25 truly fascinating stories that formed the basis of famous films
The plots of these films seem so unexpected and cinematic that it is hard to believe that they are taken from real life, and the main characters are ordinary people. If you don't mind a little spoilers, take a look at our list of famous films based on real events. Maybe you didn't watch everything.
The film is based on the book of the same name, which tells how in 2002 the Oakland Athletics baseball team made a breakthrough and managed to achieve incredible success.
This is the story of the team's general manager Billy Bean (played by Brad Pitt), who was the first to apply an analytical and scientifically based approach to hiring rookie players. His decision brought the team a victory in the championship, and the created method of selecting players has since been adopted by other teams.
Based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger, the film "The Devil Wears Prada" tells about Weisberger's experience as a personal assistant to Anna Wintour, the head of Vogue magazine.
Anna Wintour is considered one of the coolest people in the fashion industry, which explains why Meryl Streep's character Miranda Priestly behaves so rudely and arrogantly in the film.
In the popular film Catch Me If You Can, serial fraudster and impostor Frank Abignail pretends to be a lot of people — from an airline pilot to a lawyer and even a doctor!
It may seem too crazy to be true, but Frank, who was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film, actually did all this and much more. After he served several years in prison, the FBI released him — on condition that he would reveal his secrets and teach all the tricks.
This film tells about the life of the artist of the 1960s Margaret Keen. She came up with her own style, drawing children with unusually large eyes that looked almost alien.
Subsequently, this style became her calling card. But the main story of the film is about how Margaret had to sue her husband Walter Keen, who appropriated the authorship of her paintings.
Deepwater Horizon is a platform for deepwater drilling in The Gulf of Mexico, which exploded one day in 2010, killing 11 people and injuring 17 people.
As a result, there was the largest oil spill in the sea ever created by man. Oil has spilled over a vast area from Florida to Alabama, from Louisiana to Texas, destroying local industry and natural habitat. The area was so polluted by this spill that to this day animals in the Gulf of Mexico are born with defects and anomalies.
In the movie "The Girl from Denmark" tells the story of the first man who underwent sex reassignment surgery. This happened in Denmark in the 1920s.
His name was Einar Magnus Andreas Wegener and eventually he became a woman, in a medical sense. The film shows how a man faced transgenderism, despite the fact that he was married to a woman, and how the art of his artist wife influenced him and helped him make a bold decision.
This is a film about a thoroughbred racehorse named Cracker, which has become one of the most invincible in the history of American horse racing.
Cracker was considered a "shorty", too small to participate in the races, but it was a unique horse that time after time defeated everyone else, even the recognized favorites. All this happened in the 30s during the Great Depression, and the story of the Cracker gave people hope that everything would get better. The role of jockey Red Pollard was played by Tobey Maguire.
In this film, actor Joaquin Phoenix very accurately portrayed the world-famous country singer Johnny Cash.
We are talking about the musician's young years — about how he is going to perform a concert in San Quentin prison, about his relationship with June Carter Cash, about his addiction to substance abuse, which he eventually got rid of by turning to religion. The film was highly praised by the press and was warmly received by Johnny Cash's family.
This is a touching story about a dog named Hachiko from Japan. Originally from Odate in Akita Prefecture in Japan, this dog (whose breed is also called Akita) was immortalized in the film because of the strongest devotion to its owner.
The owner of the dog died, but the faithful dog continued to come to the station every day for nine years and waited for the arrival of the train on which his best friend usually returned home. At this station, Hachiko died without waiting for the owner.
Apollo 13 is the only manned spacecraft that flew to the moon, on which a serious accident occurred in flight - an explosion of an oxygen cylinder.
Thanks to excellent training and great ingenuity, the astronauts were able to safely return to Earth. The film itself was shot on the so—called Vomit Comet, a plane that simulates what happens in the absence of gravity.
The film tells about the British mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing, who during the Second World War helped crack the code of the German Enigma cipher machine.
To do this, he created his car and named it "Christopher", in memory of a school friend. Turing was the first to crack the Enigma code. He informed the British government when a German submarine would crash into a British ship. After the end of the war, Turing was accused of inappropriate behavior because of his homosexuality, and the choice was either to go to prison or agree to chemical castration. The scientist chose the second option.
The film "Gangs of New York" is based on the book of the same name, written in the early 1900s.
The story takes place in the mid-1800s and depicts the life of an ordinary man in the poor Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, the most ordinary member of one of the criminal gangs. Visits to saloons and gambling establishments, fights and grandiose battles — all this somehow happened in reality.
Desmond Doss is an Army medic and pacifist who served in the Pacific Theater of World War II.
This story shows how, despite the fact that a man did not believe in war because of his religious beliefs (he was a Seventh-day Adventist), he still showed courage under fire and saved countless lives without firing a single shot in the battle for Okinawa. Thanks to his heroism, this ideological deviant was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Based on the true story of Iranian dissident Mehran Karimi Nasseri, "Terminal" starring Tom Hanks shows a man who is forced to live at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport because he is not allowed either to the United States or back to his homeland.
This is exactly what happened to Nasseri, who, after an official landing at Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris was not allowed to enter France. He was also expelled from Iran, so he could not return home. As a result, he lived at the airport for 18 years.
This is an artistic retelling of the story of Frank Lucas, a man who, after the Vietnam War, launched a drug trafficking network on the streets of New York.
Lucas, played by Denzel Washington, went to Vietnam and Cambodia for drugs, and then his gang sold them on the streets of many major cities.
The film tells a real story about a group of eight girls and boys who broke into the houses of celebrities from October 2008 to August 2009 and stole expensive things.
The value of the stolen was about $ 3 million. Among those who were robbed by this gang were Orlando Bloom, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.
"The Wolf of Wall Street" is the real life story of Jordan Belfort.
The film tells about how Belfort got rich relatively quickly, committing various fraudulent actions, as well as manipulations on the stock market. Spoiler: Belfort ended up in prison for his crimes, but was released after 22 months in prison.
The film is based on absolutely real events — an FBI special operation. In the 70s and 80s, the FBI put an Arab sheikh in a situation where he tried to speed up obtaining his citizenship in the United States by bribery.
The FBI used a real conman to track down the officials who helped the sheikh obtain documents bypassing the standard procedure. In total, 19 people were arrested during this special operation, including a senator, a mayor and congressmen.
This is a film adaptation of the tragedy that happened to the ship of the same name in 1912. The film tells in detail about the crash of this "unsinkable liner", as a result of which more than 1,500 people died.
This is one of the deadliest maritime incidents in modern history. Director James Cameron decided to make the film after watching an IMAX movie about the disaster. He also said that he wanted not so much to make a film, but to dive in this place — naturally, at the expense of the studio.
The film tells the story of Ray Kroc. He was a business partner of two brothers named McDonald's, who asked him to help open burger restaurants on a franchise.
He succeeded not only in sales, but also in standardizing everything the company sold, and eventually turned it into an international super franchise (after he bought it, of course). In fact, there is a McDonalds scale, where the number of McDonald's in a country shows how democratic it is.
"Black Mass" is the story of Whitey Bulgar, who was the head of the Boston Winter Hill gang.
Bulgar, played by Johnny Depp, controlled most of the organized crime in South Boston until a new gang, the North End Angiulo Brothers, came to the city and became a real threat. After that, Bulgar went to the FBI to try to get them to kill his rivals. Now Bulgar is an old man, he is in prison, and he will stay there for the rest of his life.
The film "Survivor" is based on the real life story of a man named Hugh Glass. Glass was a trader, explorer and border guard who once got into a terrible story — he was mauled by a grizzly bear, and the people whose guide he was left him to die, believing that he was no longer a tenant.
But Glass survived, managed to crawl on his stomach for more than 320 km and get to the nearest outpost. After this story, he became a legend of the state of South Dakota.
This is a movie about a man named, as you may have guessed, Donnie Brasco. And in fact, this is the pseudonym of an FBI agent named Joe Pistone, who infiltrated the criminal mafia clans of New York - the Bonanno family and the Colombo family, where he worked undercover.
He helped the FBI prove how important the work of undercover agents is, and was reportedly able to get so close to the mafia thanks to his Sicilian background.
The crime film "Nice Guys" is based on the biography of Henry Hill, a gangster from New York, who was associated with the Lucchese crime clan from 1955 until he became an FBI informant in 1980.
Thanks to him, several high-ranking mafia members were arrested, including James Burke and Paul Vario, as well as 48 other people.
The film "Everest" tells an incredible story about how a climber managed to survive alone on Everest after being left there to die during a snowstorm.
He miraculously managed to survive the storm and descend from the mountain. And this is despite the fact that he was blinded by ultraviolet radiation high in the mountains. All this happened in 1996.