Live-Action Films / Artistic License History

Contrast Shown Their Work.

Films with their own pages

A minor example in the 2011 film The 5th Quarter, an American football flick based on the true story of linebacker Jon Abbate and the 2006 Wake Forest team for which he was one of the central figures. In the film, Wake ties for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship. The real Demon Deacons team won the title outright.^note
1930 biopic Abraham Lincoln is just full of this. It includes Lincoln dramatically collapsing on Ann Rutledge's grave during a thunderstorm, while historians still aren't sure just how serious Lincoln's thing with Rutledge actually was; and Lincoln giving a speech from his box at Ford's Theatre, right before he gets shot, and the speech itself is a mashup of the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address.
Adrift: The film seemingly has Richard surviving the storm that wrecks their yacht. In reality, Tami was knocked out then awoke to find herself alone on the boat. Ultimately subverted when it's revealed that Richard was a delirious vision by Tami, and was Dead All Along.
Numerous movies have inaccurately portrayed The Alamo with the curved roof at the time of the eponymous battle—in truth, the roof had crumbled due to neglect, and it was 1912 before the familiar façade was restored.
Alien vs. Predator presents an odd historical scenario where a whaling station has been abandoned in 1904, the year the first whaling station was established.
One of the major gripes with All Eyez on Me was how several aspects of Tupac Shakur's life were fabricated or twisted for the movie, going hand in hand with Anachronism Stew:
- Not long after the film's release Jada Pinkett Smith went on record saying that there were several inaccuracies surrounding her relationship with Pac, including:
  - Tupac never read her the poem he wrote about her, and she didn't know about it until it was posthumously published in The Rose That Grew From Concrete.
  - He abruptly left Baltimore, and never disclosed why he had to leave, nor did he say goodbye, to Jada.
  - Jada also didn't attend any of Tupac's shows by request, nor did they have an argument backstage.
- Tupac's (truncated) House of Blues set was fairly accurate, except for the addition of "Hail Mary", which was never performed live during his lifetime, and was likely added in for fanservice more than anything.
- During the scene where Tupac meets Faith Evans and discussed collaborating, tracks from All Eyez on Me can be heard in the background. In real life, the album wasn't out yet, and the 2Pac/Evans collaboration ("Wonda Why They Call U Bytch") was recorded the very same night they met at the club.
- After Tupac is shot in a drive-by and taken to a hospital, Big Frank gets out his car and shows his LAPD badge to the Las Vegas police officers on the scene. Big Frank was never a LAPD officer.
Allied:
- Max is told that if Marianne's a traitor, he'll have to execute her himself or be hanged for treason as an accomplice. If any such arrangement ever existed, it was well hidden. Spies were arrested and dealt with through the regular legal system.
- The fact that there are two Nazi agents in Hampstead running Marianne. Though they wouldn't find out till after the war, MI5 successfully turned or imprisoned every single German agent from relatively early on. When it turns out she is a traitor, it would be much more likely they'd turn her or secretly Feed the Mole, especially when she was clearly acting under duress and willing to turn. So close to D-Day (which used these techniques to successfully mislead the Nazis) executing an agent whose cover was considered "safe" would be a blatant waste of resources for MI5.
Amistad:
- Martin Van Buren didn't campaign actively for re-election, let alone from the back of a train, as it was in fact considered ungentlemanly for people to actively seek the presidency until near the end of the 19th century.^note
- The initial hearing ends with the U.S. Navy officers having their salvage claim thrown out, and the two surviving Amistad crewmembers being arrested for slave trading. In reality, the navy officers did get awarded a third of the remaining salvage aboard the ship — which was admittedly more a gesture than anything else, as said salvage value was close to zero once you took out the slaves and perishable goods on-board — and the surviving crewmembers were actually arrested before the case was heard; they subsequently posted bail, returned to Cuba, and the charges against them were quietly dropped on the understanding that they'd really get the book thrown at them if they were ever caught slave trading again.
- The Lomboko slave fortress was not destroyed until 1849, at which point US Secretary of State John Forsyth had been dead for eight years, and thus Captain Fitzgerald wouldn't be dictating a letter to him (or assuming that he didn't know Forsyth had died, it would never be delivered).
Amsterdam (2022): Burt (who's white) is portrayed as serving in the same regiment with his friend Harold (who's black) plus other black soldiers. The US Army was segregated at the time, and so this wouldn't happen.
Ammonite: Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison are shown having a romance. In reality, there's no evidence Mary and Charlotte were anything but close friends. Further, Mary's portrayed as much older than her (to match the actress's ages). Charlotte was actually a decade older than Mary.
Anastasia: Once Upon a Time: Fantasy stuff aside, Tsar Nicholas II (Brandon Routh) has no facial hair at all somehow, whereas he had plenty of it in Real Life (a mustache above a beard, no less).
The Assignment (1997): Obviously, the film is fictional. Carlos never actually lived in the Soviet Union (though he was connected to the KGB through the East Germans). As a result of Western pressure several states denied him sanctuary before the Sudanese arrested him while he was there in a deal with the French and US governments. There's no evidence any of the rest happens, despite it being framed as possibly Based on a True Story (at least very loosely).
Atonement sees a main character die in the Balham station disaster (a German bomb was dropped on the road above the station - the tube platforms of which were being used as air-raid shelters - causing the northbound tunnel to partially collapse, flooding both platforms with water and earth from the ruptured water mains and sewers above), but stated that it happened a day later than it actually happened.
Austerlitz: In real life, Napoléon Bonaparte didn't face a defeated and lone Kutuzov (without capturing him) once he won the battle, Kutuzov was coordinating the retreat of his troops instead.
Benedetta: The story is only vaguely connected to the historical facts known of Benedetta, with many incidents unsupported by any evidence (the finale especially).
- Benedetta was elected (according to the standard procedure) by the other nuns as abbess, not appointed with her predecessor forcibly removed.
- It was actually the other nuns and the provost who were skeptical of Benedetta, not the prior abbess, while two investigations of her occurred not just one.
- Benedetta insisted all her sexual encounters with Bartholomea happened when she was in a trance (granted, that may have been a lie).
- There's no evidence the pear of anguish was ever used for torture (its use is unclear) nor Bartholomea was tortured.
- There's no evidence she was ever sentenced to death, and especially not rescued because the townsfolk wouldn't stand for it, nor that the nuncio was killed. Exactly what happened isn't clear, but evidence indicates that she was imprisoned for the rest of her life in the convent. Bartholomea also remained as a nun, evidence indicates, rather than having left like the film shows.
Birdman of Alcatraz: Stroud's original crime was actually shooting dead a man who'd refused to pay his girlfriend (whom he acted as pimp for) and then beating her up, not in revenge over her rape. While first in prison, he became notorious as one of the most violent inmates, getting six months more on three assaults. He killed a guard for denying Stroud a visit with his brother, not his mother (Stroud hadn't seen him in eight years).
BlacKkKlansman:
- The whole third act of the film about the bomb was invented to give the story a satisfying climax. The real success of the undercover operation was discovering that several of the KKK members were stationed at NORAD, which happens in the middle of the film.
- A civil rights leader played by Harry Belafonte lectures a group of students and states that The Birth of a Nation was hailed by Woodrow Wilson as "like writing history with lightning." This is an urban legend that was probably started by the author of the original book upon which the film was based.
Black Knight (2001): Neither King Leo or the Queen were real. The actual king in that era was Edward III. Probably this indicates it really was All Just a Dream.
Bridge of Spies:
- When attorney James Donovan is recruited to defend accused spy Rudolf Abel, he protests that he is primarily an insurance lawyer. However, the film does not mention that he was also General Counsel for the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner to the CIA) during World War II (between 1943 to 1945, to be exact) and so was fully experienced dealing with spies.
- Donovan was also fully experienced in dealing with big, controversial cases: he became assistant to Justice Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg trials. While he prepared for the trials, he was also working as an adviser for the documentary feature The Nazi Plan. Donovan was the presenter of visual evidence at the trial.
- The Real Life Frederic Pryor has noted that his movie counterpart's romance with a German girl was created out of whole cloth, and that his arrest had more to do with genuine confusion than helping out dissidents. More importantly, his East German lawyer wasn't an Amoral Attorney, but did his best to represent Pryor's interests.
The opening narration for A Bridge Too Far goes thusly: "In 1944, the Second World War was in its fifth year and still going Hitler's way. German troops controlled most of Europe. D-Day changed all that." By 1944, the war was quite definitely not going Hitler's way anymore. A constant barrage of defeats on the Eastern Front and Anglo-American air raids over German cities meant that, by the time D-Day happened, Hitler's defeat was only a matter of time. It was launched to help accelerate the end of the war in Europe. And by this point German troops did not control "most of Europe" (outside of its Axis allies) anymore, having lost almost all of their territorial gains in the Soviet Union.
The Buddy Holly Story biopic depicts guitars that didn't exist in The '50s (noticeably a Fender Bronco, first made in 1967). Buddy Holly is also shown playing a Telecaster at one point, although in reality he never played one on stage and is known for his use of the Stratocaster.
Captain America: The First Avenger: While it's hard to expect historical accuracy from a comic book movie, we're shown multiracial American troops serving together. In fact, the US Army wouldn't be desegregated until 1948. Also, Steve Rogers is shown reading a newspaper at the recruiting office that mentions the Nazis retaking Zhitomyr. Who would they have retaken it from? The city was in their hands from 1941 until 1943, and the movie is set in 1942.
Dad's Army (1971):
- Adolf Hitler never planned to invade Britain after France, and in reality, would've been preparing for Operation Barbarossa.
- Wilson's newspaper dated the 3rd of May 1940 has the headline of the newspaper printed on the 31st of May in real life.
- Mr. Mainwaring, Wilson, and Pike hear Anthony Eden's announcement of the forming of the Local Defense Volunteers in the middle of the day, despite the fact that his broadcast actually happened in the evening.
- At the meeting in the church hall, Godfrey gives Mr. Mainwaring a message from his wife to bring home a pound of Brussels sprouts. However, the meeting started at 6 pm, the time shops would've closed in The '40s.
- Four modern (by '70s standards) cars can be spotted at the roadblock.
The Damned (1969): The Night of the Long Knives compresses numerous disparate murders and arrests, spread over three days and across different parts of Germany, into a giant massacre of SA members at a single location in one, well, night. Not to mention Visconti's depiction of the SA staging a gay orgy just before being killed.^note
Dances with Wolves: Although more accurate than many previous films in its depiction of the West and native peoples, it still has inaccuracies. First, the whites are shown as hunting buffalo solely to take skins. This was not yet the case in 1865, and would only begin in 1871. At that point buffalo were still hunted by the whites for meat. Secondly, the Lakota are portrayed as simply defending themselves, and the Pawnee are evil allies of the US government. However, it was actually the Lakota who had been the aggressors against the Pawnee, moving into the Plains in the late 1700s from the northeast. This is why tribes such as the Pawnee, Arikara and Crow were allies of the US government against the Lakota (not that it helped them later, of course), since the Lakota had been pushing them out of their land. While the Pawnee could be brutal, they were no more so than the Lakota. Of course, this is simply to show the viewer who the good and bad guys are, without complicating matters.
The Danish Girl:
- Far from struggling with her spouse's identity, the real Gerda Gottlieb was highly supportive all through Lili's transition, and remained close with Lili until her death. Also, there is no historical evidence supporting Gerda losing her attraction to Lili after the transition - and plenty of evidence to the contrary. The real Gerda Wegener drew lesbian erotica, and lived openly with Lili as a lesbian couple in Paris. Their marriage ended simply because Denmark didn't recognize unions between two women at the time, but they remained together.
- Several characters are invented, including Hans.
- Rather than dying after her second operation, the real life Lili Elbe had several successful surgeries, and died from an unsuccessful womb transplant, performed by a completely different surgeon (something which is only just on the verge of becoming possible thanks to organ rejection).
- Gerda Wegener notably painted a large body of lesbian erotic paintings, this fact is completely omitted from the story.
- There's no evidence for Lili being attacked and beaten by men in Paris.
Days of Betrayal: Owing to the fact that the film was made in Communist Czecho slovakia, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa, KSČ) is presented as pretty much the only faction defending the nation when Nazi Germany starts occupying it, while this was far from being the truth. Likewise, the Czech bourgeoisie is presented as pretty much Les Collaborateurs.
Defiance: The real Bielski Partisans simply hid in the forest protecting Jews, and never fought the Germans openly.
In-Universe in Doctor in Distress (1963); Dr. Sparrow complains about The Sorrows of Salome as Salome never made it to Rome in real life, but Delia doesn't care so long as she gets a role in the film.
Donovan's Reef takes place on an island in French Polynesia where there had been fighting between US and Japanese forces during World War II, only French Polynesia was some 2,200 miles away from the actual Pacific campaign and did not see any battles.
Dreamgirls has a scene with the Dreams recording "Heavy" while there's a riot going on. This riot is actually the Detroit race riot of 1967. This, at first, is important for the sake of the era and to show how life was for many African Americans during the 60's. However, the next scene states that the year is actually 1966, making the riot scenes irrelevant.
Drive-Away Dolls: At the end of the film, Jamie says Massuchesetts has same-sex marriage. It's set in 1999, and this wouldn't happen until 2004.
Dumas (2010): Charlotte Desrives is a completely fictional creation, so the conflict Dumas and Maquet had over the latter using the former's name to seduce her didn't occur in real life. In reality, the two fall apart in 1851 from another due to Maquet suing Dumas eariler as he demanded co-authorship and royalities but the court ruled in favor of Dumas.
Dunkirk:
- This article outlines several, including the paucity of female characters, downplaying the role of the naval destroyers in the evacuation (and conversely overstating the importance of the civilian crafts), the limited scale of the film owing to Nolan's preference for Practical Effects over CGI, and a perceived over-dramatization of the historical record (including a quote from a veteran who was at Dunkirk in 1940: "You had the impression of people standing waiting for a bus. There was no pushing or shoving.").
- The weather was famously calm and still during the evacuation, unlike the overcast and drizzly weather as depicted in the film (a device to increase the dramatic tension for the pleasure boats and other small craft, according to Nolan).
- The Stukas had their noses painted yellow a month after the battle of Dunkirk, when gearing up for the Battle of Britain.
- The destroyer that gets torpedoed carries designation D36. Since her silhouette conforms to a V-class destroyer, this should be HMS Vivacious, which was indeed involved in Operation Dynamo. While getting the correct V-class destroyer in the movie could count as Shown Their Work, as could a destroyer getting torpedoed, they were in fact different ships: a U-boat got HMS Grafton (hull number H39), while torpedo boats sank HMS Wakeful and FS Siroco.
- In Churchill's speech near the end of the film, the line about "a victory inside this deliverance" is taken out of context so that it implicitly refers to the whole successful evacuation. In truth, the next sentence was, "It was gained by the Air Force," followed by three paragraphs defending the Air Force from those who "saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack" and presaging their importance in what would become the Battle of Britain. The RAF's role in the Dunkirk evacuation tends to be forgotten because the worst of the air combat took place much further inland, and significant parts of the record were classified until very recently; the film itself only features a single sortie by three Spitfires, with the RAF said to be Holding Back the Phlebotinum for the expected Battle of Britain.
- Some 1980s buildings and beach pavilions of Dunkirk can be seen behind the dunes.
As legendary as Martin Landau's performance as Bela Lugosi was in Ed Wood, Lugosi's family took umbrage with certain things. Namely, Bela Lugosi was not prone to fits of swearing, especially in front of women. It's also debatable what his actual opinion of Boris Karloff was.
Eiffel: Gustave Eiffel did have a relationship with a woman named Adrienne Bourgès in his youth, but nothing has ever indicated that they ever were reunited after it was called off. Nor that the "A" of her name inspired him the shape of his eponymous tower in Paris, for that matter.
Emily:
- Historians indeed speculate about a romantic connection between William Weightman and one of the Brontë sisters — but with Anne, not Emily, as this film portrays.
- The film implies that Charlotte Brontë did not begin writing in earnest until Wuthering Heights became a hit and Emily died. In reality, Jane Eyre was published a couple of months before Wuthering Heights to acclaim.
Europa Europa:
- The film implies that Solly’s entire family was killed, except for his brother Isaak. His brother David actually survived the war by fleeing to Palestine.
- They also had a sister who was killed by the Nazis, though she isn't mentioned in the film.
- Solly didn't meet Stalin's son until later when he had been established in the German Army. He translated during his interrogation. In fact, his job was not only as a regular soldier there, but a translator as he'd learned fluent Russian from his time in the Komsomol orphanage. After the war, he worked briefly as a translator for the Soviets too.
- Solly's actual alias was Josef Perjell.
- The final sequence, where Solly is set to be shot and then his brother recognizes him, didn't happen. He was captured and soon released (not by the Soviets, but the US Army) and spent some time searching for his relatives, finding Isaak months later.
FairyTale: A True Story: Aside from the fairies being shown as real, there's...
- Elsie was sixteen as opposed to twelve. This is presumably why you don't see any of the real photographs of Elsie - because she looked it in real life. Frances is said to be eight in the film, but she was nine when she went to stay with the Wrights.
- Frances's mother is dead in the film. She was alive and well in real life, and stayed with the Wrights as Frances did.
- The photographs didn't become public until 1919 - after World War I was over. The Theosophical Society meeting Polly Wright went to was on fairy life itself, as opposed to angels. And the second set of photographs was taken in 1920 - when Frances was already back living with her family.
- Harry Houdini did not visit Cottingley with Sir Arthur, nor did the girls meet him in real life. He also never endorsed the idea that the fairies were real, and didn't even start his debunkings until the 1920s.
First Man:
- In reality the X-15 flight that opens the movie happened after Karen's death, not before.
- While Neil did crash while flying the LLRV, he suffered nothing more than a bit tongue during his parachute landing.
- The Apollo 1 disaster is portrayed as having killed the pilots within seconds by a fire followed by a large explosion. In real life, most of the burns on the astronauts occurred in postmortem, with the cause of death being asphyxiation and smoke inhalation.^note The 'explosion' was actually the hull of the Command Module rupturing from the buildup of heat and pressure inside. Furthermore, the spark caused by faulty wiring is portrayed as occurring within Ed White's line of sight, whereas in real life it originated from under Grissom's seat.
- Though Neil was attending an event at the White House at the same time as the Apollo 1 fire, he (as well as the other astronauts present) did not receive a call notifying him what had happened until after he had returned to his hotel.
- The film gives the impression that the American public opinion was strongly against the Apollo program. While there was a vocal segment of the population who felt it was a waste of money, the majority of the American public was in support of the mission.
- During the Apollo 11 launch, Michael Collins is shown sitting in the LMP's seat while Buzz Aldrin is in the CDR's seat when it should have been the reverse.^note
- While Neil really did head over to the West crater off the mission plan, it's speculation that he might have left anything in it, let alone any of Karen's possessions. Other astronauts did leave personal items on the Moon, but if Neil did this, he took that secret to his grave.
A Fistful of Dynamite — John Mallory, being an Irish nationalist in 1913, owns an IRA flag, but the IRA did not exist until 1919. He would have most likely been an Irish volunteer for the IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood) if part of any official organisation whatever.
Fist Of Fear Touch Of Death, possibly the most awful of all awful Brucesploitation films, states during a biographical sequence that Bruce Lee's grandfather was 19th Century China's greatest samurai.
For a Few Dollars More is set during the American Civil War, as shown by a safe full of Confederate money. One character comments that the bank's vault "weighs three tons and can't be opened with dynamite." Indeed it couldn't — dynamite wasn't invented, patented, or named until after the Civil War was over. But the line is delivered so effectively it's hard to picture it working as well with any other word.
Free State of Jones: Serena Knight actually left shortly before her death in 1889, rather than living out her life with Newt. It's possibly because he had begun an affair with Rachel's daughter (from a previous relationship), who at the time was fairly young (the film does not mention this). They later had children, like he'd done with Rachel. This omission ends up painting Newt in a better light. It's also unclear if the Knight Company actually flew the Union flag (one Northern newspaper reported this, but no other sources do) or engaged in full on battles with the Confederates.
Gangs of New York:
- The New York City Draft Riot scene takes a few liberties with the events that actually transpired. The film exaggerates the extent of the riot and the sort of events that took place.
- It is not known whether or not the US Navy actually fired artillery on Paradise Square, but it's probable that it didn't actually happen, though some historical evidence suggests artillery was used, albeit on land.
Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti:
- Paul Gauguin wasn't a Starving Artist anymore by the time he left France for Polynesia; he had managed to sell a number of his paintings, whereas it's said he hasn't sold any in the film. That said, his disillusion with bleak modernity in France in the late 19th century is still part of his motivations to go to the other side of the world in the film.
- Tehura was mentioned by Gauguin in his writings, but she might not have existed at all. Some scholars have speculated that Gauguin made her an amalgamation of several girls he was involved with.
- Speaking of which, Gauguin had, ahem, relations with Tahitian teens or preteens (which causes controversy pretty much anytime there's an exhibition of his works of art these days), and these are not depicted (for understandable reasons).
Gettysburg
- The Battle of Little Round Top omits that Chamberlain sent Company B of the 20th Maine to a different part of the hill and they were cut off by the waves of Confederates, leaving him to assume they'd been wiped out until the bayonet charge, which allowed Company B to rejoin the rest of the unit in the charge.^note The sudden appearance of fresh troops looked like reinforcements to the Confederates and contributed to their surrender. This was shown in the source novel, The Killer Angels, but would have added yet another complication to the 4-hour film.
- A clear piece of artistic license has the 20th Maine moved to the center of the Union line on Day 3. Chamberlain himself was there to notify the generals about the company's urgent need for supplies, but this adds dramatic irony (they're told that the center is nice, quiet, and peaceful, having no idea that Lee intends to attack that exact spot) and places the Union protagonists at the site of the film's climax. This also allows Tom Chamberlain, who has a habit of talking to surrendered foes, to be the Union officer that informs the mortally wounded General Armistead of his friend General Hancock's injury.
- Longstreet states a completely ahistorical opinion that the Confederacy should have freed the slaves first and then declared war, which is part of the film's overall efforts to render the Confederate characters palatable to modern audiences by shifting the responsibility of their cause onto the politicians. In the book, Longstreet fully acknowledges that while slavery is not his reason for fighting, it is still the reason.^note
- Colonel Fremantle is presented as an official representative of the British government. Fremantle was actually a tourist who was curious about the Civil War and various Confederate higher-ups took him for someone who had actual influence with Parliament.
- The film indulges in the Historian's Fallacy: that people who fought the battle predicted the outcome of events with all the clarity of hindsight. In particular are Buford and Longstreet. The real Buford certainly did recognize the importance of seizing and holding the high ground long enough for the rest of the Union army to dig in, but in the film, predicts the outcome of failure with the accuracy of a seer (which allows for Dramatic Irony when the outcome Buford predicted is reflected back on the Confederates, due to his own decisive actions). Longstreet did predict the failure of Pickett's Charge, but he probably couldn't have guessed the exact casualties with the clarity he does in the film.
The Godfather Part III features the death of Popes Paul VI and John Paul I in the year 1979, while all these events actually took place in 1978!
Gold Through the Fire:
- Christians are portrayed as completely underground in the Soviet Union and persecuted simply for printing the Bible. While persecution indeed occurred, it wasn't this systemic and extensive (by the time of the film at least).
- Peter's lawyer claims separation of church and state isn't a concept that came from the Founding Fathers, implying it was invented later by anti-religious secularists. In fact, it was coined by Founding Father Thomas Jefferson.
Green Book: Don Shirley is depicted as being culturally distant from both his family and also other black people generally, though his living family insists that he was good friends with them and other prominent black musicians.
The Gunfight at Dodge City: Unlike what is portrayed in this film, Bat Masterson was already sheriff of Ford County before his brother Ed, the town marshal of Dodge City, was murdered. He was also never part-owner of the Lady Gay Saloon: that was his brother Jim.
Guyana: Crime of the Century: While the movie attempts to follow to the letter the recounting of the events that led to the real-life Jonestown massacre, several liberties were taken (this doesn't count the changed names of the involved people, which was done due to Roman à Clef):
- The congregation at the opening sermon is overwhelmingly white, as is the eventual population of Johnsontown. In Real Life, the majority of Peoples Temple followers were of color (around two-thirds).
- The film opens in 1977 with Johnson suddenly telling his followers that he's obtained some land in Guyana and they're all moving there. Jones actually secured the land in late 1973, and a few families began building Jonestown in 1974, while the Temple and the majority of its members stayed in the US until the summer of '77 when Jones had them move en masse.
- The speech O'Brien gives in front of the commune's inhabitants to say that he's told that living in it has been the greatest thing ever for its inhabitants takes place during the day. In Real Life, Leo Ryan's gave that speech during night.
- The reverend's portrayal as a preacher against the corruption of society leans towards showing him as a Jerkass since the beginning. In Real Life, while Jim Jones was already a very controversial person before moving to Jonestown, he was known for using his charisma and sense of assurance to win over his followers, and only showed publicly his troublesome attitude after moving to Guyana. Relatedly, other than a few dialogue lines, the movie surprisingly underplays Johnson's socialist motivations regarding his church as well as its multiracial embrace, despite the real-life Jim Jones having those two concepts as the driving forces for his religious movement.
- After O'Brien dodges a knife attack from a Temple follower and leaves alongside the defectors who side with him, Johnson says in front of the remaining people that O'Brien's plane must be brought down (an euphemism referring to his eventual murder). In Real Life, nobody at Jonestown outside Jones and his inner circle even knew what happened in Port Kaituma until Jones himself informed everybody about Leo Ryan's death during the evening when the murder-suicide took place.
- Susan Ames (the fictionalized version of Sharon Amos) is shown being murdered alongside her children. In Real Life, following the orders of Jim Jones, Sharon killed her youngest children and then asked the eldest one to kill her and then commit suicide.
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters: The events take place in and around Augsburg, located in modern-day Germany. Except it's shown as a backwater village instead of the prosperous city it's been since almost the Roman times.
Harriet:
- The Gideon Brodess character is a fictional creation of the movie. Harriet's real life owner at the time of her escape was actually a woman: Eliza Brodess, and she most certainly didn't hunt Harriet down personally. The son of Edward Brodess was actually called Jonathan, and very little is known about him historically.
- The movie implies that the Meaningful Rename of Araminta to Harriet happened as soon as she reached freedom. It actually happened earlier, around the time she was married.
- While Harriet did indeed pray for the death of Edward Brodess, she was not sold as punishment for this. Additionally, the movie leaves out the fact that her two brothers escaped with her on the first attempt (but ended up going back out of fear).
- After the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act, William Still gives a speech about how it allows slave catchers to go after slaves in any state of the Union. This had always been allowed, thanks to a previous law. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 actually just gave more power to those hunting slaves, and weakened the protections of those accused of being escaped slaves.
- The Marie Buchanan character is completely invented for the film - although it is possible someone like her did exist.
- Harriet's first trip back south was actually to rescue her niece Kessiah Jolley Bowley and her two children. Her trip to rescue John came after that - but he did remarry in her absence.
- The movie depicts the Brodesses hiring Bigger Long - a black slave catcher - to recapture Harriet and her brothers. There's no evidence suggesting the Brodesses hired a slave catcher and, while it was possible that there could be black slave catchers, they would have been extremely rare.
- The will says that Harriet and her siblings would be freed when their mother turned forty-five. In reality, the will stipulated that the siblings would be set free when they turned forty-five - not at the same time as their mother.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: At one point the protagonists journey on the London Underground, where Mr. Weasley is fascinated by an Oyster card reader - even though the film's meant to be set in 1995-1996 like the book, while the Oyster card only first appeared in 2003.
A Hidden Life: Franz is offered an alternative of serving in a noncombatant role. He refuses this too. In reality, Franz actually offered to be a combat medic, but this was refused.
Highlander
- The film is unusual in getting the fact that Masamune was a swordmaker rather than a sword correct, but then claims that Masamune made Ramírez's katana thousands and thousands of years before he was born or katanas even existed. Lampshaded by Brenda as she explains that she wants to find this katana because it's dated to over a thousand years before katanas even existed, like finding a modern vehicle made in ancient times.
- The villain is referred to as "the Kurgan" even back in medieval times. In reality, a "kurgan" is a burial mound, and "kurgan culture" is a modern archaeological term for a wide range of Proto-Indo-European cultures that are known primarily through study of their burial mounds. People in centuries past would not be calling him a "Kurgan".
- The idea that members of kurgan cultures were Always Chaotic Evil people who would throw babies into pits for fun is pure Hollywood invention. Then again, we're hearing this from the mouth of Ramirez, not the Kurgan himself, who may be going off folklore and hearsay.
The Hoax tells the story of Clifford Irving's hoax involving publishing a made up biography of Howard Hughes, but author Clifford Irving claims the movie is a very distorted version of events, missing large coverage of what really happened while adding entirely fictional scenes, such as Irving receiving a mysterious package of files.
Hostile Waters:
- The damaged missile tube is changed from #6 to #13.
- There is no USS Aurora; the actual American submarine present during the incident was USS Augusta.
- The film portrays Sergei Preminin as a brand new sailor acting as little more than an errand boy for the officers; in reality, while young, he was a fully trained member of the reactor department.
- In the film, the crew abandon ship almost immediately after the attempt to rescue Preminin fails. In reality, several attempts were made to tow the sub back to port before excessive flooding and gas buildup forced the Soviets to abandon the vessel.
- Britanov was not merely dismissed from the Soviet Navy, but was actually charged with negligence, treason, and sabotage. He would spend over six months awaiting trial before the charges were dropped.
Hot Tub Time Machine:
- Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home" was already released in 1985; a year before it would have been possible for Lou to create the song.
- A poster for Rambo III is seen on Blane's bedroom wall, despite the film being set over two years before Rambo III was released in May of 1988.
- Poison performing at Kodiak Valley is seen as a big deal and April is covering the band for Spin Magazine, but in 1986 Poison had not yet achieved mainstream fame (that wouldn't happen until 1987).
- Blaine references 21 Jump Street when he's arguing that the mains are Commie spies, but that didn't debut until 1987.
- The first time Blaine and Chaz see Jacob, they act as though they've never seen a snowboard before and don't know what it is. Snowboarding has existed as a sport as far back as the 1970s, although in 1986 it was still a niche sport and most ski areas did not allow snowboarders. Still, the ski patrol personnel at Kodiak Valley would definitely know what a snowboard was.
- The Denver Broncos' game winning drive in the AFC Championship game is lampooned despite it taking place in 1987.
- Adam references "Sweet Child O' Mine". Appetite for Destruction didn't come out until 1987, and the song itself wasn't released as a single until 1988.
- A downplayed example. When Nick asks a girl "What color is Michael Jackson?" she responds "Um, black." Michael Jackson had shown signs of vitiligo early on in his career and his skin was already several shades lighter by 1986. Though Michael wouldn't turn completely white until around 1992.
In Houdini 1953, Harry Houdini dies from being unable to escape a water tank. The real Harry Houdini died from a ruptured appendix after receiving a series of punches from a university student, but many still believe in the film's presentation of his death.
The Hurricane starring Denzel Washington has a few problems:
- The film portrays boxer Rubin Carter as a totally innocent man who is wrongly convicted of two murders thanks largely to a racist cop who's had it out for him since his boyhood. No evidence exists that the lead detective held any grudge against Carter, and he was described as a jovial man, very different from Dan Hedaya's scowling, tight-lipped portrayal.
- The film whitewashes Carter's criminal history, depicting Carter as defending himself in boyhood against a pedophile, then being arrested and sent to a juvenile facility by this same racist detective. In reality, Carter was arrested for assaulting and robbing a man, a crime that is not disputed. This was only one of many offenses he committed.
- Moreover, while Carter's actual guilt or innocence continues to be debated, the film portrays him as having been exonerated by the efforts of three Canadian activists and a young African-American who wrote to him in prison. They did not find evidence showing he was innocent, however, but only some pieces of evidence that had not been presented by the prosecution. He was ordered released or retried; New Jersey appealed this ruling, lost, and chose to not retry him again (he had already been retried before in 1976, with another guilty verdict resulting). Carter was thus never exonerated, or even acquitted.
- To build up the idea of Carter being victimized by racism in the 1960s, he is shown defeating white boxer Joey Giardello, who is then declared to have won anyway. Everyone who was at that fight, including Carter himself, agreed that he lost and that Giardello was the better boxer in the ring that day. Giardello later sued the film's producers over this portrayal, settling for a hefty but undisclosed sum.
Hussar Ballad:
- When Shura meets the wounded messenger in the beginning of her army career, he tells her that the message he carries is sent by a Field Marshal. At this time, there were no Field Marshals in the Russian army; both army leaders in this war, Kutuzov and de Tolly, would be promoted to this rank later.
- When Shura first meets Rzhevsky, the latter addresses "Cornet Azarov" and declares that Shura's uniform is that of the Pavlograd Hussars. In fact, the uniform Shura's wearing is that of the Sumy Hussars. For reference, the Pavlograd uniform was green, while the Sumy one was gray. Some viewers suggest that Rzhevsky was merely testing the youngster.
- Shura has a doll named Svetlana, which she got as a little girl. She was born in 1795. Except that name has no historical roots and was made up to be "kinda Russian" during the age of sentimentalism and romanticism in Russian literature. It first appeared in print in 1806 in a little-known poem titled "Svetlana and Mstislav". The name became widely known in 1813 with the publishing of Vasily Zhukovsky's ballad "Svetlana". Attempts to turn it into an actual name didn't start until the early 19th century and didn't really succeed until after the Red October, when church restrictions on names were removed. Furthermore, no one would be baptized under that name until 1943. Between 1917 and 1943, any girl registered as Svetlana would be baptized as Photinia (assuming a baptism even took place). There is still some debate about the name in the Russian Orthodox Church, with some accepting it, and others preferring Photinia. Presumably, Josef Stalin naming his daughter Svetlana and raising the church's status during World War II played a part in getting the church to recognize the name. Ancient Slavs had a similar female name Svetla and a male name Svetel.
I, Tonya:
- The real Tonya did confront the judges about her scoring only to be told her outfits needed improvement, but it happened off the ice rather than on it. She also insists that she didn't swear nearly as much as the film's Tonya did.
- The real Shawn didn't call in the death threat on Tonya, nor did he wear a wire to a meeting with Jeff (though he was on the receiving end of a wire-tapped meeting, which he sniffed out quickly).
- Tonya never fired her coach Diane Rawlinson in a fit of rage; it was a mutual split that resulted from Tonya losing focus on her training. Dody Teachman was actually Rawlinson's first student and assistant whom she delegated to become Tonya's new coach.
- At one point, Diane approaches a forlorn Tonya and informs her the next Winter Olympics will be held in 1994 instead of 1996. In reality, the change in the scheduling of the Olympics had been decided and made public in 1986. Everyone who participated in the 1992 Albertville games knew full well there would be another one in Lillehammer just two years later.
- Though Tonya was told to get a fur coat to help fit the "Ice Princess" image, her father didn't make one from rabbits he hunted. He just saved up to buy her a rabbit fur coat. And instead of Tonya getting mocked for her coat, and flipping off the girls who did it, she had a Deadpan Snarker moment with a girl who bragged that her coat was mink, Tonya said "Thanks, mine's paid for."
Played for Laughs in Idiocracy (where the entire world has become less intelligent) a theme park of the future thought that Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin were the same person, and both sides rode dinosaurs. "And then the UN un-Nazied the world forever."
I'm Not Ashamed: This film is about the Columbine massacre, and gets quite a few things wrong about the two shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and their first victim, Rachel Scott.
- The film is decried as horribly inaccurate and religiously biased. Dylan and Eric did NOT taunt Rachel for her religious faith, nor did they ever talk to Rachel before the shootings! This is not the first movie Pure Flix made that attacks atheists (previously as teachers, here students).
- The question about God was asked of Valeen Schnurr, who had hid in the library, when she cried "Oh my God, no" after being shot once. Instead of killing her, she was spared after saying "Yes" to the question whether she believed, which goes entirely against the message the film gives. Schnurr survived, and it was misattributed to Cassie Bernall, who died. The whole story appears to be based on this, since Bernall is often hailed as a martyr for her supposed answer to the question since then (Rachel Scott's brother Craig is the one who related the story, though his words were misunderstood).
- In real life, Rachel took Caucasian student Nick as her date to the prom before the shooting. In the movie, Rachel takes Asian-American student Kevin as her prom date.
- Eric and Dylan are portrayed as console gamers whereas they preferred to game on the PC in real life.
- Rachel is shown to be killed by Eric using Dylan's TEC-9, but in real life she was killed by Eric using his Hi-Point 995.
- Rachel's suicide attempt. In the movie she's depicted as trying to jump off a building to kill herself, but in reality she tried to do it with carbon monoxide poisoning via car exhaust, but decided not to at the last second.
Indiana Jones plays fast and loose with facts quite often, although this was typical of the old adventure movies that served as the franchise's inspiration.
- Tanis, Egypt, from Raiders of the Lost Ark is a real place. It could not have been rediscovered by the Nazis in 1936 because it was never lost in the first place. In fact, there were numerous archaeological digs in Tanis before the Nazis even came to power.
- The third act of Raiders takes place in a secret Nazi submarine base in Greece, which would have been objected to by the Greeks in real life, naturally.^note
- In Last Crusade, set in 1938, Indy and his father drive from Venice to Berlin (passing a road sign with these two names on and no other place in between) to retrieve a book from a Nazi book burning and escape Germany in a commercial Zeppelin flight (all canceled after the Hindenburg's disaster in 1937). The third act takes them to Hatay, a short-lived (but real) Turkish republic that is portrayed as an Arab monarchy. Even the Hatay flag is fictional.
- On the matter of the Nazi book burnings, those all took place around May 10, 1933, not in 1938. Neither Adolf Hitler nor Heinrich Himmler attended them, they involved the SA and not the SS (nor the military), and the crowds of people burning books were German students and not random citizens of various ages.
- In addition, the Hatay army is shown using Volkswagen Kübelwagens, which not only didn't exist in 1938, but were never exported by Germany.
- Crystal Skull has a Mayan-speaking civilization in the Amazon and Indy claiming that he learned Quechua (Peru) from two guys in Pancho Villa's army (Mexico).
In the Name of the Father:
- In reality, Gerry Conlon and his father Giuseppe were in separate prisons. Gerry never saw his father again.
- The Maguire Seven were convicted in a separate trial from the Guildford Four.
- The real bombers were also never incarcerated with any of the Four, although they did confess at their own trial, exonerating them. Just as in the film, this was dismissed by the British authorities until evidence the police had lied about their confessions was revealed.
- There was also no alibi witness. Rather, the police falsified their interrogation notes to cover up the coercion they used to obtain the confessions. This was discovered by another police detective, not the Four's lawyer, when he was looking over the case file. However, the Griess test really did result in many false positives (such as the chemicals in playing cards being wrongly identified as nitroglycerin by a technician, for instance).
Ironclad:
- Historically, the King's forces successfully captured Rochester. Prince Louis would not arrive until a few months later.
- Reginald de Cornhill really survived the siege, he didn't kill himself, going on to serve as a high official.
- William D'Aubergny did command the garrison, but survived the battle. After John died, he became a loyalist to young Henry III and helped capture Lincoln in 1217. He died of natural causes in 1236.
- Louis and the rebellious barons were defeated in 1217, unlike the "victory" described at the end of the film.
- The Magna Carta, while retrospectively regarded as setting an important precedent for limitation on the king's power and setting the foundations for modern democracy, was at the time mainly intended to protect the authority of the barons. King John merely sealed it rather than signing it (he was probably illiterate).
- The Danes had been Christianized for some time prior to the events of the movie, yet are here played as still pagan and fighting specifically due to John's promise that he will convince the Pope to leave them in peace. Additionally, very few of John's mercenaries were actually Danes. Their leader also has the very Roman name Tiberius.
- Although the longsword began to develop in its early forms in the late-12th century, such early examples were little more than arming swords with longer handles. The fully two-handed longsword as used by Marshall did not begin to appear until the 14th and 15th centuries.
- Rochester castle is impressively realized, albeit with a couple of goofs such as modern cement stonework, but there's no sign of the Norman Cathedral that should be right next door, nor of the city of Rochester itself on the river bank.
- The historical accounts do say that King John and his army sent for forty fat pigs to fuel the fire in the tunnel under the walls, but they were pig carcasses, not live ones as depicted in the film. You would not want the hazard of forcing a herd of live animals into a fire, and live pigs have too much water in them to properly set them on fire anyway.
In-universe example in Iron Sky, where Renate uses a heavily edited version of The Great Dictator to teach schoolchildren that Hitler was a good and kind man who only wanted the best for the world. Renate herself has been fooled by the same propaganda and is utterly crushed when she later sees the full version.
Jack the Ripper (1976) plays with very fast and loose with the details surrounding the Jack the Ripper murders. The Ripper did not move the bodies of any of his victims, nor did he capture any of them alive to vivisect them, and he almost certainly did not have a secret lair under the botanic gardens. He might have been a doctor, however.
Jesus Camp: Levi believes Galileo gave up science for Christ. In reality, Galileo was hauled to the Inquisition because he wanted his theories to have the theological backing of the Church, that is: he wanted for his views to become dogma. Given that he couldn't satisfactorily explain inconsistencies in his theories (he had circular orbits, not elliptical ones, his theory of tides was off the rocker, etc.) he was condemned to house arrest and given a rather large stipend, as well as the freedom to talk about his theories as theories and not dogma. Meaning Galileo actually didn't give up much in terms of science, and he wanted them combined with Christian (Catholic) doctrine.
Judgment at Nuremberg: Mrs. Bertholt's husband is said to have been executed as part of the Malmedy trial. All the accused in that trial received clemency, and were released inside of a decade (many weren't even sentenced to death at all). They were also all SS men on trial, while her husband is said to have been in the Wehrmacht.
Kate & Leopold: While chaperoning Kate to a date with another man, Leopold puts the guy down for lying about going to see La Bohème in "the original French". As Leopold puts it, La Bohème is very rarely performed in French, having been written in Italian. Leopold is supposed to have come from the year 1876, while La Bohème was written between 1893 and 1895.
Last Christmas: The film opens with a title card reading "Yugoslavia 1999", despite the fact the nation was broken up by 1992 as a result of The Yugoslav Wars and given that Kate's family are Croatians who moved to the UK following the wars. Though some would justify the date on that it takes place in what was FR Yugoslavia (later renamed Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, before splitting up three years later), her mother later says they come from Croatia (which had been independent since 1991). It's also unclear why they would emigrate later "because of the wars" when Croatia had been at peace for four years in 1999, after having won its independence in 1995.
The Last Command: The film seems to be conflating the February revolution (which toppled the Romanovs) and the October Revolution (in which the Bolsheviks seized power). In the movie the Tsar's government is apparently directly replaced by the Bolsheviks, which did not happen in Real Life.
Legend (2015): Real Life Ronnie Kray actually identified as bisexual (he was in relationships with women, too, including two marriages). The film portrays Ronnie as strictly gay.
The Legend of Zorro: The movie has plenty. It's set in 1850 and already has the Confederate States of America (which weren't formed until 1861), the First Transcontinental Railroad (which wasn't completed until 1869; in fact, California wouldn't gain its first railroad until 1856), and the California Statehood Referendum which is entirely fictitious. On top of that, Abraham Lincoln, who is shown welcoming California into the Union, never travelled to the state, as president or otherwise.
The Life of David Gale: During a drunken ramble, David says Socrates was sentenced to death for insulting the judges by, after he was convicted, suggesting as his punishment a fine of only thirty mina, comparing that to thirty bucks. In reality though, Apology of Socrates says he suggested a fine of a hundred drachma, soon raised to three thousand-a very substantial sum. Being a literature professor, David likely would be aware of this.
Look Who's Back: Hitler lost the presidential election in 1932 and didn't ever have an absolute majority at the federal election that same year, but as far as most people are concerned, the people of Germany elected him, and that is how this movie treats it, not taking time to make the distinction. The Nazi Party received the most votes in the federal election, but it wasn't enough for a clear majority, and despite this, President Hindenburg (under heavy pressure) still appointed Hitler chancellor — the Nazis came to power without a coalition, which usually forms when no party has the absolute majority. They briefly formed a coalition with the German National People's Party, though the Nazis weren't able to take control entirely until March, when the Reichstag Fire had been used as an excuse to purge their main opponents (the Social Democrats and Communists). After this they got the center-right parties to grant them full "emergency" powers and the dictatorship was born.
Louis, the Child King: The Lully music pieces used in the film were composed into Louis XIV's adulthood in the 1660s and 1670s, not during his childhood where the film is based on.
The Man from Earth: The immortal John Oldman says that Columbus discovered that the world is round and recalls suspecting at the time that Columbus might just fall off the edge. Later, he describes the "news" of the world being round as traveling slowly. It's a common misconception that most people thought the Earth was flat when Columbus set sail. Many cultures had already figured out that the Earth is round centuries before Columbus's voyage, and it was generally accepted by Europeans of Columbus's day. Columbus was simply the first explorer who tried to exploit it by seeking a western route to Asia. The problem Columbus had with getting sponsors involved his math involving the size of the Earth being wrong (making the Earth too small), not its shape.
The murders committed in Man in the Attic do not match up to ones historically committed by Jack the Ripper.
The Man with the Iron Heart:
- Heinrich Mueller is presented as a Nazi Party member who joined Heydrich's intelligence agency under Hitler's direct orders. Mueller didn't actually join the party until 1939 and was blindly obedient to the state instead, suppressing communist movements while also urging the Bavarian government to retaliate against the Nazis before they seized power. Heydrich mainly recruited Mueller because the latter's actions had made him politically vulnerable (and thus, dependent on Heydrich's patronage) and because he saw an advantage to keeping the SS independent of the party.
- While the climaxes of Atentát (1964), Operation Daybreak (1975) and Anthropoid (2016) were filmed at the Orthodox church where the Last Stand of Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš happened, the climax of The Man with the Iron Heart has been filmed at a different church, and a Catholic one in invokedBudapest at that.
- German soldiers being killed during the Last Stand at the church, with automatic weapons. The commando had only pistols when the assault happened, and the German force sent to catch/kill them only suffered five lightly wounded.
- The village of Lidice wasn't just burned down by the Germans as reprisals for the death of Heydrich like it is in the film. That village was razed to the ground, erased from existence. Roads leading to it were diverted, the ground was levelled and the cemetery was emptied of its dead and looted.
Memoirs of a Geisha: Though set in 1930's-40's Japan, the Geisha's traditional attention to detail given to kimonos is not present, some scenes are clearly California Doubling, and the "Snow Dance" performed is not accurate to any Japanese traditional dance.
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc: Luc Besson said he didn't really care about retelling the Joan of Arc history so we get...
- The rape and murder of Jeanne's sister is fictional. In real life her whole family fled the village before it was attacked. What's more is that it was attacked by Burgundian soldiers - not English.
- Jeanne has visions as a young child. In real life she claimed they didn't start until she was 13.
- Jeanne finds the sword also as a young child. She didn't find it until many years later on her journey to Chinon.
- The Duke of Burgundy is portrayed as stating he doesn't believe in God or the Devil to Joan in front of witnesses. Not only is there no evidence of this (which would be very unlikely in that era) but no one would ever say this publicly (because anyone who did ran the risk of being convicted of blasphemy).'
- Joan was described with black hair rather than blond.
The Mongols:
- Genghis Khan died in 1227 while besieging the rebellious Western Xia in China, he never went to Poland. The Poland campaign of the Mongols started in 1240. And the exact cause of his death remains a mystery, attributed to either illness, being killed in action or from wounds sustained in hunting or battle, while here he's stabbed In the Back by Ögedei's paramour.
- In Real Life, Ögedei was Genghis' third son, not his first son.
- One of Genghis Khan's sons here is named Temüjin. Temüjin was Genghis Khan himself (his birth name), not one of his sons.
In My Way during the climax D-Day scene:
- D-Day at Normandy was cloudy with rough waves and almost non-ideal weather for an amphibious landing. The movie depicts D-Day with clear, sunny skies and relatively calm waves.
- Tatsuo at the end is captured by recently landed American paratroopers; no paratroopers landed on the beach during the invasion, only at pre-dawn and evening.
The history of witchcraft given in the narration at the start of The Naked Witch is riddled with errors and bears very little resemblance to actual history. One of the more egregious errors is the claim that the Dark Ages followed the Middle Ages.
The Name of the Rose: Pretty much the only thing the film version gets right about the historical Bernardo Gui is that he was an Inquisitor during the fourteenth century. While Gui did convict large numbers of heretics during his tenure, only about five percent of them were executed; he far preferred to prove heresies wrong and to reconcile heretics with the church rather than kill them, and he was always more scholar and administrator than zealot and crusader. He's less of a cackling arch-villain in the novel, but not by much. Neither he nor the Inquisition accused people of witchcraft either, for at the time the Church officially disbelieved it existed. Even later, the Inquisitions dealt mainly with heresy.
No God, No Master:
- First off, the title: "No Gods, No Masters" was then and is now an anarchist slogan-it isn't clear why they changed it.
- Flynn, who's investigating the bombings (April-June 1919) is shown with a free Emma Goldman-but she was in prison until September 1919, making this impossible. Her Mother Earth magazine had also been banned in 1917.
- Luigi Galleani was deported in June of 1919, while the Palmer Raids took place in November 1919-January 1920.
- Palmer himself suffered a bomb attack on his house in June, which the film strangely does not include, though it would have added to its drama and given him a personal motive in his heavy-handed response to the bombings.
- Flynn was actually made chief of the BOI in July 1919, before the raids. While the People's Institute did exist (and still does), they did not give Galleani a scholarship, with him then turning on its members-this does not appear to serve any real purpose in the film but giving him a motive as John Rockefeller (a target of the bombings) was said to be its backer (in reality Galleani had been an anarchist for years already, openly advocating violence, while the story implies this had made him take up the ideology).
- Sacco and Vanzetti had actually known each other since 1917, and left the US to evade the World War 1 draft. Both of them were anarchists who openly advocated violence, and possibly also followers of Luigi Galleani. They were known associates of Carlo Valdonoci, the Italian anarchist who delivered a bomb to Palmer's house, then accidentally blew himself up in the process. However, the pair were probably not guilty of the payroll murders, but had their political beliefs used against them. Unlike in the film, however, they were convicted in 1921 (a year after the final bombing, that of Wall Street) and only sentenced to death in 1927, as years of appeals delayed it.
- J. Edgar Hoover was actually appointed by Flynn to monitor suspected radicals, whereas the film contrasts them with each other unfavorably.
- Last, this was hardly the first terrorist act on US soil. Most of these deviations don't really seem necessary to the film's dramatic purposes.
1978's The Norseman mangles history on a level few others could touch. Even ignoring the Horny Vikings outfits and Lee Majors as a Leif Erikson expy with a Kentucky drawl, the film's depiction of the failed settlement of Vinland is way, way off. Given that the one confirmed Viking site in North America is in Newfoundland, the Florida location for the film seems way too sunny and tropical. Also, the film's promo material says the Vikings fought against "the savage warriors of the Iroquois Nation." The actual Skraelings were ancestors of the modern Inuit people. Also, there's no such thing as "the Iroquois Nation"; the Iroquois (or, to use the indigenous name, Haudenosaunee) is a confederacy of several different nations, straddling the borders of modern-day New York state, Ontario, and Quebec, that formed long after the Vikings left Vinland. And those are just scratching the surface of the film.
In North Face, German alpinist Toni Kurz is a Historical Domain Character. His lover, journalist Luise Fellner (Johanna Wokalek), was invented for this film.
In The Outlaw Josey Wales, character Lone Watie (implied to be a relative to Confederate general Stand Watie), tells the title character that, when The American Civil War broke out, the Cherokee chiefs declared war on the Union due to their mistreatment on the Trail of Tears and on the reservation. Actually the real Watie family was in favor of removal to Oklahoma, and settled there voluntarily before troops were sent in to force the matter. In addition, the Cherokee tribe was split on the matter; despite being slaveholders, many of them remembered that they were forced out from a Southern state by a Southern president. Principal Chief John Ross (who had always been opposed to removal) paid lip service to the Confederates at first, then emphatically threw his weight behind the Union as soon as he could without fear of reprisal.
Outlaw King: While the film clearly wanted to avoid this for the most part with clothing, historical characters and events (unlike Braveheart, the events of which directly precede those of Outlaw King), there are still some inaccuracies:
- The leather bracers Robert wears, which are an ubiquitous Hollywood myth.
- The main liberty taken is Robert and Prince Edward meeting in battle for a one-on-one duel at the end of a battle, which never happened. The idea that the prince would be simply abandoned on the field, while a duel between him and Robert could go on without any interference from either side, strains all credulity. And the Scots certainly would have insisted that Edward be ransomed for a huge sum rather than simply released.^note
- Edward I only died two months after the Battle of Loudoun Hill.
- Nigel de Brus was hanged, drawn and quartered for holding off an English force so that Elizabeth and Marjorie could get away, not just refusing to give up their location.
- Alexander de Brus was not ambushed and killed while trying to retreat from the shore along with his brothers, but during a failed offensive landing. His brother Thomas was captured in the same battle and later beheaded in London.
- Robert de Clifford, the English nobleman who was awarded the Douglas family's lands, was killed at the Battle of Bannockburn, rather than the Battle of Loudoun Hill as depicted in the film.
- Apart from the duel between Edward and Robert and the death of Clifford, the Battle of Loudon Hill is accurately represented save for one detail: The Scottish army was uphill of the English, rather than on the same level.
- It was Edward I who swore by the swans (and by God), not his son.
Paranormal Asylum: A few liberties were taken with the life story of Mary Mallon. For starters, it's believed that Mary got typhoid from her mother while she was pregnant with her, not from being raped by a pedophile who also had typhoid. Also, there doesn't seem to be any record of Mary having any other relatives besides her mother and her father, especially a half-sister.
In Pathfinder (2007), Horny Vikings is in full effect, making them look like warriors of Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy. They're also wearing plate armor, something that wouldn't exist for another few centuries and bring along rottweilers (which were first bred in the mid-18th century). Just to make them more monstrous, all of them are dark-haired, which is odd for Scandinavians, who are mostly fair-haired.
In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Singapore would have been a small Malay fishing village, instead of a Chinese port town. Because Singapore was the name given by the British Colonists in the 19th century, it would likely have been called by its earlier name, Singapura, during the time of the film.
Pompeii:
- Corvus seems to have been first a general and later a senator in Rome, when in real life you had to be a senator in order to be serve in any significantly high rank in the army (even cavalry was often composed by senators).
- Corvus wears a 24-Hour Armor, even while relaxing or in the gladiator games, which would have been considered an uncivilized custom in Rome. Severus also sports a stubble, another uncouth trait for a Roman citizen at the time (facial hair only became fashionable for them almost a century later when Emperor Hadrian re-introduced beards).
- Historical gladiators were essentially the rock stars of their day; they were usually slaves, yes, but they weren't usually mistreated or put to fight to death unless they turned out absolutely awful at their thing. Also, rather than being slim and muscular, they were fat and muscular, so they could take more cuts, bleed more, put on a better show and generally last longer.
- For some undiscernible reason, the gladiator games have a Greek chorus as if they were a theatre play, with its performers spouting generic villainous imperial stuff rather than describing the action. They also feature gladiators facing waves of actual Roman soldiers, something that would have never been done in real life.
- All the gladiators are able to communicate with each other despite of being of vastly diverse origins and not sharing a common language (the notion of all the slaves speaking fluent Latin would be extremely unlikely).
- Purple is worn by almost everybody in this film, from Roman citizens to soldiers, but this is historically inaccurate. Purple was reserved only for the Imperial Roman family, while Roman soldiers would have worn a red or white tunic.
- The soldiers' weapons and armors all over the place too, with shields and helmets from multiple periods of the empire (some of them from centuries later). Their armor is also blackened, when in real life Roman soldiers never wore black.
- Pompeians are treated as non-Romans, which doesn't make sense. In fact, Pompeii by historical accounts was something of a Roman resort town. It also makes it very unlikely any who lived there harbored animosity towards Rome.
- Roman soldiers would not be stationed in or outside of Pompeii, they would have been stationed across the bay in the town or Misenum where the Navy Base was located.
- Londinium was not the capital of Roman Britain in AD 79, even although it may have become so later; Camulodunum (modern Colchester) would have been the capital at the time.
- Emperor Titus is mentioned as corrupt, while Corvus claims he'd have Cassia's parents killed simply for questioning the effectiveness of his rule. The real Titus was actually known for his mercy (ending the widespread treason trials which plagued previous Emperors' reigns), even specifically saying defaming him was no longer a crime as it couldn't harm him. Far from being corrupt, he was known for being virtuous, enacting popular reforms and various public works. It's true however that this might be partly false rumors or empty threats Corvus used to blackmail Cassia's father into giving her hand to him, as Titus has only just ascended the throne (there was indeed skepticism about him at first, though not for the reasons in the film).
Prey (2022) does an impressive recreation of Colonial America and the Native American lifestyle of the period. The problem is a central aspect happening a century too soon, as the Comanche only became a nomadic horse-riding tribe after the 1719 that is the movie's setting - by then, they were primarily in modern day Texas, which at that time was being encroached on by Spain, while in the movie the Comanche are in the Northern Great Plains, even meeting the French expeditions.
Princess of Thieves: Philip was not legitimized, and thus never the heir to the throne. It was lawfully John's. He never became king in reality, even briefly. In the film, they excuse this saying his reign was later scrubbed out of history.
The 1994 film Quiz Show takes license with the Quiz Show Scandals, specifically the NBC show 21. On the December 5, 1956 telecast, Herb Stempel takes an instructed dive by incorrectly answering "At The Waterfront" as the 1954 Oscar winner for Best Picture. In actuality, the game was decided when Stempel and eventual champ Charles Van Doren played to a tie, then after the second question of the next game Van Doren chose to end the game with him in the lead and thus giving him the championship. Robert Redford, the film's director, eschewed everything past the dive and ended the game there. What also wasn't disclosed in the film was that a contestant on Dotto was the first to blow the whistle about answers being fed.
Red Tails:
- The main cast of the film are Composite Characters of several real-life Tuskeegee Airmen.
- The film depicts the 332nd Fighter Group going straight from the prewar P-40 Warhawk to the P-51D Mustang, skipping over three other aircraft they flew: the P-39 Airacobra, P-47 Thunderbolt, and P-51B and -C (distinguished from the -D model by having a traditional windowed canopy and tall fuselage rather than the -D's iconic bubble canopy).
- One incident depicted in the film got accused of being unrealistic: two of the airmen spot a "German destroyer" off the coast and set it ablaze with a strafing run. That part actually happened: the 332nd is credited with damaging the German torpedo boat TA22, formerly the Italian destroyer Giuseppe Misori, beyond repair in June 1944. The actual error in the scene is that the ship depicted is not a destroyer but a Littorio-class battleship, to which a gun attack by two fighters would have been a minor annoyance at most.
Remember the Titans:
- T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, whose 1971 football team is the main subject, was depicted as a school that been racially integrated that very year. Alexandria's real-life schools had been integrated in 1959. What actually happened in 1971 was that Alexandria's school division^note partially merged its three high schools. The three previous schools would serve only freshmen and sophomores, while T.C. Williams opened as a single school for all of the city's juniors and seniors.
- The film showed T.C. as winning multiple close games before finishing unbeaten. The real team was indeed unbeaten (13–0), but most of their wins were blowouts, with 9 being shutouts.
- In the film, T.C.'s head coach Herman Boone says "We are not like all the other schools in this conference, they're all white. They don't have to worry about race. We do." In reality, every single school T.C. faced had been integrated for several years.
- The climax of the film is a Virginia state championship game between T.C. and George C. Marshall High of nearby Falls Church, which T.C. won on a fourth-down come-from-behind play at the very end of the game. The T.C.–Marshall matchup did happen in real life, with the same finish, but it was a midseason game. T.C.'s real state championship game was a 27–0 blowout of Andrew Lewis High^notewhich has since become a middle school of Salem.
- The film depicts T.C.'s star linebacker Gerry Bertier as having suffered a paralyzing injury in a car crash in the days before the state title game. The real Bertier was paralyzed in a 1971 car crash, but it took place after a post-championship banquet honoring the team.
- Sheryl Yoast, daughter of T.C. assistant coach Bill Yoast, was depicted as an only child. She was really the third of Bill's four daughters. Her surviving sisters (Sheryl had died a couple of years before production started) had no problem with this bit of artistic license.
The Ribald Tales of Robin Hood: Unsurprisingly, the film is riddled with historic inaccuracies. The most egregious is the inclusion of Prince John's sister Lady Sallyforth as one of the main villains. Prince John (and King Richard) had no sister named this of course (two of their three real sisters were in fact dead by the time John had become King in any case) and their title was Princess, not Lady (two became queens, the other a duchess).
Riverworld: Nero in the 2003 film is portrayed as happily greeting a Praetorian Guard who he sees there in Riverworld, along with other Romans. The real man would probably have been far more wary, since the Praetorian Guards had defected from him to a governor who rebelled against Nero, and he'd also be unaware of whether the rest would follow him (his usurper had been popular). Here, he's portrayed as undisputed Emperor whom they immediately hail as their ruler. Also, he orders a human sacrifice, which Romans by his time viewed as anathema. They even claim that Nero's rule brought down Rome itself-it actually endured over three more centuries, so this is ridiculously off.
Rogues of Sherwood Forest makes multiple references to King Richard's 'democratic rule'. The reign of Richard the Lionheart may have been many things, but democratic was not one of them.
A Royal Affair is pretty accurate for the most part, but a few inconsistencies include Struensee speaking fluent Danish all the time (he actually spoke mostly German, barely being able to speak Danish, which further alienated him from the Danish court) and the letter Caroline has smuggled to her children, revealing the truth behind her affair and her daughter's parentage, which probably didn't happen and could actually have proved disastrous for Princess Louise Auguste if it had fallen into the wrong hands. However, it is generally accepted as fact that Struensee probably was Louise Auguste's real father, which lots of people at the time seemed to believe too.
For the standards of its director, the reconstruction of the first phases of The Salvadoran Civil War in Salvador is remarkably accurate and the film has been even praised by the US Ambassador in the country at the time for having captured well the chaotic situation. However, it still takes some liberties. In particular, its depiction of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero is quite inaccurate.
Saving Mr. Banks:
- Ironically, for a movie about the author of Mary Poppins trying to avoid Disneyfication of her work, the true story is heavily Disneyified. While the ending has Travers moved to tears during the screening of the final film, despite her fights with Walt Disney over the production, in reality she was actually weeping in horror at what she considered an absolute travesty that she loathed so much she put it in her will there could never be any more American adaptations of her works. The film shows Disney, at least temporarily, winning Travers over with an early rendition of "Let's Go Fly A Kite", but in reality that was one of the parts she hated most about the movie. For what it's worth, she did eventually come around to it many years later, still hating it as an adaptation, but enjoying it as its own thing.
- Disney and Travers' relationship was much colder in real life, and most of the exchanges did not happen face-to-face, but were actually over the phone or by letter, and he very firmly rejected her attempts to make changes to the movie's production. Needless to say, they did not have a sustained friendship after Mary Poppins came out in real life, or any sort of good relationship at all. The movie also softens a lot by removing some of the more unpleasant character traits of both people (such as Disney being a heavy smoker and Traver actually being even more difficult to work with and having an incredibly strained familial relationship in real life^note). Also the fact Travers was a lesbian in reality.
- The whole storyline about Disney needing to convince Travers, who is heavily resisting, to sign over the film rights is made up. In reality, Travers signed over the rights quickly without consultation, and before she had even travelled to Los Angeles.
In The School for Good and Evil (2022), El Cid is presented by the Headmaster as an example of a storybook hero in the same vein as Jack, Hercules and Cinderella... ignoring the fact that he was a very real historical character from Medieval Spain who was far from being a paragon of Good.
Seabiscuit:
- Seabiscuit's regular jockey Red Pollard is depicted as having been raised in an affluent family that lost its fortune in the 1929 Wall Street crash. While the real Pollard was indeed born into a wealthy family that lost its fortune, he had left home to become a jockey back in 1922, and the family had lost its fortune when a major flood of the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton destroyed the family business in 1915.
- Both Film!Pollard and Real!Pollard lost the sight in one eye after a traumatic brain injury, but the causes of those injuries were different. In the film, the injury took place during an underground boxing match. In real life, the injury happened when Pollard was hit by a rock thrown up by another horse during a training ride.
- War Admiral's portrayal is embellished to make Seabiscuit more of an underdog. He's portrayed as a gigantic coal-black horse with superior breeding. In reality, War Admiral was small, nicknamed the Mighty Atom, and at most 0.1 hands^* taller than the famously small Seabiscuit. The horses were also closely related. Both descended from the racing juggernaut Man 'o War, and Seabiscuit was essentially War Admiral's nephew. Finally, War Admiral was dark brown (bay) in only minor contrast to Seabiscuit's light brown coat.
Season of the Witch: The film has systematic witch hunts/trials begun early. In reality, they started after the Black Plague (probably as a way to blame someone, like the film shows) though the Church wasn't involved like this. Mostly witchcraft was considered superstition by the Church and not formally recognized then as real. They certainly had no Inquisitors or equivalent set up to prosecuted supposed "witches" then, since it wasn't yet recognized as a crime by the Church.
See How They Run makes use of the fact that The Mousetrap was inspired by a real life case but takes several liberties with the truth in order to tell the story. The O'Neill family's name is changed to Corrigan to match the characters in the play and there is no evidence that the surviving brother ever plotted revenge on Agatha Christie or anyone involved with the play.
Sergeant York, while mostly accurate, takes some liberties with the real events of Alvin York's life:
- York's friend "Pusher" Ross is killed by a captured German soldier who managed to get hold of a grenade. York then shoots the German in revenge. Pusher is fictional, and although one German did refuse to surrender, threw a grenade and was shot by York in response, the grenade didn't kill any Americans.
- The German troops are shown being commanded by a major. They were actually commanded by Paul Vollmer, who was only a lieutenant. The fictional major in the movie isn't named.
- York is seen using a Luger he takes from a captured German after losing his US Army Colt M1911. In truth, he never took a gun from a prisoner to use, and kept hold of his Army Colt for the entire battle. This was changed because the Luger the armorers provided was the only blank-adapted handgun available on the set. He is also seen using an M1903 Springfield, as opposed to the M1917 Enfield he had in real life.
- The battle occurs in a very open and frankly desert-like environment, as compared to the thickly-wooded hills of the actual ravine in France. It's possible the filmmakers wanted to give the battlefield a more harsh and desolate-looking appearance in order to add tension.
Shakespeare in Love:
- The real Shakespeare didn't create the plot of Romeo and Juliet, let alone make it up as he went along — as is the case with pretty much all of his work, he was adapting preexisting poems, stories or historical records for the stage; in this case he used The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.
- Royalty at this point in time would never have set foot in a public theatre. Theatrical companies were often invited to play in the Elizabethan court, though. The Queen does not go to the theatre, the theatre goes to the Queen.
- Obviously, the entire plot is fictional except for the fact he did write and stage Romeo and Juliet.
- Historians date the writing and first performance of Romeo and Juliet to 1595 - by which time Christopher Marlowe had already been dead for two years.
- The film's final scene implies that the next play Shakespeare writes will be Twelfth Night. In fact, that play was not written until 1601, six years later - and Shakespeare wrote 11 other plays in the meantime, including some of his best known works: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and the first two parts of Henry IV.
The Social Network claims to be the real life story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, but most of the scenes are made up for the film. There are several anachronisms with the 2003 time period: the Samsung SyncMaster 941BW was not available in 2003, Serato Scratch Live wasn't released until 2004, a can of Mountain Dew uses a newer logo introduced in 2005, the site "Cats That Look Like Hitler" wasn't there until 2006, Windows XP Service Pack 3, Fallout 3, and Dennis de Laat's "The Sound of Violence" weren't released until 2008, Bing wasn't around until 2009, traffic to Facemash slowed down Harvard's network but did not cause a "network crash", Harvard had a "@fas.harvard.edu" e-mail address instead of "@harvard.edu", Harvard dorms at the time required swiping a keycard instead of keyless entry. The film's ending claims Facebook is available in 207 countries; the last count has been no greater than 196 countries. The film depicts Mark as creating Facemash and Facebook as payback and an appeal to an ex-girlfriend, when he had a girlfriend (now his wife) during most of the film's events. Mark Zuckerberg reportedly spent the time sitting, programming and eating pizza with friends during Facebook's development.
If you really want to get technical with Space Jam, while we all know that the reason Michael Jordan returned to basketball wasn't to rescue the Looney Tunes from intergalactic aliens who run an amusement park, his retirement from and eventual return to basketball and his time in baseball are either major exaggerations or simplifications.
- Yes, Jordan retired from basketball, but it was a number of reasons behind it including burnout, which was accelerated due to participating in the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics (which he considered the height of his career due to being part of the "Dream Team") and his father's murder.
- The movie treats Jordan as a Fish out of Water as a baseball player and constantly mocks him for it. Granted, he wasn't the best - he batted .202 as part of the Birmingham Barons and .252 with the Scottsdale Scorpions - but he wasn't Space Jam bad.
- There was a lockdown, but it wasn't caused by a mysterious illness (let alone that the cartoon aliens were leeching off of other basketball players' talent) and it wasn't with basketball - the 1994-1995 Major League Baseball Strike would hit around that time. This would be the reason why Jordan returned to the game, as he didn't want to be pigeonholed into being a replacement player during that time (the other reason was because the Chicago Bulls fell apart without him).
Stargate: Naturally, even aside from the aliens, the film premise depends on this. Jackson claims the Pyramids are much older than Egyptologists have found them to be, the evidence for them being made for the Pharaohs was forged and that Egyptian culture sprang up without precursors. Obviously this is not supported by the evidence for this. The film itself portrays Jackson's theories as laughed at, though naturally he turns out to be right nonetheless. He is genuinely correct that Budge has long been debunked however. Hilariously though, while this is clearly fictional, it has precedence in Egyptian history. Countless pharaohs actively rewrote their own history to take credit for past events now attributed to their predecessors. The best case is Ramses the Second (Ozymandias for those familiar with Percy Shelley) whose countless achievements were either claimed by other pharaohs either claiming to have accomplished them or have simply been Ramses.
Stealing Heaven: Though largely accurate, some liberties are taken.
- The film portrays Héloïse as a novice who leaves her convent school, abandoning that path for the University of Paris. In reality there's no evidence she ever was a novice or studied in a convent school, and when Abelard met her she was a well-known scholar on her own already.
- Abelard actually stated he tried to seduce Héloïse, when in the film it's portrayed as her doing so. He said this was because of her fame noted above.
- Whether Canon Fulbert was punished isn't recorded.
- What became of Astrolabe isn't known, as Abelard only mentioned him once and Héloïse did not at all.
- Abelard actually married Héloïse to appease Fulbert, rather than it being kept from him (in secret, for his University career).
- It's unknown if Fulbert actually ordered Abelard attacked, though as some friends of his did it, that's possible.
- The film also omits Abelard's later troubles after becoming a monk (he was expelled from one abbey over antagonizing the monks with a dispute, plus twice accused of heresy and officially sanctioned for it).
- Héloïse conversely has her radically proto-feminist ideas in later life (drawn from her letters to Abelard) wholly unmentioned (saying she preferred love to marriage, describing the latter as prostitution etc.).
Stonehearst Asylum: "Mickey Finn" as a term for knockout drugs didn't originate until 1915, based on a real case in 1903 of a Chicago barman by that name drugging and then robbing customers. The film has it used in the 1899 UK.
Sully: Both the real-life events that inspired the film and the memoir Cpt. Sullenberger wrote (Highest Duty) are largely exaggerated or misrepresented for Rule of Drama, to such an extent that it was called out by technical experts for completely misrepresenting the ensuing investigation that was put together to ascertain the circumstances of the plane's famous glide-landing into the Hudson. Part of this narrative exaggeration was laid at the feet of director Clint Eastwood, who has stated in interviews that he went along with the script without first finding out whether it was actually based in reality or not, while at least one NTSB investigator has said the film publicly smeared his reputation.
- The three investigators from the NTSB act needlessly hostile and antagonistic towards Sully and his co-pilot, Skiles, insinuating that one or both of them were drinking on the job and repeatedly voicing their concern that Sully is in the spotlight and making public appearances instead of staying quiet. This continues all the way to the end of the film, in which they either ignore or try to downplay concerns about the incident until Sully has to essentially shame them in public by asking them to make use of a variable (the 35-second delay it took for Sully to understand the situation) before he tried to act on his decision. In reality, the investigators were completely cooperative with the pilots, and once they had run the initial tests, they were practically certain that Sully and Skiles had made the right decision. The subsequent NTSB report even publicly praised both men for their actions, while in the film, the investigators have to be shamed into submission.
- Investigators said that Sully and Skiles were comfortable and cooperative. In the film, the investigators antagonize Sully and Skiles several times, calling him out for holding media appearances in the wake of the incident and implying that it was all his fault.
- In the film, the cockpit recordings are played mere days after the incident, in a packed inquiry hearing with dozens of onlookers present. In reality, the recordings were played for the first time four months after the event, to a room of six people.
- In addition, it is illegal for the NTSB to release the actual cockpit recordings. They can only release the written transcript.
In Teaching Mrs. Tingle, one of the main characters is a girl we're constantly told is a great brain, and she produces a final project for her History class that's an "authentic recreation" of the diary of a girl who was killed during the Salem Witch Trials, right down to the book being authentically aged to resemble a diary that had survived the period. The eponymous teacher opens the diary at random, and finds an entry on how the fictional girl fears she'll be burned at the stake tomorrow. No one was burned at the stake in the Salem Witch Trials, and a person of that time period would have known this. They hanged those convicted, while one was crushed under weights for declining to enter a plea, and while people were burned in Europe, it was usually for heresy, not witchcraft (though, to be sure, the two were sometimes linked). The student gets a C, though not for this mistake.
In Testament of Youth, a civilian notices that a British soldier leaving for the front in 1914 is sick and identifies the illness as Spanish Flu, claiming that it's both ripping through the troops and in all the newspapers. The first known case of Spanish Flu was in 1918, in the United States, and it was called that because reports of the disease weren't subjected to wartime censorship in neutral Spain.
Tetris (2023): While roughly based on an account of real-life events, some events were either embellished or introduced to make for a more compelling story:
- While Henk really was the one that suggested Tetris to be bundled with the Game Boy, in reality it was already out in Japan without any bundled games at the time Henk went to Russia to negotiate the handheld rights.
- Belikov's Batman Gambit in reality only involved him roasting Robert Stein over not paying his due royalties and imposing increased rates and penalties (which he was actually prepared to lower if Stein complained) in order to prevent him from reading the fine print. The Tetris arcade rights were not actually involved the negotiations.
- While Henk Rogers, Robert Stein and Kevin Maxwell really were in Russia at the same time for the Tetris rights, they never became aware of each other's presence while they were there. Henk Rogers and Robert Stein never actually met as Belikov was in fact very careful in keeping all parties separate and arranging his meetings with them in such a way so that they wouldn't accidentally bump into each other. The Chance Meeting Between Antagonists was just added to the movie to create tension.
- The ending car chase was invented purely to give the film an exciting climax. However, the idea didn't come out of nowhere: while it's true that Robert Maxwell attempted to sic the KGB on Henk and co. in retaliation for obtaining the rights to Tetris, in reality the KGB told him that there was nothing they could do since their hands were tied trying to deal with their collapsing government and to just give up.
- Henk was not blackmailed to abandon his pursuit for the rights to Tetris, nor did he miss his daughter's recital to secure the rights.
- The Russian government never threatened Henk's wife.
- Apparently, Robert Maxwell wasn't as bad in real life as the film made him out to be. In real life, he was even worse. In fact, while the fraudulent contract he offered Nintendo didn't actually happen, Robert Maxwell built his empire with these sort of deals.
- Valentin Trifonov is an original character made specifically for the film, based on all of corrupt officials in the USSR's ranks.
- A minor factual error presented in the ending: Alexey and his family are shown immigrating to San Francisco. They actually immigrated to Seattle.
The Three Musketeers (2023): The name of D'Artagnan's father is mentioned as being Achille. The Real Life one was named Bertrand de Batz (the real Charles D'Artagnan took his mother's name when he went to Paris).
A minor example in Time Bandits: The fourth and final time period the characters visit before they end up in Evil’s time period is on the Titanic in 1912. A life preserver shows it being called the S.S. Titanic, when the actual title was the RMS Titanic.
Timeline: The film has the English treat a Frenchman as suspicious just for being French, and kill him as a spy. At the time however, most of the English nobles were themselves Norman-French, spoke French, and had French allies. The French and English did not wear red or blue uniforms at the time either. In that era there were no standard uniforms at all. If any, each lord's men wore his colors/emblem, not a national one.
Titanic (1997): The film inaccurately portrays First Officer (third in command of the ship, Chief Officer is 2nd in command) William Murdock as a corrupt individual who took bribes and shot people to ensure certain people spots on the lifeboats. Also, the ship's crew did not try to keep the lowerclassmen down in third class to let them all die.
Tommy Boy: In Tommy's US History final, one of the questions is "Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and _____ Hancock were all framers of the Constitution.", to which Tommy answers "Herbie Hancock" instead of "John Hancock". Except that neither Jefferson nor Hancock were involved in the framing of the Constitution. No wonder Tommy took seven years to finish college.
Transformers claims that many of the advancements in technology in the 20th century were a result of reverse-engineering Megatron, who had been hidden under the Hoover Dam by the US government. The filmmakers include cars in this list of technologies. In reality, Karl Benz (as in Mercedes-Benz) patented the first internal combustion-powered car in 1895, thirty years before the Hoover Dam was even thought of.
The Trial of the Chicago 7:
- The sentencing is wildly changed from the court record. In the film, Judge Hoffman asks Hayden to give a short statement about his sentencing, to which Hayden replies with a list of the 5000 soldiers who have died since the trial began.^note In real life, each one of the seven remaining defendants took the stand to give Judge Hoffman separate "reason you suck" speeches. Dick Schultz is depicted as having stood up during the aforementioned name list as "respect for the fallen." Schultz himself confirmed that did not happen.
- In the film, Bobby Seale's case is declared a mistrial almost immediately after he's dragged back to court in a gag and chains, which is a compression from reality — he was brought into court this way for four days. Sorkin said in an interview with The Economist that this was done to not have the audience get used to seeing him that way and therefore not normalize it.
- Further, the film depicts that Seale's anguished outburst over the killing of Fred Hampton is what led to this appalling treatment. In reality, Hampton's killing happened after Seale's trial had already been separated from the other seven defendants.
- The real Abbie Hoffman was quite a bit more radical than he's portrayed as here. While the film character praises American democratic institutions, saying the problem is corrupt people are in charge, Hoffman actually felt that they were imprisoning people, part of a decaying system. He was an anarchist and "hedonistic communist" in his words, wanting a revolution rather than simply reform.
- The "take the hill" scene in Grant Park was much the opposite from what was portrayed here. In reality, protesters had "taken" it already, climbing onto the statue there. After that, the police moved in and arrested/attacked them.
- Jerry wasn't arrested while rescuing a female protester from assault (there's no evidence that even happened) but later on the street.
- There was no undercover agent who seduced Jerry. Rather, one served as his bodyguard, while two more also infiltrated the protestors (all were male).
- The film portrays the violence as wholly one-sided. While it's true the police did often engage in brutality against protestors, journalists and even bystanders caught up in the fracas, almost two hundred officers were also injured (largely by hurled objects, such as makeshift weapons). This is all on film. It's not to say this justified the police brutality, but it also omits this.
- Schultz was actually strongly onboard with the prosecution, verbally attacking the defendants and their lawyers often.
- It's portrayed here that Bobby Seale is only on trial to make the white defendants appear more dangerous by association with a scary black man. However, he'd made a speech calling for people to shoot police who were threatening them, saying that it would be self-defense and he would congratulate those who did. Based on this he was indicted for crossing state lines to incite riot. It's probable the government wanted him indicted regardless though since they were seeking to destroy the Black Panther Party, which is shown in the film.
- David Dellinger never punched a marshal in reality (he did push officers who were trying to drag his daughters out of the courtroom, but that's not the same thing).
- Ramsay Clark didn't discuss any call with LBJ which contradicted the prosecution.
- Tom Hayden's contentious quote about "blood flowing all over the city" wasn't used as evidence in the trial.
- Hayden and Abbie Hoffman didn't actually disagree the way this is portrayed. Though Hayden was more civil and restrained, he also said some explosive things just as Hoffman did. Additionally, they had less contrasting hair and dress styles (Hayden was long-haired as well, for instance).
Truman, a Biopic about Harry S. Truman based off the novel by David McCullough and starring Gary Sinise as the titular president, has a number of notable inaccuracies:
- When confronted on whether to drop the atom bomb in order to end World War II, Truman believes that he must go forward with it in order to save millions of lives. While this was certainly one of the pros of the bombings, and Truman would later take credit for saving lives, in actuality Truman was convinced by his advisors that dropping the bomb would display American superiority over the Soviet Union, an idea which was representative of the nascent Cold War tensions between the two powers.
- In the movie, Truman is shown racially integrating the military in around late 1945 or 1946. In reality, Truman did not sign Executive Order 9981, which de-segregated the armed forces, until July 1948.
- In a conversation with Truman, General Douglas MacArthur claims that he defeated the Japanese "alone" in the Eastern Theatre of World War II. In reality, the United States was not the sole Allied force fighting the Japanese; the Australians, Chinese, Dutch, and various colonial guerilla forces all played substantial roles in deterring Japanese expansion in the Far East and Pacific, with the eight-year long Second Sino-Japanese War being the second-bloodiest front in World War II. This case could be somewhat justified in that the movie is told from Truman's perspective, and given that Truman had a personal grudge against MacArthur, it would make sense for the general to be portrayed in the movie as annoyingly arrogant.
- At the end of the movie, Harry and Bess Truman are seen boarding a train at Washington's Union Station after leaving the White House, while crowds cheer them on. In reality, Truman left Washington after his presidency in a rather humble and anti-climactic manner; he simply got in his car and drove all the way back to his home in Missouri.
U571 caused some controversy in the UK as it portrays an American submarine crew capturing a German Enigma code machine from a stranded U-Boat. In reality the British Royal Navy were the ones to board a sinking U-boat and capture the device.^note Also the depiction of German destroyers in the Atlantic hunting US and UK submarines is inaccurate as the German navy concentrated their resources on U-Boats; their surface fleet was unable to maintain any kind of presence in the Atlantic. The fact the British captured the Enigma code machines rather than the US is acknowledged just prior to the credits.
In Undercover Blues, it is said that Paulina Novacek (villain of the movie and former STB agent) "left Prague two jumps ahead of the firing squad." There were no executions in Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution (Czechoslovakia abolished the death penalty in 1990); before the revolution, executions were carried out by hanging.
It is doubtful anyone was expecting historical accuracy from Up the Chastity Belt, but suffice it to say that Richard the Lionheart did not have a twin brother named Lurkalot, not did he ever marry a woman named Lobelia.
Valkyrie: A banner uses the Fraktur typeface, which was very popular in early Nazi Germany, but was banned by the Nazis in 1941, before the events of the film.
Vice: The film acknowledges in the beginning and several other times that it has little to go on for information on certain areas of Cheney's life, due to his secrecy, but that, "We tried our fucking best."
- To lampshade the trope, Dick and Lynne lapse into faux-Shakespearean iambic pentameter after the narrator admits that they have no idea what the couple said to each other before Dick accepted the vice-presidential candidacy.
- The film implies that Cheney played a significant role in the veto of Congress's attempt to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine, a law from 1949 that forced broadcast radio and TV outlets to present both sides of an issue equally, and it eventually led to the rise of opinion news networks like Fox News. In reality, there's no record of Cheney convincing the House to abstain from interfering with the veto, especially given that Cheney wasn't the GOP Whip until 1989. Additionally, the Fairness Doctrine only applied to broadcast television stations and had no authority over cable stations, so Fox News wouldn't have to abide by the doctrine even if it were still a law today.
- In real life, Cheney and Bush never wore American flag lapels on their suits until after the 9/11 attacks.
- The film depicts Cheney as being responsible for Valerie Plame Wilson's name being leaked to the press even though Richard Armitage was the one responsible.
- Donald Rumsfeld never flew jet aircraft while serving in the Navy, only propeller aircraft.
- Cheney's introduction to Rumsfeld, rather than being random, was done by Representative William A. Steiger since Rumsfeld required more staff members. He had also already been a Republican and conservative prior to his internship, while the film indicates Cheney was undecided at this point starting out.
- Cheney meeting Scalia in the 70s to learn of unitary executive theory through him is fictional. It wasn't called by that name until the late 80s either. Additional, it has never held that the US President has absolute power, but only ultimate control over the executive branch.
- There is no evidence that Lynne Cheney's father might have murdered her mother. The investigation found she was out walking her dogs near the pond and apparently slipped before falling in, drowning as she'd never learned to swim. Lynne Cheney agreed this was what happened, and said her father had been so devastated he'd died of alcohol abuse within a couple years of her death.
- There's no indication Dick or Lynne encouraged Liz to make a public stand against same-sex marriage which served to alienate her from Mary. Instead, they attempted to reconcile them (Liz later recanted her views after her very public spat with Mary in 2021, plainly admitting that she had been wrong on the issue).
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story does this with the life and times of "Weird Al" Yankovic, as befitting an Affectionate Parody of musical biopics. Saying it takes a few liberties is a massive Understatement, although it's very intentionally Played for Laughs.
Welcome to Marwen: Mark wasn't able to get much of the health care that is shown in the film since the state would not cover it any longer. He left the hospital early because it was beyond his coverage. Mark lived with a friend and his mother, who also cared for him (she wasn't shown in the film at all). The men who attacked Mark were not actually Neo-Nazis, just thugs (one was black). Mark also had to testify three times (the preliminary hearing, trial and sentencing), never running from the courtroom as a result of the stress. Nicol was already married and had children-there was no abusive boyfriend. Mark consequently never proposed.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
- ... seriously?
- Judge Doom's ultimate goal is to build the Pasadena Freeway on the land where Toontown stands; his shutting down LA's trolleys is a Shout-Out to the Great American Streetcar Scandal. However, the film is set in 1947 - the Pasadena Freeway was already built in 1940. On the other hand, there were no cartoon characters wandering around Los Angeles at the time, either.
- In that same film Eddie and Roger watch the Goofy cartoon "Goofy Gymnastics", which was released in 1949. On the other hand, there were no cartoon characters wandering around Los Angeles at the time, either.
- Several cartoon characters in the movie would only make their debut several years later: Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner ("Fast and Furry-ous", 1949), Tinkerbell (Peter Pan, 1953), the penguin waiters (Mary Poppins, 1964)... However, the makers defended themselves by saying that these characters were simply not employed yet by their studios in those years. Furthermore, there were no cartoon characters wandering around Los Angeles at the time, either.
- The window of Eddie Valiant's office overlooks the Hollywood sign, but in 1947 it should still read "Hollywoodland". (The "land" wouldn't be removed until 1949.) On the other hand, there were no cartoon characters wandering around Los Angeles at the time, either.
Wild Wild West shows President Grant attending the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 (he didn't). It also has him creating the Secret Service with the purpose of protecting the president. In reality, it was created in 1865 to investigate counterfeiting. The first president to be placed under their protection was Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 following the assassination of William McKinley the year before.
Witchboard: Brandon claims that Ouija boards were invented in 540 BCE. The first recording of anything like an Ouija board was in 1100 CE, and modern Ouija boards were invented in the 1800s.
The Woman King: The Kingdom of Dahomey was a real nation ruled by King Ghezo, but their culture and politics are changed to make them look better and their enemies look worse.
- Their moral opposition to the slave trade is a key plotpoint of the film, but in real life Dahomey was just as proslavery as any other African kingdom (it was a particularly predatorial one, having conquered and enslaved several other African states) and continued to participate in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade until it simply became unprofitable. In fact, while Ghezo did explore trading palm oil at one point as depicted in the film, he went back to trading slaves because palm oil wasn't as profitable as them.
- Nanisca is a fictional character, her name being probably a reference to a Dahomey teenager who appears in a historical chronicle.
- Santo Ferreira seems to be a No Historical Figures Were Harmed version of Francisco Félix de Sousa, a Brazilian slave trader who was the most powerful of his kind at the time and place. Ironically, the real De Sousa was not an enemy to the Dahomey, but a benefactor and trading partner who helped Ghezo ascend to the throne in a coup and later became their main client in the slave trade. Also, although Ferreira is played by the very white Hero Fiennes, De Sousa was actually mestiço, or possibly a pale mulatto, if not both (people of all races participated happily in the slave trade, especially in the multi-ethnic Portuguese Empire).
- Many aspects of their society, including their rites of large-scale Human Sacrifice, are dropped from the film completely.
- The Kingdom of Dahomey didn't clash with European colonization until forty years after the movie is set, instead of it being a looming threat as in the movie, and it was against France, not Portugal/Brazil. The Portuguese Empire had been a friendly trading partner to Dahomey for many years and there was no reason to upset the status quo after Brazil's independence.
X-Men Film Series:
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine: The movie claims to start in 1845 Northwest Territories, Canada... Except that the Northwest Territories would not become a part of Canada until 1870 (and the borders of the vast area were gradually changed until 1905, which resulted in the creation of 4 provinces and 2 territories, with one of those territories split into two in 1999). Canada itself was only granted Dominion status in 1867.
- X-Men: Days of Future Past:
  - RFK Stadium is shown with a baseball diamond. The film is set in 1973, while in real life the stadium did not host baseball from 1972 (following the second Washington Senators' relocation to Texas) to 2004 (the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals the following year and played at RFK for three years before opening a new ballpark).
  - Hank tells Logan that most of the students and teachers were drafted for The Vietnam War, which is why Charles had shut down the school. In real life, most—if not all—of them could have stayed through a student deferment, and it's hard to believe that Xavier couldn't push such a thing through if he really wanted to.
- X-Men: Apocalypse:
  - It is nigh-impossible that a CNN reporter would have been allowed to film in a Polish town, especially given that Poland in 1983 was under martial law.
  - When Apocalypse is addressing the world, he speaks in Russian to a large group of churchgoers at a solemn Russian Orthodox Christian service. It is also highly improbable that the church would have that much attendance (religious life in the USSR was very strictly policed).
The X-Files: Fight the Future starts off 35,000 years ago in North Texas, and depicts a pair of Neanderthals running through the snow. Evidence of humans in the New World so early is thin and disputed; if they were there, they were certainly not Neanderthal, who never ranged outside Eurasia.

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