Most Historically Accurate Movies

Mott the Hoople

Mott the Hoople

Sweet Jane
I'm a huge history buff and there is nothing I detest more than a very interesting and/or influential historical event being absolutely butchered by Film Makers. I do understand why it happens...if historical movies were accurate then they probably wouldn't appeal to a mass audience.

However when a film maker gets it right then it's really a treat. So I just wanted to discuss on what you think are the best historically accurate films you have seen.

My all time favorite is "The Long Riders" produced by Frank and Stacy Keach. It has four sets of acting brothers, The Keach (James Brothers) , Carridine (Younger brothers), Guest (Ford brothers) and Quaid (Miller brothers) brothers. There's only one BS scene in the entire movie (the knife fight between Cole Younger and Sam Starr) but the rest of the movie is spot on accurate.

My most recent historically accurate move was The Homesman with Hillary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones. Set on the edge of the frontier in Western Nebraska in 1850 it's about how the hardships of frontier life drove some women to insanity. Swank's character plays a hard as steel frontier woman who takes the lead in taking these women back east to be helped. To assist her a mule driver, played by Lee, is assigned the job of Homesman to take these insane lady's back east.

It didn't do well on the box office but was a great movei.
 
My list and all time favorites are:

Tom Hanks in "Finding Private Ryan"

"Band of Brothers"

"The Pianist"

"Schindlers List"

"Apollo 13"

"Master and Commander"

"Tora Tora Tora"

"The Lion in Winter"

"Das Boot"

"Stalingrad"

"Lincoln"

"The Last Emperor"

"Gettysburg"
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I'm a huge history buff and there is nothing I detest more than a very interesting and/or influential historical event being absolutely butchered by Film Makers. I do understand why it happens...if historical movies were accurate then they probably wouldn't appeal to a mass audience.

However when a film maker gets it right then it's really a treat. So I just wanted to discuss on what you think are the best historically accurate films you have seen.

My all time favorite is "The Long Riders" produced by Frank and Stacy Keach. It has four sets of acting brothers, The Keach (James Brothers) , Carridine (Younger brothers), Guest (Ford brothers) and Quaid (Miller brothers) brothers. There's only one BS scene in the entire movie (the knife fight between Cole Younger and Sam Starr) but the rest of the movie is spot on accurate.

My most recent historically accurate move was The Homesman with Hillary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones. Set on the edge of the frontier in Western Nebraska in 1850 it's about how the hardships of frontier life drove some women to insanity. Swank's character plays a hard as steel frontier woman who takes the lead in taking these women back east to be helped. To assist her a mule driver, played by Lee, is assigned the job of Homesman to take these insane lady's back east.

It didn't do well on the box office but was a great movei.
Click to expand...

I really appreciated the German movie "Downfall" which is a dramatic depiction of Hitler, his inner circle, and their last days underground in the Führerbunker before the Soviet Red Army crushed that last vestiges of life from the Nazi regime.

I like that movie so much, I have seen in three times. The actor who plays Hitler is simply incredible. It is a complex and nuanced movie on many levels, but one of the most compelling aspects to me is the portrayal of Hitler actually having some decent human qualities, juxtaposed against the genuine monster inside him. That is a real and compelling depiction of evil, chap. Cartoon-type evil does not exist in the real world. And that takes some great acting to pull off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall_(2004_film)
 
One of my favorites was All The Presidents Men!

And a 2nd runner-up to that would be the movie Fair Game about Joseph C. Wilson's memoir and the plight of Valerie Plame!

The problem with any movie based on true events are always gonna be criticized for the script writing that are written to bolster or dramatize true facts- or the possibility of confusing them for biased purposes!

Take a look at any movie based on an Ayn Rand novel, and you'll catch my drift!
 
Last edited:
Mott the Hoople said:
I'm a huge history buff and there is nothing I detest more than a very interesting and/or influential historical event being absolutely butchered by Film Makers. I do understand why it happens...if historical movies were accurate then they probably wouldn't appeal to a mass audience.

However when a film maker gets it right then it's really a treat. So I just wanted to discuss on what you think are the best historically accurate films you have seen.

My all time favorite is "The Long Riders" produced by Frank and Stacy Keach. It has four sets of acting brothers, The Keach (James Brothers) , Carridine (Younger brothers), Guest (Ford brothers) and Quaid (Miller brothers) brothers. There's only one BS scene in the entire movie (the knife fight between Cole Younger and Sam Starr) but the rest of the movie is spot on accurate.

My most recent historically accurate move was The Homesman with Hillary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones. Set on the edge of the frontier in Western Nebraska in 1850 it's about how the hardships of frontier life drove some women to insanity. Swank's character plays a hard as steel frontier woman who takes the lead in taking these women back east to be helped. To assist her a mule driver, played by Lee, is assigned the job of Homesman to take these insane lady's back east.

It didn't do well on the box office but was a great movei.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. The Homesman is on Netflix, just added it to my list.
 
Cypress said:
I really appreciated the German movie "Downfall" which is a dramatic depiction of Hitler, his inner circle, and their last days underground in the Führerbunker before the Soviet Red Army crushed that last vestiges of life from the Nazi regime.

I like that movie so much, I have seen in three times. The actor who plays Hitler is simply incredible. It is a complex and nuanced movie on many levels, but one of the most compelling aspects to me is the portrayal of Hitler actually having some decent human qualities, juxtaposed against the genuine monster inside him. That is a real and compelling depiction of evil, chap. Cartoon-type evil does not exist in the real world. And that takes some great acting to pull off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall_(2004_film)
Click to expand...

I have been meaning to watch that for years now and still haven't managed to do it.

Two other German movies that I've seen which are historically accurate are Stalingrad (the 90's version not the 2000's version) and Das Boot.
 
Adolf_Twitler said:
One of my favorites was All The Presidents Men!

And a 2nd runner-up to that would be the movie Fair Game about Joseph C. Wilson's memoir and the plight of Valerie Plame!

The problem with any movie based on true events are always gonna be criticized for the script writing that are written to bolster or dramatize true facts- or the possibility of confusing them for biased purposes!

Take a look at any movie based on an Ayn Rand novel, and you'll catch my drift!
Click to expand...
If you can stay awake that is. ;)

Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate Rand's philosophy but that has to be the worst (and one of the longest) Novels I've ever read so it would take a truly great screenwriter to makes a movie out that which wouldn't be a real sleeper.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I'm a huge history buff and there is nothing I detest more than a very interesting and/or influential historical event being absolutely butchered by Film Makers. I do understand why it happens...if historical movies were accurate then they probably wouldn't appeal to a mass audience.

However when a film maker gets it right then it's really a treat. So I just wanted to discuss on what you think are the best historically accurate films you have seen.

My all time favorite is "The Long Riders" produced by Frank and Stacy Keach. It has four sets of acting brothers, The Keach (James Brothers) , Carridine (Younger brothers), Guest (Ford brothers) and Quaid (Miller brothers) brothers. There's only one BS scene in the entire movie (the knife fight between Cole Younger and Sam Starr) but the rest of the movie is spot on accurate.

My most recent historically accurate move was The Homesman with Hillary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones. Set on the edge of the frontier in Western Nebraska in 1850 it's about how the hardships of frontier life drove some women to insanity. Swank's character plays a hard as steel frontier woman who takes the lead in taking these women back east to be helped. To assist her a mule driver, played by Lee, is assigned the job of Homesman to take these insane lady's back east.

It didn't do well on the box office but was a great movei.
Click to expand...


I need to see The Homesman.. I love Tommy Lee Jones. Do you like Lonesome Dove?
 
Cypress said:
I really appreciated the German movie "Downfall" which is a dramatic depiction of Hitler, his inner circle, and their last days underground in the Führerbunker before the Soviet Red Army crushed that last vestiges of life from the Nazi regime.

I like that movie so much, I have seen in three times. The actor who plays Hitler is simply incredible. It is a complex and nuanced movie on many levels, but one of the most compelling aspects to me is the portrayal of Hitler actually having some decent human qualities, juxtaposed against the genuine monster inside him. That is a real and compelling depiction of evil, chap. Cartoon-type evil does not exist in the real world. And that takes some great acting to pull off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall_(2004_film)
Click to expand...

The comedy clips from the most dramatic scene in the movie...has made it a classic.

I've got to see the whole thing...but those clips are comedy heaven.
 
Frank Apisa said:
The comedy clips from the most dramatic scene in the movie...has made it a classic.

I've got to see the whole thing...but those clips are comedy heaven.
Click to expand...

Goebbels and his wife poisoning their own (6) children before the Russians reach the Reichstag .... bone-chilling. Psychotic. Pure evil. And historically accurate.
 
I generally don’t watch historically accurate movies, they are usually depressing, but enjoyed “The Lion of Winter”
 
I liked 'Missing'.
"Among thousands of Chileans caught in a brutal roundup following the military coup that unseated President Salvador Allende was Charles Horman, a young American journalist who had settled in Santiago with his wife Joyce. A decade later the story of his abduction at the hands of General Pinochet's troops was told in 1982 by film-maker Costa-Gavras in Missing, an Oscar-winner starring Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon. It ended on celluloid as in life, with Horman and another young American, Frank Teruggi, in all likelihood killed by Pinochet's executioners beneath Santiago's football stadium."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/08/pinochet-victim-widow-fights-for-justice

It made me realize that between Democracy and Capitalism, ... America values*Capitalism more than Democracy.



Mott the Hoople said:
I'm a huge history buff and there is nothing I detest more than a very interesting and/or influential historical event being absolutely butchered by Film Makers. I do understand why it happens...if historical movies were accurate then they probably wouldn't appeal to a mass audience.

However when a film maker gets it right then it's really a treat. So I just wanted to discuss on what you think are the best historically accurate films you have seen.

My all time favorite is "The Long Riders" produced by Frank and Stacy Keach. It has four sets of acting brothers, The Keach (James Brothers) , Carridine (Younger brothers), Guest (Ford brothers) and Quaid (Miller brothers) brothers. There's only one BS scene in the entire movie (the knife fight between Cole Younger and Sam Starr) but the rest of the movie is spot on accurate.

My most recent historically accurate move was The Homesman with Hillary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones. Set on the edge of the frontier in Western Nebraska in 1850 it's about how the hardships of frontier life drove some women to insanity. Swank's character plays a hard as steel frontier woman who takes the lead in taking these women back east to be helped. To assist her a mule driver, played by Lee, is assigned the job of Homesman to take these insane lady's back east.

It didn't do well on the box office but was a great movei.
Click to expand...
 
The most recent historical biopic I saw was "The Young Karl Marx", and it is purported to be an intelligent and historically accurate view of the collaboration between Marx and Engels. Worth noting, the filmmakers seem to make the case that Marx would have been appalled at totalitarians like the Bolsheviks and Soviets coopting his name; that his philosophy was more akin to democratic socialism.
 
"Biography: The Trump Dynasty" Premieres Feb. 25 on A&E - A&E

They show what scumbags this family really are.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top