story and "Only the names, locations, [[DistinctionWithoutADifference and events]] have been changed."
* ''Film/{{Anonymous}}'' is based on the theory that Edward [=DeVere=], the Earl of Oxford, wrote Creator/WilliamShakespeare's plays. Aside from how that theory has little to no actual proof behind it, the movie has no grasp of chronology, presents Queen Elizabeth as having multiple bastard children (she's known as the "Virgin Queen" for a reason), and generally presents everyone involved in such a way that if they had any living descendants, it would be grounds for a defamation suit.
* ''Film/{{Apache}}'': There really was a renegade Apache warrior named Massai (''a.k.a.'' "[[TheTropeKid the Apache Kid]]") who waged a campaign of terror across the US southwest on the late 1880s, and he was pursued by Al Sieber, Chief of Scouts for the 6th Cavalry. However, most the events of the film -- including Massai's attack on Geronimo's surrender, and the mawkish sentimental ending -- are complete fabrications.
* ''Film/AprilShowers'' was inspired by the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} school shooting, of which the writer-director was a survivor. It makes no pretense of actually being about Columbine (there's only one shooter, the school in question is called Jefferson High School, and so on), but it also doesn't make any attempt to hide that Columbine was the source of inspiration (the shooter shares the last name Harris with one of the Columbine shooters, some shots are stylized to look like security camera footage evoking the Columbine footage, the shooting pointedly occurs during the month of April, it was released on the 10th anniversary of the massacre, and so on).
* ''Film/TheArcher'': The plot is inspired by a real scandal in 2011, where two Pennsylvania state judges were discovered taking bribes to send juveniles into private detention facilities. All the rest is added of course. The film ends with a denunciation of having juvenile offenders put in prison for profit, stating it makes them far more likely to also reoffend and end up imprisoned later as adults.
* Spoofed in the '90s remake of ''Film/AttackOfThe50FootWoman'', where the scientist introducing the movie assures us that everything that happened is absolutely true.
* ''Film/TheBankJob'': The government at the time put a [[UsefulNotes/OfficialSecretsAct D-Notice]] on the whole thing, so the movie presents itself as simple speculation on what ''might'' have happened.
* The closing credits of ''Film/BattleOfTheBulge'' include this message:
-->''To encompass the whole of the heroic contributions of all the participants, places, names and characters, have been generalized and action has been synthesized in order to convey the spirit and the essence of the battle.''
* ''Film/BattleshipPotemkin'': It's true that the sailors on that ship did mutiny. But the scene where the Imperial soldiers attack the crowd of people and knock a BabyCarriage down the OdessaSteps is pure fiction, worked into the story for propaganda purposes. Which didn't stop one of the soldiers involved from coming to the police and confessing about a double murder after watching the movie.
* ''Film/ABeautifulMind'' completely misrepresents the work, career, family life, delusions, bizarre behavior, and cure of John Nash. Everybody in the movie is more sympathetic than the equivalent person in real life (the real John Nash's wife divorced him), but some critics think that the truth (that Nash recovered from schizophrenia without treatment by teaching himself to distinguish between hallucinatory and non-hallucinatory events) is too important to replace with an anodyne about loving families and putting your trust in psychiatrists and medication. Liberties taken with Nash's story range from the egregious (not mentioning Nash's [[NoBisexuals homosexual relationships]]) to ArtisticLicense (Nash's hallucinations were strictly auditory, but that presents obvious problems for filmmaking) to avoiding UnfortunateImplications (Nash's delusions of a Communist conspiracy were about Jews in real life).
* The 2001 drama ''Film/TheBeliever'', starring Ryan Gosling, is loosely based on an incident in the 1960s in which a ''New York Times'' reporter uncovered the fact that a high-ranking member of the American Nazi Party was Jewish (who killed himself when this was revealed). The movie is set in the present day and makes the closet Jew into a skinhead. The portrayal of this character and his psychological profile is largely fictional, but it was inspired by anecdotes about the real person, who seemed to oddly [[BoomerangBigot embrace parts of his Jewish heritage even as he scorned it]].
* The general premise of ''Film/BetterLuckTomorrow'' -- a bunch of [[AsianAndNerdy overachieving Asian American teens]] start a crime ring and murder a fellow student -- [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stuart_Tay really happened]], but the film changes their motivations and lifestyle, as well as everyone's names.
* ''Film/TheBigSick'' is based on the real life courtship of its scriptwriters, Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, with one major exception: Emily's parents play a major role in the plot, but in reality Kumail didn't even meet her parents until after the events depicted in the film -- the film version's parents are so different from their real counterparts as to be fictional characters.
* ''Film/BohemianRhapsody'', a biopic of Music/FreddieMercury, plays with the facts of his life, re-arranging the timeline, [[AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul altering interpersonal dynamics]], and inventing new people and events, including the movie's central conflict. ([[MemeticMutation Cue the obligatory "real life/just fantasy" joke]]). One of the biggest criticisms the film faced is that it [[ClicheStorm follows a pretty standard "music biopic" formula]] at the expense of the more interesting nuances of Mercury's lived experiences.
* ''Film/BonnieAndClyde'': Beyond the significant HistoricalHeroUpgrade it gives the eponymous OutlawCouple and the equally significant HistoricalVillainUpgrade it gives to Frank Hamer, many things in the film were flatly made up. The film's C.W. Moss is a CompositeCharacter of two actual gang members, W.D. Jones and Henry Methvin, and omits many other gang members. Clyde is portrayed in the film as impotent, though there's no basis for this in reality. A nasty car accident that left Bonnie with a permanently lame leg is not in the film, nor are the frequent visits they made to their families. Clyde's motivation for the gang's crime spree is portrayed as anger at the banks for their role in TheGreatDepression, but in reality it was over his abuses at the hands of both guards and inmates during his two-year imprisonment at [[HellholePrison Eastham Prison Farm]], and the gang often targeted small stores and gas stations rather than banks.
* ''Film/BootCamp'' is an amalgamation and fictionalization of stories from various "Tough Love" camps, without being a dramatization of any specific one of them.
* ''Film/{{Braveheart}}'' is only loosely based on the historical William Wallace and the events of his time. It's almost a sport among viewers to point out the many inaccuracies in the film, ranging from the idea that Wallace conceived Edward III seven years before he was born (when Queen Isabelle would have been 10 years old, and three years before she arrived in Britain) to the idea that Robert the Bruce instigated the Battle of Bannockburn immediately on hearing of Wallace's execution. The film {{lampshade|d}}s is a bit, when the narrator admits in the beginning that "historians will call me a liar," but the opening narration is the most fictitious thing in the film.
* ''Film/TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'' resembles actual history only insofar as the fact that a bridge was built over that river and it did get blown up. In real life, there were actually ''two'' bridges, and they were destroyed two years after their completion by an aerial bombing. This, of course, means the circumstances under which the bridge was blown up in the film are purely fictional. Director Creator/DavidLean was so unimpressed by the real River Kwai that he went to Ceylon to find a more suitably dramatic river. That should give you an idea how accurate the rest of it is.
* ''Film/BrotherhoodOfTheWolf'', surprisingly, was based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_Gévaudan actual events]], although the conspiracy angle was a fiction. It is still unknown exactly what was responsible.
* ''Film/TheBuddyHollyStory'': yes, there was a Music/BuddyHolly who had a band called the Crickets and died in a plane crash in 1959, but the songs he records in the film were done in New York City (and not in Clovis, New Mexico, where they were actually recorded) and the Crickets' names are all fictional (though this was justified since the real Crickets trademarked their name).
* ''Film/ButchCassidyAndTheSundanceKid'' starts with the screenwriter kindly informing us that "most of what follows is true." Some details are garbled (''e.g.'' the "Hole-in-the-Wall gang" was more commonly known as the "Wild Bunch", with "Hole-in-the-Wall" referring to one of their hideouts), others are made up (''e.g.'' the Sundance Kid didn't grow up in Atlantic City). The Sundance Kid was actually not known to have killed anyone prior to his final stand in Bolivia, though he is known to have wounded a few and certainly had a ''reputation'' as an excellent gunfighter.[[note]]The real killer of the gang was a man called "Kid Curry", which may explain the mixup -- they both had "Kid" in their names.[[/note]] And the deaths of Butch and the Kid in the famous BolivianArmyEnding are historically foggy -- all we know is that there was a shootout between the Bolivian army and two foreign bandits, who [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled shot themselves]] and were buried in unmarked graves before they could be identified.[[note]]There is some evidence that Butch remained alive several years after that incident and lived a quiet life, but it's very much inconclusive. And there's no particular evidence for the Kid surviving.[[/note]]
* ''Film/{{Cabaret}}'' is a film based on a musical based in part on part of a novel by Christopher Isherwood allegedly based on his encounters with one Sally Bowles. As a nice coincidence, Liza Minnelli ''greatly'' resembles the description of Sally in the novel.
* ''Film/CatchMeIfYouCan'' engages in this quite a bit. Besides throwing in a FreudianExcuse for Frank becoming a con artist and counterfeiter, many details from Frank Abagnale Jr.'s life were altered or added in the film. For instance:
** Frank's family life is totally different. He's depicted in the film as an only child, while he had three siblings in real life. He's also depicted in the film reaching out to his father between cons, whereas the real Frank never saw or spoke with his father again after leaving home. This drastically changes Frank's motivation in the film: his relationship with his father is so close that he can only stop his criminal lifestyle if his father wants him to, but his father (still embittered over the lack of support he received when his business went under) refuses and [[AbusiveParents uses his son as a weapon to get back at the government]]. In real life, Frank did what he did because he was good at it, and it was preferable to a real job or going to jail.
** Frank's quasi-friendship with Carl while he's on the run is entirely invented, although Frank and the agent who was chasing him did become friends after Frank was released from prison.
** Frank certainly didn't escape from the plane they way they show it in the film. For one thing, the septic tank on an airplane rarely detours into the luggage area. Frank does claim he did this in his memoir, but that in itself could have been an exaggeration (although he specifies the aircraft as a Vickers [=VC10=], which is one of the few where the trick ''might'' work).
** Frank was not finally caught in France by any cunning FBI work. What actually happened was that after he had gone to ground in a small village, he was spotted by a Pan Am stewardess on vacation, who notified the police.
* The 1936 film ''Film/TheChargeOfTheLightBrigade'', starring Creator/ErrolFlynn, depicts the eponymous charge during the UsefulNotes/CrimeanWar as the protagonist's revenge on a treacherous Indian warlord. That the Crimean War involved Britain fighting Russia hundreds of miles from India is irrelevant. In fairness, the film includes a relatively accurate recreation of the Siege of Cawnpore, and the subsequent massacre of surrendered British troops and civilians... which occurred during the Indian Mutiny, three years after the Light Brigade's charge.
* ''{{Film/Chariot}}'' is simply inspired by the fact that a Boeing 727, sitting on the ground doing nothing in Angola, was stolen by a mechanic, took off, and disappeared without a trace in 2003.
* ''Film/{{Chopper}}'' is based on Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read's memoirs, which are full of disputed or unverifiable claims. Some of it is true, such as Chopper earning his nickname by losing an ear in attack he staged on himself in order to be transferred to a safer prison wing. Other parts, possibly not so much:
** Chopper denies driving Neville Bartos to the hospital after shooting him, saying "it defeats the purpose of having shot him in the first place!", but he is shown doing just that. The real life inspiration for Bartos later offered a third version: the shooting never happened.
** Chopper claimed to have killed 19 various underworld figures, which he downgraded long after the film came out to "four or seven, depending on how you look at it". He was only ever tried for one murder, of which he was acquitted when the jury accepted his claim of self-defense.
* ''Cobb'', starring Creator/TommyLeeJones, is about the last days of controversial baseball legend Ty Cobb. It's based on the account of sportswriter Al Stump, who ghotstwrote Cobb's memoir and later wrote a magazine article about Cobb's final months. As a coup de grace, Stump wrote another, much, ''much'' less complimentary biography, titled, ''Cobb: The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball''. In the years since, Stump's version of events has been debunked as fiction. Cobb was ''not'' a nice person by any means. Among other things, he was viciously racist. However, Stump describes events that never happened, including an argument between Cobb and Ted Williams. Williams said this about Stump: "He's full of it." The movie, meanwhile, includes an attempted rape scene that not only didn't occur but was ''added by the filmmakers'' and doesn't appear in anything Stump wrote. [[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-knife-in-ty-cobbs-back-65618032/ This article]] outlines some of the falsehoods.
* The Hungarian film ''Film/ColonelRedl'' gives the eponymous figure an egregious HistoricalHeroUpgrade. The historical Alfred Redl was an Austrian spy in the early 1900s, and the Russians discovered his homosexuality and blackmailed him into leaking military secrets to them. In the film, though, Redl is an honest officer who discovers his superiors (up to and including Archduke Franz Ferdinand) plotting to start World War I -- and when he tries to stop them, the Archduke frames him for treason.
* ''Film/CoolRunnings'' is based on a true story about a team of bobsledders from Jamaica, in the sense that "in 1988 the Winter Olympics bobsledding event included a team from Jamaica." In real life, it wasn't quite as quirkly or dramatic. The idea came from two American businessmen, not the athletes themselves. The businessmen recruited the athletes from the military (so they weren't three sprinters and a competitive pushcart driver) and provided funding themselves (obviating the wacky fundraising antics the team resorted to in the film). The bobsledders' real names aren't even used in the film. The film portrays the other athletes in Calgary as [[TheRival jealous rivals]], whereas in real life, the other athletes were extremely supportive of them -- in fact, the film version's biggest rivals, the East German team, provided the Jamaicans with equipment and coaching in real life. And despite being feted throughout the city, they had only middling success.
%%* Films about the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies Cottingley Fairies hoax]] are sometimes played, at least relatively, straight or assert that Elsie Wright and Francis Griffiths did take photographs of fairies... despite the fact than anyone can tell they're fakes nowadays just by looking at the things. Even Wright's and Griffiths's admission that most of the photos were fakes doesn't stop this. Nor does the fact that the book that featured the fairy pictures that Elsie and Francis copied their own fairies from has been found.
%%** This happens in ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' where the fairies are part of an episode's back story, and at least one of the fairies in one of the photos is real.
%%** ''Film/FairyTaleATrueStory'' asserts that ''part'' of it was real; [[spoiler:the girls are portrayed as actually seeing fairies, but the fairies cannot be photographed, so the girls create paper models of what they've seen and photograph those]].
%%** ''Photographing Fairies'' has the hero, a photographic expert, prove that the Cottingley fairy photos are fake, but he is ''then'' presented with a set of fairy photos that he ''can't'' disprove. [[spoiler:And of course they turn out to be genuine]].
* In pre-publicity interviews for ''Film/CreationStories'', supposedly based on the autobiography of Alan [=McGee=] of Creation Records, [=McGee=] cheerfully explained that he'd just let Creator/IrvineWelsh do whatever he liked with the script. According to [=McGee=] very little of the film really happened, but it makes a good story.
* ''Film/TheDamnedUnited'' is a largely fictionalized account of Brian Clough's tenure as manager for Leeds United, first a novel by David Peace and then adapted as TheFilmOfTheBook starring Creator/MichaelSheen.
* This seems to be the main reason why 2013's ''Diana'', starring Creator/NaomiWatts, performed so abysmally with critics and audiences. The film is based on Princess Diana's romantic relationship with Dr. Hasnat Khan shortly before her tragic death. The real Hasnat Khan has come out against the film, saying that its depiction of their relationship was based on sensationalistic tabloid accounts.
* The 2009 Canadian TV movie ''Film/{{Diverted}}'' is comprised entirely of fictional characters, but the broad scenario it depicts is [[http://www.snopes.com/rumors/gander.asp entirely real]]: when North American airspace closed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, thousands of passengers on transatlantic flights found themselves stranded in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, whose inhabitants did everything humanly possible to provide for their needs and make them feel welcome.
* Lampshaded by ''Film/{{Domino|2005}}''. The trailer states "Based on a True Story... Sort of."
* The movie adaptation of ''Film/DonnieBrasco'' purports to be "the true story of FBI Agent Joseph Pistone's infiltration of the Mob", yet, to begin with, it invents events and characters, removes real ones, turns other FBI personnel into useless fools (one of the clownish characters in the movie was actually an FBI agent ''posing as a dangerous mob turf boss'' during the operation), and has Pistone [[HollywoodLaw engage in activities that would have sent him to prison in reality]]. (No, a real-life agent may not legally conspire to commit a murder.) Lefty, the movie's faithful friend, [[AdaptationalHeroism was in fact a genuine thug]], often despised by Pistone, and many of the positive traits of his movie character were taken from the real-life Sonny Black -- the only gangster with whom the real Pistone actually felt some kinship and considered to have a genuinely good side. He, in turn, [[AdaptationalVillainy was of course turned]] into a BigBad in the film... with his worst traits actually taken from Pistone's earliest mob mentor, a gangster [[AxCrazy whose personality was such]] that he was [[EvenEvilHasStandards feared and hated by other gangsters]]. Unsurprisingly, his character is completely absent from the film.
* ''Film/DragonTheBruceLeeStory'', starring Jason Scott Lee, claims to be the story of Creator/BruceLee's life, but it gets many things wrong, among them the timeline of his life, his "famous" match with Johnny Sun, his book's publication before his death, and the nature of his back injury. It also adds extra fights to the movie (such as one turning Shih Kien, who played Han in ''Film/EnterTheDragon'', into a covert Chinese assassin out to kill Lee), and invented an extra subplot involving a demon chasing Bruce Lee and his son in his nightmares.
* The film ''Film/EightBelow'' is about an American expedition in 1993 where almost all the dogs live. It was based on the true story of a Japanese expedition in 1958 in which almost all the dogs died.
* ''Film/TheElephantMan'': A few details are accurate; Merrick's age as Treves meets him, his appearance (it had better be, given the prosthetics were made from a cast of the real Merrick), the existence of Nurse Nora Ireland, the building of the cardboard church (more or less)[[note]]While the church really was made from recycled boxes, he did a lot of other building models that were probably from kits. This was a very popular hobby back then.[[/note]] and Merrick's death. But the central plot of the story is almost entirely concocted. To give Creator/DavidLynch his due, he was going entirely off Treves's memoirs, and Treves himself had a very different impression of the showman who had exhibited Merrick than reality would represent (the most obvious departure from fact is that the "Elephant Man" was actually called Joseph -- not John -- Merrick).
* ''Film/{{Elizabeth}}'' is a garbled mess of history, featuring people who were the wrong age (by as much as twenty years in some cases), people who should have been dead, and Elizabeth having [[ReallyGetsAround lots of sex]] despite being called the "Virgin Queen". Yes, she probably wasn't ''actually'' a virgin, but she did have to keep up appearances, and with all the maids and courtiers and others who surrounded her (and all the spies who would have loved to see some dirt on her), it would be very difficult to hide that level of promiscuity. A common rumor is that the director, who is Indian, was using Elizabeth as a LawyerFriendlyCameo for Indira Gandhi and her struggles to defuse religious tension, which might explain the... casual attitude to history.
* ''Film/TheEmeraldForest'' was about a cute little white blonde American kid adopted and RaisedByNatives in the jungles of Peru as his engineer dad searched for him. The "true story" is actually a mishmash of several different accounts, one of which is about a Peruvian child, the son of a construction worker. The [[RaceLift whitewashing]] was done avowedly to help the audience "relate" to a white father's anguished desperation, [[SarcasmMode as they couldn't have done if he'd been a brown-skinned construction worker played by a great Peruvian actor]].
* ''Film/{{Enigma|2001}}'': The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre Katyn Massacre]] definitely took place, and the British and US governments did indeed suppress evidence of it in order to keep their fragile alliance with the Soviet Union from falling apart, but the events as depicted in the book are entirely fabricated; the only spy to make it to the Bletchley Park station was British and passing information to the Soviets. The 2001 film takes it up a notch by cutting Alan Turing out of the film completely and assigning his role in the war to protagonist Tom Jericho, where in the book Jericho is a junior member of Turing's cryptanalysis staff.
* ''Film/{{Errementari}}: The Devil and the Blacksmith'' is inspired by [[DealWithTheDevil/FolkloreAndFairyTales the Spanish legends]] of a blacksmith's DealWithTheDevil, but the closing narration puts it in this category.
-->''And remember -- whether you believe what I told you or not, you should never let the truth get in the way of a good story.''
* ''Film/{{Evilenko}}'' is an Italian horror movie that is ''very'' loosely based on the crimes of Andrei Chikatilo, a Russian serial killer. The movie portrays him as a hard-liner Soviet with PsychicPowers, enabling him to lure his victims to their deaths. It even goes so far as to suggest that American or European agencies wanted to whisk him away in order to study his hypnotic powers but were denied.
* ''Film/TheExorcismOfEmilyRose'' is based on the story of Anneliese Michel, a young woman who was prone to seizures. Her very religious family and priests thought she was possessed and had her stop taking medication, instead relying on prayer and exorcism. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome She died]], not from seizures, but from malnutrition and dehydration from the ongoing exorcism -- but she was convinced that it would be okay, because the Virgin Mary told her that her death would be an inspiration to others. The real story is rather sad, given that her death was preventable -- even other priests were consulted and said she wasn't possessed by demons[[note]]Anyone who's read ''Literature/TheExorcist'' -- book, not film -- knows that a huge amount of research and verification must be done to verify whether someone is possessed or not. A medieval document reveals that priests at that time were well aware that most "possessed" people weren't, and needed medical care, not exorcism.[[/note]] -- but she walked right into it thanks to her religious upbringing. The film, on the other hand, wants to make it all about demonic possession, portraying doctors who are unable to explain her seizures and adding spooky cinematography and chilling music when depicting her attacks. The German film ''Requiem'', based on the same story, is much more reserved.
* ''Film/FemaleAgents'' was inspired by actual female operatives with the SOE, especially Lise Villameur (née De Baissac), on whom Louise is based.
* ''Film/FighterInTheWind'' skips over sections of Mas Oyama's life and creates others out of whole cloth. General Kato is completely fictional, and "Choi Baedal" wasn't his given name (it was Choi Yeong-eui). There's also [[FlameWar some dissent]] over how much he was into Korean patriotism, as he joined the Japanese air force and took a Japanese name and citizenship voluntarily.
* ''Film/TheFinal'' is very loosely based on [[UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} the Columbine Massacre]], with the TeensAreMonsters aspect being the only thing really kept consistent. In the movie, a group of bullied kids [[DisproportionateRetribution mutilate and permanently scar the bullies who made fun of them]] in high school. In reality, the two Columbine killers are reported to have been bullies themselves, who picked on the weaker kids before going on their shooting rampage. [[spoiler:Also, whereas Columbine became a national tragedy and started discussions about bullying, the parents in the film [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint dramatically miss the point]] by portraying the attacks as completely unprovoked and the victims as saint-like, and the whole thing is forgotten so quickly as to become a ShaggyDogStory]].
* ''Film/FindingNeverland'' tells the story of how J. M. Barrie came to write ''Literature/PeterPan'' through his relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family, but kills off the husband, deletes one of the boys, and repeats the conventional wisdom that the story was really about the boy named Peter (not his brothers Michael and George) -- a bit of baggage that contributed to (but wasn't the main cause of) the real Peter's eventual suicide.[[note]]He was already dying of emphysema, and depressed over the fact that his wife and all three children had Huntington's disease. His kids all vowed never to have kids themselves to avoid passing it on.[[/note]] Oh, and Johnny Depp went without Barrie's trademark mustache. He didn't even make the slightest attempt to look like Barrie.
* ''Film/FireInTheSky'': The real Travis Walton's story (if you choose to take his word for it) is nothing like what is shown in the film. The encounter aboard the UFO was spiced up to make it scarier, and quite frankly it had to be, because the story told by Walton was cheesy and absurd.
* ''Film/TheFourthKind'' opens with a disclaimer by Creator/MillaJovovich herself stating that the events in the film are based on a true story of Dr. Abigail Tyler, and claimed to use "real footage" of actual alien abduction case studies interwoven into the film footage. Similar to ''White Noise'', it was ''all'' fabrication, as the "real" Abigail Tyler shown in the "real footage" is actually just another actress, and the "real footage" was just shot in a documentary style. There ''have'' been some real-life unsolved disappearances in Nome, but it's a big leap to conclude that aliens were responsible. The FBI suspects that several of these people merely got drunk, wandered off in harsh winter weather, and died of exposure.
* {{Invoked|trope}} during the production of ''Film/{{Frank}}'': the real Frank Sidebottom, before his death, asked the film's writer Jon Ronson to fictionalize the film's plot, thinking that it would ring truer to the idea of Frank Sidebottom and play with the [[AccidentalArt outsider art]] theme.
%%* A very notable aversion in ''Film/FreedomWriters''. It seems incredibly out there, one notable occurrence being getting ''[[Theatre/TheDiaryOfAnneFrank Miep Gies]]'' to visit their classroom, which is implausible in real life to say the least. But the actual students and teacher were involved in the making of the film and script writing and such, to make sure it stayed true to what happened.
* The 1955 movie ''Film/TheGirlInTheRedVelvetSwing'' is based on the 1906 White-Thaw murder case, though it takes a lot of liberties:
** Stanford White, after his death, was reported to have been responsible for drugging or incapacitating several young women and seducing them, whereas in the film he seems reluctant to get himself too involved with Evelyn Nesbit. He is also fully aware of Harry Thaw's hatred of him and even appears to encourage it, while it's generally agreed that in reality he had little to no idea of it.
** Harry Thaw, while still explicitly being an abusive husband and mentally unstable, was a violent sadist with a plethora of mental instabilities who also led a far more hedonistic lifestyle which, in fairness, probably wasn't permitted to be portrayed in film at that time.
** Evelyn Nesbit is portrayed as practically throwing herself at White and being convinced to lie about White getting her drunk (when she was just 16, mind you) and sleeping with her at Thaw's family's urging during the trial.
* Both ''Literature/TheGirlNextDoor'' and ''Film/AnAmericanCrime'' are based on the 1965 torture murder of Sylvia Likens, but both take their own liberties with the case.
** ''The Girl Next Door'' changes the names of Sylvia and her sister Jenny and has the abuse being carried out by their aunt, when real-life murderer Gertrude Baniszewski was merely a family friend from church.
** On the opposite end of the spectrum, ''An American Crime'' has a scene where Sylvia escapes and tries to get help for herself and her sister, only for it to have been an elaborate DyingDream.
%%* ''[[Film/{{Gojira}} Godzilla]]'', the 1954 {{Kaiju}} horror film was the tragic result of this. The opening sequence shows the destruction of two fishing boats. The kicker is that it was based on the nuclear incident earlier on that year, when the US tested a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific, and a Japanese fishing boat named the ''Lucky Dragon 5'' got caught by the radiation burst, ''by accident''.
* ''Film/GoodMorningVietnam'' gets the basic facts right; there was a military DJ in [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]] from 1965 to 1966 named Adrian Cronauer who played rock music that the troops liked. Everything else is completely fabricated. The real Adrian Cronauer had no problem with the war, being in an all-volunteer branch and describing himself as a "lifelong card-carrying Republican" who went on to be a lawyer who worked on the Republican presidential campaigns of Bob Dole (1996) and UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush (2004 -- as vice-chairman, no less). The film's Adrian Cronauer is as irreverent as [[Creator/RobinWilliams the actor who plays him]], questions the war, fraternizes (unwittingly) with the Viet Cong, and shows a gross disrespect for his superiors. (And also is an Airman First Class when the real Cronauer was an Air Force Staff Sergeant.) The real Cronauer said that just about everything the fictional one did would have gotten him court-martialed in a heartbeat.
* ''Film/{{Gothic}}'' is director Ken Russell's take on how Mary Shelley was inspired to write ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' after spending a stormy night at Lord Byron's place, but almost everything that actually happens in the film comes from Russell's own... ''unique'' imagination.
* ''Film/GreenBook'', based on a true story about musician [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Shirley Dr. Donald Shirley]]'s friendship with his bodyguard/driver Tony Vallelonga, was called a [[https://www.shadowandact.com/the-real-donald-shirley-green-book-hollywood-swallowed-whole "symphony of lies"]] by Shirley's brother. Among other things, his family members say that Shirley and Vallelonga were not even particularly close friends and had a strictly employer-employee relationship.
* ''Film/TheGreatestShowman'', a biopic of the famous circus ringmaster P.T. Barnum, is all over the place. About the only thing it gets consistently right is that Barnum was a circus manager whose stable included [[TheFreakshow a cast of assorted "freaks"]] and opera singer Jenny Lind, had a wife named Charity, had a rivalry with James Gordon Bennett, and had to rebuild his circus after it burned down. Much of the film, though, was exaggerated into typical Hollywood fare -- the film portrays Barnum and Charity as [[ChildhoodFriendRomance childhood sweethearts]] (they weren't); condenses several familial figures, including his maternal grandfather Phineas Taylor, into his father's character (who dies earlier than he did in real life); and most damningly, portrays him as an utter failure of a businessman before opening the circus, when in real life the museum he opened ''was'' successful (although his variety troupe "Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theater wasn't), and he only pivoted to the circus when he was 60 years old. Interestingly, the film also ignores some of the more [[https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archive/exhibit/heth controversial details]] of Barnum's life and tones down [[https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archive/exhibit/what/ what he did to embellish the acts]] and make them weirder than they really were.
* ''Film/{{Greenfingers}}'' is loosely based on the true story about the award-winning prisoners of HMP Leyhill, a minimum-security prison in the Cotswolds, England, a story published in the ''New York Times'' in 1998.
* ''Film/TheGumballRally'' and ''Film/TheCannonballRun'' (as well as several other films) were very loosely based on a real outlaw road rally, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Baker_Sea-To-Shining-Sea_Memorial_Trophy_Dash Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash]]. Hal Needham, director of ''The Cannonball Run'', actually competed in the race. The "ambulance" in the movie is based on his vehicle.
* ''Film/HangmenAlsoDie'' is a 1943 FilmNoir that revolves around the aftermath of the assassination of UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich. Because it was made so shortly after the real events[[note]]The assassination of Heydrich was carried out on May 27, 1942 (though he didn't die of his injuries until June 4), and the film was released on March 27, 1943 -- less than a year later[[/note]], and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII was still ongoing, the details were not known to the filmmakers. In reality, the assassination of Heydrich, known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid Operation Anthropoid]], was carried out by Czechoslovak soldiers trained by the British Special Operations Executive and with the blessing of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, whereas in the film it was carried out by the Czech Resistance. Furthermore, the real assassins were located and killed within a month.
* ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunting_of_Sharon_Tate The Haunting of Sharon Tate]]'' turns the real-life murder of Creator/SharonTate by the [[UsefulNotes/CharlesManson Manson Family]] into a supernatural horror film, in which Tate has regular psychic visions about [[ForeseeingMyDeath her fate]]. Tate's sister Debra described the film as "tasteless" [[https://people.com/movies/sharon-tates-sister-slams-hilary-duffs-film-classless/ in an interview]].
* The eponymous house in ''Film/TheHauntingOfWhaleyHouse'' is a real house in San Diego, and the history related in the film is largely true, but the accounts of hauntings and deaths in the house are greatly exaggerated.
* ''Film/{{Hoodlum}}'', especially when it comes to Dutch Schultz's death. The movie casts the protagonist as the ringleader behind the murder, while in real life it was related to the threat Schultz posed to District Attorney Thomas Dewey[[note]]yes, as in "Dewey Defeats Truman"[[/note]]. The whole film is based on the false premise that Bumpy Johnson supposedly fought a gang war to free the Harlem rackets from the control of white outsiders. In truth, the real Bumpy Johnson worked directly for TheMafia until the day he died.
* ''Film/HobokenHollow'' is loosely based on the real-life [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Slave_Ranch Texas Slave Ranch]].
* ''Film/{{Hoosiers}}'', although not promoted as being based on a true story, is somewhat loosely based on a true story -- specifically, Hickory High School is based on Milan High School in Indiana, a school of about 160 students whose basketball team won the state championship in 1954, defeating a much larger city school in the final. However, the story was heavily dramatized, most notably in terms of how difficult it was for Milan to win the title -- Hickory is [[UnderdogsNeverLose an underdog throughout]], while Milan had made the semifinals the previous year and were considered a real contender. All of Hickory's wins in the film were decided by a single possession or in overtime, whereas Milan's run had only two victories by less than double figures. One of those wins was the final, which went much closer to how it went in the film -- particularly the last two minutes, including Hickory's stalling while behind -- but the similarities between the two games end there, even in their final scores. The film also portrays Hickory as having only a six-man roster, whereas Milan had ten players[[note]]Fun fact: of the 73 boys at Milan High that year, 58 tried out for the team[[/note]]. The characters are different, too -- Milan's head coach, soft-spoken and married 26-year-old Marvin Wood, becomes Creator/GeneHackman's middle-aged, fiery former college coach Norman Dale (who has a TokenRomance with one of the teachers); Milan's star player Bobby Plump becomes Hickory's Jimmy Chitwood, who sits out half the season out of despair at the previous coach's death (Milan's prior coach had been fired); and Dale's assistant "Shooter" (Creator/DennisHopper), Hickory's town drunk and father of one of the players, has no Milan equivalent (Wood didn't have an assistant at all).
* The MadeForTVMovie ''Hostile Waters'', starring Creator/RutgerHauer as Captain Igor Britanov of the Soviet submarine K-219, chronicles the K-219's loss after a collision with an American attack sub. While many of the heroics of the sailors aboard are accurately chronicled, both the US Navy and Britanov himself deny that such a collision ever occurred. In reality, seawater seeping in through a pre-existing leak in one of the missile tubes led to an explosion and fire which disabled critical systems on board; a similar though less severe accident had previously led to one of the sub's missile tubes being unloaded and permanently sealed.
* ''Film/TheHumanCondition'' is primarily a close adaptation of a six-volume novel, but it is also based on the director's own experience of surviving UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in Japan.
* ''Film/TheIceman'': "The true story of the mob's most notorious killer" is not quite as true as its ads would have it. There was a man named Kuklinski, he was a lifelong-criminal, and he probably did kill several people, mostly over money from various scams, but that's about it. The rest, particularly his involvement in dozens (if not hundreds) of famous mob hits, is [[http://www.nysun.com/new-york/meet-the-forrest-gump-of-mob-hits/35539/ succinctly summarized here]].
* ''Film/InBroadDaylight'' is based on the story of Ken Rex [=McElroy=], who was murdered by still unidentified assailants after engaging in a one man reign of terror against local residents of the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore. For the film the names of the people involved were changed, with [=McElroy=] becoming Len Rowan, and the town being identified as Darby, Missouri instead of Skidmore, Missouri.
* ''Film/{{Inchon}}'' is very superficially based on the events leading to the eponymous Battle of Inchon. Otherwise it's just an excuse to [[{{Anvilicious}} hammer the audience with religious propaganda]] -- it was largely financed by the Unification Church.
* ''Film/InTheHeartOfTheSea'' is correctly presented as portraying the events that inspired ''Literature/MobyDick'', but the film greatly exaggerates this angle, choosing to portray the whale in question as albino (it wasn't), exaggerating its size, and giving it a legendary status. The film has the ''Essex'' crew meet the crew of another whaler, who reveal that their ship too was sunk by the "white whale". After the ''Essex'' is sunk, the whale is shown stalking and further harassing the crew in the open boats. In reality, there is no evidence that the whale was ever seen before or after sinking the ''Essex''. The film also invents a drama between Captain George Pollard and First Mate Owen Chase where none existed before. Furthermore, the premise is shown to be based around Herman Melville interviewing the elderly Thomas Nickerson, but the two never met in real life; Melville's primary source was Chase's own book about the incident.
* The ''Film/IpMan'' movies, based on the master of Creator/BruceLee, are heavily fictionalized, and retooled his life and circumstances completely to suit Chinese propaganda purposes. Ip Man was never a laborer in any Marxist-Leninist-Maoist sense. He worked as a police officer for most of his adult life. He was never affiliated with the Communist Party in any way -- at the time of the films, he was a card-carrying member of Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party and the sworn enemies of the Communists. And his flight to Hong Kong was not to escape the Japanese, but the Communists.
* ''Film/ItCouldHappenToYou'' was based on a true story in that a police officer really did offer a waitress half of his lottery ticket in lieu of a tip, then made good on the deal when he won several million. Everything that happens ''after'' this in the movie is complete fiction. The movie depicts the two as falling in love afterward, and the antagonist is the officer's greedy wife, who divorces him and tries to get both her husband and the waitress's share of the money. [[http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,303110,00.html In reality]], there was never anything between the officer and waitress beyond friendship, both remained happily married to other people after the incident, and the officer's wife had no problem with splitting the money. That said, the writers didn't use the real names of anyone involved, and a disclaimer at the end of the film states what really happened.
* ''Film/JackTheRipper1976'' plays fast and loose with the facts surrounding the UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper murders, changing the names of the victims, the circumstances of their deaths, and a whole boatload of other things.
* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' was loosely inspired by a series of shark attacks along the New Jersey shore in 1916. Beyond that, it's just a SummerBlockbuster. Interestingly, Robert Shaw's famous monologue detailing the sinking of the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_%28CA-35%29 USS Indianapolis]]'' was entirely accurate, with the small exception of getting the date wrong[[note]]Shaw claims it was June 29, when it was July 30. The date error could be explained by the fact that the incident happened just minutes after midnight, but the month error is a little more glaring[[/note]].
* Oliver Stone's ''Film/{{JFK}}'' presents itself as revealing the truth about WhoShotJFK, arguing in particular that it had to have been a conspiracy. In fact, it's based on the writings of the real Jim Garrison, whom even JFK conspiracy theorists aren't likely to trust. The film is unfortunately the source of so much lore about the assassination that things on which it speculated (''e.g.'' the magic bullet) or even invented (''e.g.'' the smoke from the grassy knoll) are commonly believed to be true by the public. A lot of that lore, like many impactful movies, just seems [[http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/jfkmovie.htm more compelling than the truth]]. Stone would later express regret at not making it clearer that the film wasn't meant to be entirely truthful, but more a metaphor for the American public's frustration at not knowing how the assassination really happened.
* ''Film/{{Kenau}}'': [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenau_Simonsdochter_Hasselaer Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer]] was a real person who lived during the Siege of Haarlem and participated in its defense against the Spanish forces by tirelessly working to strengthen the defensive lines. In the seventeenth century she was seen as a hero and several paintings were made of her carrying weapons. In the more prudish nineteenth century, however, perception changed and it was no longer considered possible that a woman fought on the front lines. Now, historians say it is unclear whether or not she actively fought. That said, the movie boldly announces it is going to tell what "everyone knows" to be the ''real'' story.
* ''Film/TheKillerThatStalkedNewYork'' is a 1950 film very loosely based on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_New_York_City_smallpox_outbreak 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak]]. There really was an outbreak of smallpox in New York City in 1947, but the specifics are radically altered for the movie. In RealLife, the index case was not a smuggler but a regular tourist, did not get infected in Cuba but in Mexico, and was not the subject of a contact-tracing manhunt but was rather admitted to hospital before the outbreak really began.
* ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'' edges into this at points. The greater historical events surrounding the Battle of Hattin (the film's climax) are held relatively true to history, but many of the film's main characters bear little resemblance to their historical counterparts:
** This is most evident with Balian, the film's main protagonist, whose personal history is radically different from that of the real Balian of Ibelin. The real Balian was married with children, not to mention born in wedlock and decidedly ''not'' a blacksmith. In addition, while the real Balian was considered a moderate for his era (particularly compared to the likes of Reynald de Chatillon), he was nowhere near as progressive by modern standards as the film depicts him as; in fact, some of the positions he takes in the film (like the assertion that no one religion holds the ultimate claim to Jerusalem) would have been seen at the time as an unthinkable rejection of every value underlying the Crusades, not as the words of a reasonable moderate.
** Godfrey of Ibelin did not exist. The real Balian's father was named Barisan. (This change is likely because Godfrey does not appear to be modeled on Barisan or any historical figure; rather, the character exists solely as a part of Balian's fictionalized backstory.)
** Princess Sibylla was close with her husband, Guy, and wholeheartedly supported his strategy. In fact, she actively subverted an attempt by the court to block Guy from ascending to the throne. She had no relationship with Balian at all.
** In the film, King Baldwin IV, though disfigured by leprosy, is pretty much functional until after the incident at Kerak, at which point he falls into a rapid decline and dies shortly thereafter. In reality, the progression of his condition was much more drawn out, leaving him an invalid long before his death; he would not have been able to lead an army into battle for the last several ''years'' of his life, let alone just days before he died.
** The real Guy de Lusignan was not especially eager to go to war, and he certainly wasn't pulling Reynald's strings to make it happen. In fact, history suggests that it was Reynald who was the driving force behind the conflict, and Guy, far from the arrogant and prideful man he's depicted as in the film, lacked the spine to stand up to Raynald and thus was dragged along for the ride.
** The theatrical cut of the film depicts the throne as passing directly from Baldwin IV to Guy. In reality, the King's young nephew was his successor, and it was only after the child's premature death that the throne reverted back to Sibylla to choose the next King. Scenes depicting this part of the story were written and shot, but were cut from the theatrical release for time; this arc is included in the director's cut.
** The one major aversion is Reynald; other than his role in relation to Guy, Reynald in the film is very much similar to his historical counterpart. Apparently [[{{Warhawk}} the real Reynald]] made for a good enough character that the writers largely left him as he was in real life. If anything, they actually toned down some of his more atrocious deeds.
* ''Film/KingKong1933'' was inspired by an actual expedition to Komodo Island led by W. Douglas Burden in 1926, to collect and study the isle's giant lizards. Note that we said "lizards", not "giant apes and dinosaurs".
* ''Film/KrushGroove'' is a RomanAClef about the founding of Creator/DefJamRecordings starring many rap stars [[AsHimself as themselves]], but the story itself is largely fictional.
* ''Film/TheLastKingOfScotland'' is a film about Idi Amin's life. However, even though a statement at the beginning of the film says it's a true story, the character Nicholas Garrigan never existed and is loosely based on Bob Astles. The film is also an adaptation of a ''fiction'' work with the same title.
* ''Film/ALeagueOfTheirOwn'' never outright claims to be the true story of the All-American Girl's Professional Baseball League, which is a good thing, because the fact the league existed (and the names of a few of the teams) are all it really got right when you look at it historically. Several characters were compressed into Geena Davis's character Dottie Henson, and pretty much everybody else's names were changed. The biggest thing that the movie ''did'' get right was that during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, a league of women baseball players was formed, and some of those women played good enough ball to be in the big leagues.
* The highly contentious documentary ''Leaving Neverland'', about Music/MichaelJackson and the accusations against him of child molestation, was attacked as an exaggeration within a week of its release. Some of it, obviously, was Jackson's [[FanDumb rabid fanbase]] refusing to believe the allegations on principle, but others pointed out that the documentary was deliberately slanted against Jackson -- the director even admitted that he did not interview anyone who could rebut the accusations so as [[RuleOfDrama not to interfere with the story he wanted to tell]]. Accuser Wade Robson in particular noted that he had in fact testified twice on Jackson's behalf, and the depiction of him burning Jackson memorabilia was fabricated -- in real life, an auction house revealed that he had sold the memorabilia to them (and tried to do it anonymously).
* The advertising material for ''Film/LustForGold'' bills it as the true story of the Lost Dutchman Mine. However, it was based on a book titled ''Thunder God's Gold'' which synthesized several stories and legends regarding the mine into a whole. Jacob Walz and Julia Thomas were real people, but they didn't meet until after the events involving the mine, with Julia nursing Jacob in the last years of his life. She certainly did not die in an earthquake on Superstition Mountain. Floyd Buckley is based on real-life treasure hunter Adolf Ruth, who was murdered while searching for the mine the 1930s. However, that murder was not one of a string of killings as shown in the film.
%%* ''Film/TheLifeAndTimesOfJudgeRoyBean'' is based on an [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bean actual judge]].
* In ''Film/TheMaids'', murderous PsychoLesbian sisters Claire and Solange are kind of based on Christine and Lea [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papin_sisters Papin]] who really were murderous lesbian maids, but resemblance ends here.
* Lampshaded in ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'', which opens with Creator/AndyKaufman complaining about how the film takes so many liberties with his life story ({{Composite Character}}s, reordering major events such as his Carnegie Hall gig, etc.) leading to a CreditsGag in which he just rolls the first stretch of the '''end''' credits because he cut out all the inaccuracies! (The writers came up with the idea after being frustrated with complaints about ArtisticLicense in their previous biopics ''Film/EdWood'' and ''Film/ThePeopleVsLarryFlynt''.)
* ''Film/{{Mental}}'': The director's mother had a mental breakdown and his politician father hired a smoking hitchhiker with a dog and her knife in her boot to babysit them, and who stayed with them for months. The rest was invented for the film.
* ''Film/MoneyMovers'' deals loosely with two real-life events, the 1970 Sydney Armoured Car Robbery where A$500,000 was stolen from a Mayne Nickless armoured van, and a 1970 incident where A$280,000 was stolen from Metropolitan Security Services' offices by bandits impersonating policemen.
* ''Film/TheMostAssassinatedWomanInTheWorld'' is very loosely based on the real life Scream Queen of the ''Grand Guignol'', Paula Maxa. However, she did not fake her own death on-stage, and in fact moved on to film, and died in her 70s.
* The events of ''Film/TheMothmanProphecies'' already leave plenty of room for skepticism. Perhaps sensing this, director Mark Pellington chose to make the entire plot fictional (even setting it in the present day). The only significant things consistent between the stories are the Mothman itself and [[spoiler:the climactic Silver Bridge collapse]].
* ''Film/{{Munich}}''. Yes, Israel did launch Operation Wrath of God to hunt down the Munich terrorists. The veracity of most of the details in the film, however, is at best in dispute.
* InUniverse example in ''Film/TheMuppetMovie'': In the beginning of the film when all the Muppets are there to watch the premiere of their own film, Robin asks if this how the Muppets really formed.
-->Kermit: "Well its sort of approximately how it happened."
* ''Film/NachoLibre'' was loosely (very, ''very'' loosely) based on the life of Fray Tormenta, a real-life monk-turned-luchador who supported an orphanage by wrestling for 23 years. To his credit, Creator/JackBlack never claimed that the movie was a true story, only that it was inspired by Tormenta.
* ''Film/NewJackCity'':
** Nino and the CMB are based on Boston drug lord Darryl Whiting and his crew. Nino's last-second outburst in court was directly lifted from Whiting's trial.
** The story of Nino Brown was based on the Chambers Brothers story. These four brothers sold crack in Detroit. Like Nino had his apartment building called "The Carter," the Chambers Brothers also had an apartment called the Broadmoor. They moved into the 4 story, 52 unit building, selling different types of drugs on each floor. They often sold drugs alongside families who already lived in the building, forcing them to leave or deal with their illegal and dangerous activity. Officials have often claimed that the brothers ran their drug operation like a large, very organized corporation. The foursome became nationally known when they were caught on tape counting laundry baskets of money and flaunting their wealth.
* Despite being a Disney musical, ''Film/{{Newsies}}'' is based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsboys_Strike_of_1899 a real newsboys' strike]]; the newsies' nicknames are mostly taken from contemporary records, the conditions of their work are fairly accurately depicted, and several of the incidents in the film closely follow the real events, but otherwise it's pretty much fiction. The real Newsboys Strike was led by Kid Blink, who does appear in the film (with an eye patch!) even if he isn't leading the strike.
* The non-supernatural parts of ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet1984'' are inspired by events that happened in the hometown the director lived in as a kid. Specifically, Freddy is the name of the kid who tormented wee little Craven, Freddy's appearance was based on that of a old homeless man wee Craven had a terrifying run-in with one night, and the "died in their sleep" thing was based on a few cases of young Cambodian refugees dying in their sleep of no apparent cause after repeatedly saying they were frightened to go to sleep. That would be [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1647019/ Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome]], which for some reason is most common among South East Asians.
* In the Indie chiller ''Film/OpenWater'', it's actually based on a true story, but the events of the film have been invented because no one can know what actually happened -- and the actual couple were older.
* ''Film/PainAndGain'' is based on [[http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1999-12-23/news/pain-gain/ a series of]] ''[[http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1999-12-30/news/pain-gain-part-2/ Miami New Times]]'' [[http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2000-01-06/news/pain-gain-part-3/ articles]]. What's surprising is just how much stuff portrayed in the film actually did happen (Paul barbecuing the severed hands is accompanied by the onscreen graphic "this is still a true story").
* ''Film/PatchAdams'': Patch's romantic foil of a love interest Carin never really existed. He was actually a male best friend of Dr. Adams. Moreover, [[WordOfSaintPaul the real Dr. Adams felt that the film didn't accurately represent his views and philosophies]] as it simplified all his work into "laughter is the best medicine". Not to mention the felonies (stealing supplies from a hospital and practicing medicine without a license) that the movie depicts which, needless to say, the real Dr. Adams never did.
* ''Film/PathsOfGlory'' is loosely based on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souain_corporals_affair Souain Corporals]] -- an event in World War I where a general had several soldiers executed for cowardice when their company refused a suicidal order. All the characters involved are fictional, as is the location and battle, and even the number of soldiers executed -- making the overall product more like historical fiction that bears a lot of resemblance to the real events.
* Creator/RolandEmmerich's ''Film/ThePatriot'' is basically a loose and [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory PC version]] of the real life of Francis Marion. If you ask, no, he didn't free his slaves.
* ''Film/ThePhenixCityStory'' from 1955 is based on the assassination of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Patterson Albert Patterson]] [[RippedFromTheHeadlines the previous year]]. The events surrounding the assassination are heavily fictionalized, however. BigBad mob boss Rhett Tanner is fictional, for instance, and the scene where a [[WouldHurtAChild murdered child]] is [[DeadGuyOnDisplay dumped on the Pattersons' lawn as a threat]] never happened. The details of the assassination and its aftermath are also changed: in the film Patterson is shot at arm's length whereas in real life he was shot through the mouth, in the film there is a single witness whom the mob successfully silences whereas in real life there were several witnesses who later testified in the trial, in the film the mob is responsible whereas in real life the Chief Deputy Sheriff was convicted of the murder, and so on.
* The film ''Film/APlaceInTheSun'' is adapted from the novel ''Literature/AnAmericanTragedy'', which is itself based on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Grace_Brown story of the 1906 murder of Grace Brown by her boyfriend Chester Gillette]]. While the movie takes liberties with the story -- Brown was a lovely young woman but is portrayed as frumpy and nagging, the real-life murder was certain but left ambiguous in the film (possibly an accident), the plot follows the real-life events -- Brown and Gillette were romantically involved and she was insisting that they marry due to her out-of-wedlock pregnancy, while he was reluctant because doing so would have ended his chances of advancing into wealthy society. After inviting her away for the weekend under the pretense of it being a wedding trip, he took her out onto a lake where he promptly struck her on the head and threw her into the water to drown. The movie has them ''both'' falling out of the boat, but the fade to black leaves the viewer wondering if he might very well have tried to save her and simply been unsuccessful. In both mediums, the man was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
* The 2012 horror movie ''Film/ThePossession'' claims to be based on a true story, specifically that of the [[http://web.archive.org/web/20051105000557/www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/rubyc/eBay_dibbuk.htm "dibbuk box"]]. The similarities between the film and the dibbuk box are as follows: the dibbuk box exists, its owners experience a wave of bad luck that they claimed was linked to the box, and that's about it. None of the stories involve a girl getting [[DemonicPossession possessed]] by whatever was living in it.
* The movie ''Film/{{Primeval}}'', while it deals with an actual, real-life giant crocodile (Gustave), exaggerates every other aspect of the events it claims to recount, from doubling his number of human kills, to depicting him seeking out and attacking entire groups of clearly defended humans (the real Gustave strikes at groups of three or fewer tourists, primarily when they are off-guard, and certainly when they lack shelter). And that's without mentioning the film's ads, which portray him as "the most prolific serial killer in history". On top of all that, it's a case of NeverTrustATrailer -- Gustave only appears in brief stretches, and most of the film deals with a local civil war, with the croc relegated to the background for the most part.
* An unusual example in the WWII American propaganda film ''The Purple Heart'', which is based on the fates of the eight pilots who took part in the "Doolittle Raid" in 1942. The eight were captured and put on trial by the Japanese -- however, their true fates were not known until after the film was made. The film alters the names of the pilots and implies that they will all be executed (which no doubt seemed like the most likely outcome at the time); in reality, however, only three were executed and one more died in captivity while the other four were eventually released after the war.
* ''Film/RedDog'' is based on a book by Creator/LouisDeBernieres, which is in turn based a collection of anecdotes and poems of the same name. Red Dog was real, as is the town of Dampier, and Red Dog was known to travel vast distances along Western Australia's Pilbara region, spending much of the meantime in Dampier. It is also true that he [[spoiler:died in 1979]] and [[spoiler:had a statue built in his honor]], but most of the rest of what happens in the film is almost certainly fictitious. The film further divorces the fictionalized Red Dog's adventures from anything that might have happened in real life by having the FramingDevice invoke the UnreliableNarrator trope on at least one occasion, although the bulk of it can be thought of as true in-universe.
* ''Film/RememberTheTitans'': The film's entire premise is undermined if one is aware that in reality (1) T C Williams high school had been desegregated since 1959, and (2) the school was already a football powerhouse, having won the state championship (under Yoast) the previous season.
* Parodied in ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'', with the disclaimer "All of the events in this film are true. Everything is shown as it actually happened".
* ''[[Film/Rocketman2019 Rocketman]]'' played with this, even lampshading it in the tagline, "Based on a true fantasy".
* ''Film/RomasantaTheWerewolfHunt'' is based the story of Manuel Blanco Romasanta: generally regarded as Spain's first identified SerialKiller. While portraying many of the events of the case, it elaborates greatly and plays up the mystical aspects, which were almost nonexistent in reality.
* ''Film/SchoolOfRock'' was inspired by the story of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langley_Schools_Music_Project The Langley Schools Music Project]] but was otherwise completely fictional.
* There is some actual proof that the Scorpion King was a real person. However, the guy played by [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] in ''Film/TheMummyReturns'' and the SpinOff movie ''Film/TheScorpionKing'' seemed to be him InNameOnly.
* ''Film/{{Shadowlands}}'', the story of C. S. Lewis's marriage to Joy Davidman Gresham, ending with her death. True in broad outline, but the film deletes one of Joy's two real-life sons. On Lewis and Joy's vacation in Ireland, he drives a car, while in real life Lewis notoriously never learned to drive. The film omits a major experience they shared, a trip to Greece after Joy's cancer returned. As a minor point, Lewis's brother Warren is shown as present at Lewis's first meeting with Joy; he wasn't. Most importantly, Lewis was far from the ivory-tower bachelor professor, ignorant of both women and suffering, portrayed in the movie. His mother died of cancer when he was a boy, and he was wounded in World War I. Until shortly before he began corresponding with Joy, he and his brother shared a bustling household with the widowed Mrs. Jane Moore, whom Lewis considered his foster mother, and her daughter.
* ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'' made no qualms about being a heavily fictionalized telling of the Facebook story, right down to portraying Mark Zuckerberg as a pompous JerkAss when the real oneis known to be a very shy and modest person. It was [[Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad pretty much necessary]], as the real story of Facebook's creation is pretty dull and uninteresting.[[note]]Not that this treatment is unusual for a tech startup; Silicon Valley venture capitalists have been known to invent quirky origin stories in real life for startup companies, because it's easier to attract funding that way.[[/note]] The most accurate bit of the film is the opening narration, where Zuckerberg describes how he's hacking all the individual facebooks at Harvard, lifted mostly from a real blog post Zuckerberg had made at the time. There was also the depositions given, the majority of it was most likely lifted word for word from the real transcripts.
* ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic'': While the basic outline of the story is true, ''all'' of the details were rearranged for the musical, including the timelines, the songs, and the names of the children:
** In the film, Georg von Trapp is a strict disciplinarian who drills his children like Navy sailors with his whistle. In real life, the Captain was a highly permissive free-range parent, and Maria was the disciplinarian. The whistle did exist in real life, but was used to communicate over the large distances of the estate, since the captain has a very weak voice.
** In the film, Von Trapp angsts a litle bit over whether to accept a German commission but quickly decides against it because the Nazis are evil. The real Captain Von Trapp agonised a ''lot'' more about it; he was a submarine commander, and by 1938 he had not set foot on a ship in two decades and his service branch no longer existed, so the offer of command of a cutting-edge U-Boot was ''sorely'' tempting. Also, the film's depiction of the Anschluss is wildly inaccurate, suggesting that a couple of quislings had capitulated to the Germans against the will of the people, thus making Von Trapp's decision easier -- in real life, it was more the opposite, as Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg did just about everything he could to avoid the Anschluss, but the Austrian people overruled him in an overwhelming plebiscite and welcomed the Nazis in cheering throngs. Interestingly, many wags like to claim that Von Trapp's status as a retired Navy captain[[note]]He's actually a pretty well-respected one, too, having been decorated for serving off the coast of China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1900. His uniform jacket is preserved in the Military History Museum in Vienna.[[/note]] is a fabrication, because obviously, Austria is a landlocked country and doesn't ''have'' a navy -- which is true now, but not during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, when Austria included parts of the Adriatic coast now belonging to Italy and Croatia (the real Von Trapp was born in the modern Croatian city of Zadar).
** In the film, Von Trapp married Maria in 1938, right before having to escape Austria. In real life, they married in 1926 and had two children of their own before leaving.
** In the film, the family escapes Austria by climbing over a mountain range to get into Switzerland. This is highly implausible; you'd have to traverse all of Tirol to get from Salzburg to Switzerland, which means a ''lot'' of hiking. In real life, Captain Von Trapp leveraged his birthplace to claim Italian citizenship (yes, Zadar is now in Croatia, and Yugoslavia was a thing back then, but it was controlled by Fascist Italy at the time) and had the family escape by train to Italy.
* The movie series ''Film/TheStepfather'' and ''The Remix'' was based on the true case of John List, though List was not a serial killer. ''The Stepfather'' does fit his case very well; it just goes the extra step of having him do this habitually instead of it being a one-time incident.
* The 2005 film ''Stoned'' is about the end of founding [[Music/TheRollingStones Rolling Stones]] member Music/BrianJones' life. There is some debate as to whether or not his death was an accident, which makes a decent premise for a movie. However, this film achieves this by making Jones even [[DesignatedHero more problematic than his real-life counterpart]], not even showcasing his musical talents. The film shifts most of the blame to Jones' girlfriend Anita Pallenberg, even though Jones is [[DomesticAbuse mostly shown abusing her]], culminating in a truly uncomfortable scene in Morocco where she leaves him for Music/KeithRichards, who's somehow depicted as more responsible than Jones despite his ''famous'' issues with drug abuse. And at the end, there's a curious scene in which Jones comes back to Earth as a ghost [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs to thank Tom Keylock for making him a martyr]], even though the film claims Frank Thorogood murdered him.
* The horror film ''Film/TheStrangers'' opens by labeling the plot of the film as "based on true events" -- supposedly the UsefulNotes/MansonFamily murders. The similarities are slight. The only thing that has a real basis in reality is that it's based on a burglar technique where they knock on a random door, and if no one answers, they break in and steal stuff -- but no serial killer was caught doing this to find victims. Some have suggested as inspiration the 1981 Keddie murders, where a family of three and a friend were brutally murdered in a Northern California cabin, which remains a mystery to this day.
* ''Film/{{Sunset}}'': While highly fictional, the film does contain a few elements of truth. Wyatt Earp did live in Hollywood in the 1920s, did act as a technical adviser on several silent Westerns, and was close friends with Tom Mix (who served as a pallbearer at Earp's funeral). The murder in the movie is very loosely based on the events surrounding the death of Thomas Ince (which did not involve Earp or Mix in any way). The film's closing titles admit this in a reference to a repeated quote from the film itself that "that's the way it really happened, give or take a lie or two."
* The 2005 film ''Film/{{Supervolcano}}'' is based, interestingly enough, on a story that may very well happen someday, only no one knows when. It deals with the possible consequences of the "overdue" eruption of the volcano underneath Yellowstone National Park. The tagline actually reads "This is a true story. It just hasn't happened yet."
* ''Film/Suspiria1977'', believe it or not, was inspired by what co-writer Daria Nicolodi's grandmother claimed really happened; that she (the grandmother) as a young woman fled a music school because she found out they were practicing black magic.
* ''Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'': It's usually a well-known fact that the movie is based on a [[Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet musical]], which added stories of revenge, a judge, and Sweeney's daughter to the original story. The latter was originally a novel, itself based on an UrbanLegend...which have its roots in a true story. The latter is quite different from ''Sweeney'' 's scenario, though, except it involved cannibalism. It happened in Paris, not London, and as soon as [[TheMiddleAges 1387]], in Marmousets street. Also, the baker was male, not female, and named Pierre Miquelon, while his barber neighbor was Barnabé Cabard. Their motivation was apparently simply greed, (no revenge story here) and they were burned at the stake after it was discovered they used students corpses to do pâtés. Ironically, Barnabé is nowadays often described as a [[AdaptationDisplacement "french Sweeney Todd"]], while it's actually the other way round.
* ''Film/TheTerrorist'': The film is based on the RealLife [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Rajiv_Gandhi assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991]], in retaliation for his sending an Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka in support of the Sinhalese government the LTTE were fighting, and alleged atrocities committed by them against Tamils in the conflict.
* The remake of ''[[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2003 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre]]'' was heavily touted as being based on a true story. The film chronicles an inbred family of kidnappers, torturers, serial killers, and implied cannibals who brutally slay a carload of road tripping teens. The actual case it was based on, Ed Gein, was a solitary, fairly quiet man who killed only two middle-aged women, without a chainsaw, and in ''Wisconsin''. While two murders are indeed tragic, that's still a lot less than the scores of murders implied in ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre''.
** [[Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974 The original movie]] touted this claim as well. Of course, that doesn't keep it from being a cinema classic.
** It also has some relation to the legend of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawney_Bean Sawney Bean]] which has been around for several hundred years but is probably fictional. The Sawney Bean family was the direct inspiration for ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977''.
** Ed Gein has had several movies purporting to tell his story, as well as probably dozens that were "Inspired By" it; he was something of a TropeCodifier for slasher and SerialKiller fiction. ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' is probably the most famous, and despite not claiming to be based on anything but a novel by the same title it's considered a fairly good [[SpiritualAdaptation spiritual biopic]].
** As far as ''actual'' biopics go, the version starring Steve Railsback released in 2000 actually does a decent job sticking to history. The version starring Kane Hodder, released in 2007, couldn't have been further off the facts of the case if the writer and/or director had been ''trying'' to avoid getting anything right. About all that was correct was Gein's name, the deaths of two family members before the events covered in the film, and the year and place of his crimes.
* ''Film/TheTheoryOfEverything'' takes a few artistic liberties with Creator/StephenHawking's life in the interest of better narrative flow. For example, in the film's sequence of events, he loses the ability to speak, decides to write ''A Brief History of Time'', separates from Jane, and reconciles with her before going to Buckingham Palace to be made a CBE. In reality, he was made a CBE in 1982, started drafting ''A Brief History of Time'' in 1984, lost the ability to speak in 1985, and separated from Jane in 1990, only reconciling with her after his divorce from Elaine Mason in 2006.
* ''Film/TheyDiedWithTheirBootsOn'' pretty much makes up everything besides the fact that George Armstrong Custer served in the Civil War, and was killed with all his men by Indians.
* ''Film/ThreeBillboardsOutsideEbbingMissouri'': Creator/MartinMcDonagh was once driving down a highway in the American south and saw three sequential billboards with text describing the rape and murder of a woman and asking why the local authorities hadn't made any arrests yet. The rest of the movie is what he imagined would have led to those billboards being there and what would have happened next -- In particular, in the film the billboards were rented by the victim's mother, but it later turned out the real billboards were rented by her father.
* ''Film/{{Thunderheart}}'': The film is based on actual incidents on and around the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota during the 1970s, which John Trudell (Jimmy Looks Twice) participated in personally (he was chairman of AIM). His character also bears a great resemblance to his friend Leonard Peltier, who was controversially convicted in the murders of two FBI agents (Peltier remains imprisoned, and a documentary about this came out in the same year, entitled ''Incident at Oglala'' See also Peter Mathiesen's book ''In the Spirit of Crazy Horse''). The Aboriginal Rights Movements clearly represents the American Indian Movement as well, which both Trudell and Peltier were prominent members of. Jack Milton (Fred Ward) is pretty clearly an {{expy}} of pro-government tribal council president Dick Wilson, whose followers are alleged to have murdered numerous dissidents. The Guardians of the Oglala Nation ([=GOONs=]) appear much as they're reported to have behaved. The schoolteacher Maggie Eagle Bear is based on Anna Mae Pictou Aquash (Mi'kmaq), the highest ranking woman in AIM -- [[spoiler:including her rape and murder, which remains officially unsolved although Russell Means and others believe it was an inside job by AIM members who believed she was an FBI informant]].
* The main story in 1953's ''Titanic'' was derived from the real-life drama of the Navratil kidnapping, of course changing the various sexes, ages, nationalities, and ultimate outcome of the family involved.
* ''Film/ToOlivia'' is about author Creator/RoaldDahl and his actress wife Creator/PatriciaNeal arguing over whether or not she should take a part in the film ''Film/{{Hud}}'' after the sudden death of their young daughter Olivia. Dahl and Neal did have a daughter Olivia, she did die young, and Neal did feature in ''Hud''. The only problem is that filming on ''Hud'' finished on 1st August 1962, and Olivia died on 17th November.
* ''Film/TuckerTheManAndHisDream'', the telling of Preston Tucker's struggle to start a car company. For one, it only shows it taking one year when it actually encompassed four, the president of the Tucker Company was actually a good guy, but they needed a villain.
* ''Film/{{U 571}}'' took quite a bit of flak for basically ignoring history when it came to how the Enigma was captured -- starting with the fact that it was a British operation conducted in 1940. Even UsefulNotes/TonyBlair denounced this at the time for stealing a British accomplishment. The truth was acknowledged briefly before the credits.
* Franny and Rosetta from ''Film/UnderThePiano'' were loosely based on Dolly and Henrietta Giardini. Dolly was born with a paralyzed arm while Henrietta was autistic, so the two sisters were very dependent on each other.
* ''Film/TheUntoldStory'' is said to be based on a true story but there doesn't seem to be much information on the supposed killings. Considering there is a sequel to this movie, it may have been [[TrailersAlwaysLie hype]].
* The trailer for the ghost movie ''Film/WhiteNoise'' opened with a minute-long explanation of EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) complete with "real" examples of the phenomena (which were actually made up) in an attempt to sell the audience on the film. It didn't quite work. Similarly, the [[ForeignRemake US remake]] of ''Film/{{Shutter}}'' opens with an explanation of spirit photography and a montage of photos with blurry, half-resolved images showing up, complete with mentions of how the people in the photos died soon after.
* ''Film/TheWindAndTheLion'' is a retelling of the 1904 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdicaris#Perdicaris_incident "Perdicaris incident,"]] in which a Berber bandit (Creator/SeanConnery) kidnaps an American (Creator/CandiceBergen), leading UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt to send in the [[SemperFi Marines]]... except, in real life, Perdicaris was a man, and there was a lot less shooting and swordplay than the movie suggests.
* ''Film/WishYouWereHere'' is loosely based on the formative years of British madam Cynthia Payne. The film ''Personal Services'', also written by David Leland, covers Payne’s adulthood.
* The 'based on true events' part of the movie ''Film/WolfCreek'' seems to be limited to "there were some British backpackers murdered in Australia one time." And the movie was actually written ''prior to'' the disappearance of Peter Falconio and Ivan Milat's killings, but was not filmed until years later -- so, cashing in rather than inspiration. For the record, neither case happened anywhere near (within a thousand miles of) Wolf Creek; the Ivan Milat murders didn't even happen in the outback.
* The opening disclaimer makes it clear that ''Film/TheYoungPoisonersHandbook'' is not a {{Biopic}}, but a rather a story inspired by the life and crimes of Graham Young.
* ''Film/{{Zola}}'' is based on the Twitter-infamous Zola story and subsequent 2015 ''Magazine/RollingStone'' [[https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/zola-tells-all-the-real-story-behind-the-greatest-stripper-saga-ever-tweeted-73048/ article]], about the titular Zola going to Florida to dance at a club with someone she just met and getting caught up in sex work instead. The film is mostly a straightforward retelling of the Twitter thread with the names changed, however, some details of Zola's story have been disputed by the others involved, and Zola herself admitted that some scenes in the film were altered for effect.
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** The ultimate fate of the expedition: In the film, [[spoiler:they're all picked off by Indian arrows and spears, one-by-one, including Aguire's daughter, and it ends with a delusional Aguirre ranting all alone at the monkeys swarming his raft]]. In reality, a significant number of them survived the Amazon, reached the Atlantic, seized the Spanish colony of Isla Margarita, and invaded mainland Venezuela, where the rebellion fell apart in the face of loyal Spanish troops and offers of pardon to those who surrendered. Aguirre murdered his own daughter before being captured and shot.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' deserves special mention here: the movie is the first Disney animated story that is claimed to be "based on a true story", and by that of course, that Colonial Virginia had talking trees, magical Native Americans, numerous cliffs and nature scenes that are nowhere to be found in coastal Virginia and to beat a language barrier, one only needs to "listen with their heart". The creators made a point of [[ShownTheirWork doing the research]] -- to the point of including detailed cultural advice from Russell Means (Lakhota) and Irene Bedard (Inupiat) -- and then ignoring it in order to make the story seem more of a ''legend'', so to speak. (And that's not even touching on other inaccuracies, such as the ages of UsefulNotes/{{Pocahontas}} and John Smith, and [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie whether the whole "save Smith from execution" story was actually true or not]].) Russ Means did say some of the magical elements are consistent with Native spiritual beliefs. Also notable is that the film ends on a bittersweet but ultimately hopeful note, suggesting that the heroes' actions will ensure that the native people and the Europeans will live in harmony. The less we say about what happened in real life, the better.

* Lampshaded in ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'', which opens with Creator/AndyKaufman complaining about how the film takes liberties with his life story, leading to a CreditsGag. The differences are many:
** The legendary Carnegie Hall show, which in RealLife took place in 1979 at the peak of Kaufman's mainstream success, is moved to shortly before his death in 1984.
** The Tony Clifton incident happened during the first year, before Creator/ChristopherLloyd became a regular.
** Andy and Lynn did not actually meet in the wrestling ring.
** The "Global Wrestling Federation" banner is misplaced; the Lawler-Kaufman match was held by the Continental Wrestling Federation in Memphis in 1982, whereas the Global Wrestling Federation was a Dallas-based promotion that existed from 1991 to 1994. Similarly, Wrestling/JimRoss would have been misplaced as this match's announcer, as at the time he was working in Louisiana and Oklahoma for Mid-South Wrestling (but he and Wrestling/JerryLawler were the Wrestling/{{WWE}} announcers when the film was produced, so there you have it).
** The film shows Kaufman's ''Fridays'' stunt as a real objection to doing drug-related humor, with Kaufman even insisting to the audience that it was ''not'' staged. But according to multiple sources from the show, it actually was (though who all was in on it is up for debate), plus the scene as shown differs significantly from the real sketch, which you can [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN5vhvIAqY8 see on [=YouTube=]]].
** This film ignores Kaufman's short-lived but infamous big screen career. It pretends ''Film/{{Heartbeeps}}'', among other films, never happened. Apparently he spent his entire 80's career being a wrestler and getting cancer.

* Series/MagnificentCentury: Many characters, like Isabella, Firuze, Mihrunnisa and Nigar did not exist, while events like Hatice and Ibrahim’s marriage(though this might be a case of DatedHistory)did not happen as described.