In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

[7] Director Ron Howard tackles the (more or less) true story that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick. Chris Hemsworth stars as the determined first mate of the New England whaling ship Essex, which is destroyed by a mammoth…
Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

[8] Steven Spielberg directs Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks in this odd, beguiling caper about a 17-year-old con man (DiCaprio) pursued across the globe by a dogged FBI agent (Hanks) for successfully impersonating a doctor, a lawyer, and a commercial…
Apollo 13 (1995)

Apollo 13 (1995)

[9] Ed Harris, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton star as the astronauts of 1970's ill-fated Apollo 13 mission to the moon, one in which their vessel suffered an exploding oxygen tank that threatened to leave them stranded in space forever.…
Tombstone (1993)

Tombstone (1993)

[7] Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer lead an all-star ensemble in this true story of 1881's infamous showdown between reluctant lawmen and a gang of criminal cowboys previously depicted in 1957's Gunfight at the OK Corral and told again in…
Roofman (2025)

Roofman (2025)

[8] In this true story from director Derek Cianfrance (The Place Beyond the Pines, Blue Valentine), Channing Tatum stars as Jeffrey Manchester, an Army veteran and struggling father sent to prison for robbing several McDonald's restaurants by digging through the…
Rudy (1993)

Rudy (1993)

[7] Director David Anspaugh and writer Angelo Pizzo, who previously collaborated on Hoosiers, presents another true story based on Indiana sports. Their subject this time is Daniel E. 'Rudy' Ruettiger, a short, unexceptional athlete who nevertheless aspires to play football…
Zodiac (2007)

Zodiac (2007)

[7] Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey, Jr. star in David Fincher's film about the investigation of the so-called 'Zodiac' killer in the late '60s through the early '80s. Downey and Gyllenhaal's characters work for the San Francisco Chronicle,…
Creation (2009)

Creation (2009)

[7] Paul Bettany (Master and Commander) stars as English naturalist and evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin in this dramatic biopic from director Jon Amiel (Copycat, Sommersby). Creation focuses on the time during which Darwin struggled to complete his controversial book, The…
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

[8] Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas star in this true story adaptation about two man-eating lions who killed dozens of railroad workers in Tsavo, Kenya, in the late 1800s. Kilmer plays a bridge engineer who enlists Douglas, a world-famous big…
The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

[8] Director Milos Forman (Amadeus) tackles the life of Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt with Woody Harrelson playing the infamous smut-peddler. The screenplay, another superb biography from Ed Wood screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, focuses on Flynt's many legal…