What are the best movies based on true stories?

Cannibal Holocaust

King Arthur

The Martian

A Night to Remember (1958)

Goodfellas

Gus Van Sant's "To Die For."

Zodiac

American Hustle (although technically it was "inspired" by Abscam)

Hidden Figures

A Man For All Season

I, Tonya

Catch Me If You Can

The Big Short

A League of Their Own

All the President's Men

Do "Funny Girl" and "The Sound of Music" count?

Evita

I really love Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

Xanadu starring Olivia Newton-John

Casino (1995). That movie is endlessly entertaining.

Monster

Wicked

[quote] Do "Funny Girl" and "The Sound of Music" count?

Even as a huge fan I think they would better fit the description "inspired by".

Does A Place In The Sun count?

Not Without My Daughter

Titanic

Silkwood

Mommie Dearest

Mask

Bonnie and Clyde

Dance With a Stranger

Cleopatra

Dog Day Afternoon

Andrei Rubelev

Before Night Falls

The Straight Story

Powertool

Meet me in St Louis

Alive 1993.

Goodfellas

The Stepford Wives

Avatar

Society of the Snow

A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story

Great choices

Wife, Mother, Murderer

Citizen Kane

The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking

Mrs. Anna

Casablanca

Spotlight

The Zone of Interest

Spartacus

The Bridge Over the River Kwai

Lady Sings The Blues

Star Wars - Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back

Lawrence of Arabia

OP, great topic, but too many candidates! Currently I'm on a "war and such-like" movie kick, so....

"Enemy At The Gates"---Russia's most proficient sniper of WWII vs. his Nazi counterpart. (Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Ed Harris)

"Breaker Morant"---Boer War murders of POWs. (Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown)

"The Sword of Gideon"---Mossad's hunting down of the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist massacre of 11 Israeli athletes. (Steven Bauer, Michael York, Rod Steiger, Robert Joy, and Colleen Dewhurst as Golda Meir) (Very similar to Spielberg's "Munich" but minus the internal moral ditherings of the lead avenger (Eric Bana) and the full-frontal nudity of the young woman assassin.)

The Longest Day

Coal Miner's Daughter

Caligula

R4, I agree 100% with your list, too!

"ANTR" is the best "Titanic" movie for characterization, but I think Leo's is the best for depicting the sinking.

I forgot about the political ones, and I include the superb "A Man For All Seasons" in that! "But Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for Wales?"

The Social Network

Great choices

Joe Gage's Kansas City Trucking Co.

Ben Hur

Quo Vadis

Argo

Dawson’s Fifty Load Weekend

Beckett

A Lion In Winter

Gandhi

Out Of Africa

Birdman Of Alcatraz

The Miracle Worker

The Great Escape

R51 Just what I was looking for.

Christian you people are bad at this

IN COLD BLOOD

Christ*. ;)

[quote] Casino (1995). That movie is endlessly entertaining.

But about an hour too long.

A League of Their Own (story of the Rockford Peaches)

Serpent and the Rainbow

R54, What makes your choice superior to all the previous answers such that you became miffed? (Answer: It isn't. At least not to "A Man For All Seasons.")

No on 9

The Life and Times of Harvey Milk

Cast a Giant Shadow

All The President's Men

The Killing Fields

The Year of Living Dangerously

Invictus

An American Tragedy

Jeez, people. Documentaries are NOT “movies based on…’

They are documentaries —how dumb are you?

R59 AMFAS is a fictional version. ICB is a non-fictional fiction version.

Where did you go to university? Did they not teach literary theory or proper criticism where you came from? Bless…your….heart.

Papillion

Hidden Figures

I'd rather watch a documentary than historical fiction any day.

Well, r63, I learned the meaning of "based on." You?

Moreover, perhaps YOU don't know that Capote conjured dialogue and scenes, such that "In Cold Blood" is rather famously categorized as a "non-fiction novel," a seeming oxymoron but there you have it.

Finally and FYI, I have read more literary criticism and theory than are dreamt of in your philosophy, DEAR.

The best historical fiction is Allan Eckert's novels, which claim to be all of them based on real documents.

In Cold Blood. I still think of the scene where Robert Blake laments how they murdered the teenage girl ( after the other guy raped her ) and said “ murdering a girl for two Kennedy half dollars .”

R67 missed the reference to non-fiction fiction in the post. Some critical reader you are

Thanks for the dime store version of how he wrote it for the New Yorker—

This one

Mississippi Burning

Madame Claude (1977)

Boys Don't Cry

"Hoosiers."

The Elephant Man

Out of Africa

Lawrence of My Labia

Snuff Girls and Ponies 1

Snuff Girls and Ponies2

Etc.