List of films based on actual events

1890s

• The Execution of Mary Stuart – 18-second film produced by Thomas Edison, using trick photography to portray the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots
• King John – about the life of the medieval king, based on the play by William Shakespeare
• Major Wilson's Last Stand – short war film dramatising the final engagement of the Shangani Patrol and the death of Major Allan Wilson and his men in Rhodesia in 1893
• The Dreyfus Affair – reconstructs episodes from the trial of Alfred Dreyfus.

  1900s

• The Story of the Kelly Gang – follows the life of the legendary bushranger Ned Kelly, often cited as the first full-length feature film
• The Boston Tea Party - film made at the Edison Studios about the Boston Tea Party of 1773
• La Mort du duc de Guise – about the murder of Henry I, Duke of Guise, in 1588

  1910s

• Davy Crockett – Loosely based on the frontiersman Davy Crockett
• Peg Woffington – About the actress Peg Woffington
• Saved from the Titanic – A film about the sinking of the RMS Titanic starring Dorothy Gibson, an actual survivor of the Titanic.
• David Garrick – About the actor David Garrick
• Sixty Years a Queen – About the life and reign of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
• The Adventures of François Villon – based on the life of François Villon
• The Indian Wars Refought – Reconstruction of major battles from the Indian Wars
• Barbara Frietchie – based on the life of Barbara Fritchie
• Jane Shore – based on the life of Jane Shore
• The Prince and the Pauper – based on the novel by Mark Twain about King Edward VI of England
• Nurse Cavell – Australian film about the execution of Nurse Edith Cavell in the previous year
• Ravished Armenia – A film about the Armenian Genocide based on the account of survivor Aurora Mardiganian, who also played the lead role in the film.

  1920s

• Anna Boleyn – German film about Anne Boleyn
• Catherine the Great – German film about Catherine the Great, empress of Russia
• Countess Walewska – German film about Napoleon and Marie Walewska
• The Dancer Barberina – German film about Frederick the Great and Barberina Campanini
• A Prince of Lovers – starring Howard Gaye as Lord Byron
• Der Graf von Essex – starring Eugen Klöpfer as Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
• Nero – starring Jacques Grétillat as the Roman emperor Nero.
• America – D.W. Griffith's film about the American Revolutionary War.
• Battleship Potemkin – Sergei Eisenstein's classic silent film based on a mutiny that occurred in 1905 during the Tsarist regime when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers
• The General – silent film chronicling the 1862 theft of a railroad locomotive and its recovery by an overlooked "little guy"
• The Johnstown Flood – American silent epic film depicting the Johnstown Flood of 1889 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
• Chicago – Phyllis Haver plays Roxie Hart in this silent film based on the 1926 play Chicago by Maurine Dallas Watkins, which was inspired by the stories of Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan, jazz babies on death row; remade in 1942 and 2002
• Napoléon – sweeping French epic recounting the early life and career of Napoleon Bonaparte, from his boyhood through his successful invasion of Italy
• Madame Récamier – French silent film about the life of Juliette Récamier
• La Vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin – French silent film about the life of Thérèse of Lisieux
• Le collier de la reine – French film about the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, with Diana Karenne as Marie Antoinette

  1930s

• Abraham Lincoln – story of Abraham Lincoln
• Alexander Hamilton – story of Alexander Hamilton
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang – based on the autobiography of real-life chain gang escapee Robert Elliott Burns
• Rasputin and the Empress – passion and politics in the court of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
• The Private Life of Henry VIII – the story of King Henry VIII
• Cleopatra – retelling of the story of Cleopatra VII
• Waltzes from Vienna – biographical musical of composer Johann Strauss II
• Mutiny on the Bounty – first Hollywood depiction of the mutiny-at-sea tale, with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton
• The Great Ziegfeld – story of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.
• The Prisoner of Shark Island – story of Samuel Mudd
• San Francisco – hurly-burly of the Barbary Coast, quickly quashed by the infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake
• The Life of Emile Zola – story of the Dreyfus affair
• Alexander Nevsky – Soviet historical war film about Prince Alexander Nevsky
• Boys Town – story of Edward J. Flanagan
• In Old Chicago – retelling of The Great Chicago Fire
• Marie Antoinette – based on the life of Marie Antoinette, from her betrothal to Louis XVI, through her reign as the last queen of France, to her execution
• Frontier Marshal – story of Wyatt Earp
• Juarez – story of Mexican President Benito Juarez
• The Story of Alexander Graham Bell – biographical film about Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone
• Young Mr. Lincoln – the future president finds success as a lawyer, and finds himself a wife

  1940s

• Abe Lincoln in Illinois – story of President Abraham Lincoln
• Edison, the Man – in flashback, 50 years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Thomas Edison tells his story beginning at age 22 with his arrival in New York
• Santa Fe Trail – story of J.E.B. Stuart and his mission to stop John Brown
• Young Tom Edison – a chronicle of inventor Thomas Edison's boyhood, showing him as a lad whose early inventions and scientific experiments frequently end in disastrous results, until a life-or-death event in his home town redeems him and his ideas
• Genroku Chūshingura - Japanese film about the Forty-seven rōnin
• Citizen Kane – inspired by true events in the life of publisher William Randolph Hearst
• Sergeant York – Alvin York, a pacifist from the Tennessee hills, becomes the most decorated American soldier of World War I; Gary Cooper won the Academy Award for Best Actor in the film directed by Howard Hawks
• They Died with Their Boots On – story of George Armstrong Custer
• The Pride of the Yankees – based on NY Yankees first baseman, Lou Gehrig
• Tennessee Johnson – story of President Andrew Johnson
• Yankee Doodle Dandy – story of George M. Cohan, the actor, singer, dancer, playwright, songwriter, producer, theatre owner, director, and choreographer known as "The Man Who Owns Broadway"
• Momotarō no Umiwashi - Japanese children's film based on the Pearl Harbor attack
• The Song of Bernadette – account of Bernadette Soubirous who reported seeing visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France
• The Adventures of Mark Twain – story of author Mark Twain
• Buffalo Bill – story of folk hero and showman Buffalo Bill Cody
• Wilson – story of President Woodrow Wilson
• Captain Kidd – story of Captain William Kidd
• The Jolson Story – loosely based on the life of singer Al Jolson, played by Larry Parks
• My Darling Clementine – story of Wyatt Earp
• Night and Day – loosely based on the life of songwriter Cole Porter, played by Cary Grant
• Sister Kenny – biographical film about Sister Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who treated victims of polio, starring Rosalind Russell
• Till the Clouds Roll By – loosely based on the life of songwriter Jerome Kern, with an all-star cast including Sinatra, Garland, and Lena Horne
• Utamaro and His Five Women - based on the life of Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro
• Boomerang – based on the true story of a vagrant accused of murder, only to be found innocent through the efforts of the prosecutor
• The Babe Ruth Story – film biography of Babe Ruth, played by William Bendix
• Call Northside 777 – documentary-style film noir based on the true story of a Chicago reporter who proved that a man imprisoned for murder was wrongly convicted
• D'homme à hommes – French/Swiss co-production about the founding of the Red Cross
• Macbeth – film about Macbeth from Shakespeare's play of the same name
• Scott of the Antarctic – depicts Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition and his attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole
• Doctor Laennec - based on the life of René Laennec
• Du Guesclin - based on the life of Bertrand du Guesclin
• Jolson Sings Again – sequel to The Jolson Story, again starring Larry Parks as Al Jolson
• Le secret de Mayerling - French film about the 1889 Mayerling Incident

  1950s

• Envoi de fleurs – starting Tino Rossi as the composer Paul Delmet
• The Wooden Horse – directed by Jack Lee; starring Leo Genn, Anthony Steel and David Tomlinson; the story of an escape by three officers from Stalag Luft III, who all successfully made it to England
• Young Man with a Horn – inspired by the life of self-taught cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who set new standards in jazz but succumbed to alcoholism at age 28, a tragedy that the movie replaced with a happy ending
• 5 Fingers – James Mason plays Cicero, a World War II-era spy in Ankara, Turkey, and the highest-paid spy in history
• A Place in the Sun – update of Dreiser's An American Tragedy, in which Chester Gillette was executed for drowning his pregnant girlfriend
• Appointment with Venus – based on the evacuation of Alderney cattle from the Channel Islands during World War II
• ' – German general Erwin Rommel evades the Allies in North Africa, but not the Gestapo back home
• I'll See You in My Dreams – directed by Michael Curtiz; starring Danny Thomas and Doris Day; the story of legendary lyricist Gus Khan, one of the most prolific songwriters of the 20th century
• Gift Horse – the second half of the movie is based on what is known as "The Greatest Raid of All" which was to blow up the dock at St Nazaire by slamming it with an explosive loaded ship in World War II; starring Trevor Howard and Richard Attenborough
• The Mistress of Treves – French-German-Italian co-production about the legendary Genevieve of Brabant, set during the Crusades
• Moulin Rouge – John Huston's colorful film about the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
• Red Shirts – French-Italian co-production about Anita Garibaldi, starring Anna Magnani
• The Story of Will Rogers – story of Will Rogers
• Albert R.N. – the true story of British prisoners-of-war who make a dummy, "Albert", which they use at roll call to trick German guards
• Houdini – fanciful account of the life of magician and escapologist Harry Houdini, starring Tony Curtis
• The President's Lady – story of President Andrew Jackson
• Titanic – about the RMS Titanic
• The Glenn Miller Story – story of bandleader Glenn Miller
• Madame du Barry – French film with Martine Carol in the title role
• Queen Margot – French film with Jeanne Moreau as Marguerite de Valois
• Rasputin – French film with Pierre Brasseur in the title role
• Napoléon – French film directed by Sacha Guitry
• The Colditz Story – prisoner of war film based on the book written by Pat Reid, an Escape Officer for British POWs imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle in Germany during WW II
• The Dam Busters – depiction of Operation Chastise, technically challenging raids against German dams in World War II, which required the development of "bouncing bombs"
• Sardar – based on the life of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of India's greatest nationalists and the first Home Minister of India
• Seven Angry Men – the life of John Brown
• To Hell and Back – biographical film in which Audie Murphy, America's most decorated soldier, played himself at the studio's urging, although Murphy wanted Tony Curtis for the role
• The Battle of the River Plate – starring Anthony Quayle; about the hunt for the German pocket battleship Graf Spee
• The Benny Goodman Story - based on the life of famed jazz clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman
• The Conqueror – story of Genghis Khan
• Lust for Life – MGM biographical film about force-of-nature painter Vincent van Gogh, played by Kirk Douglas; Anthony Quinn plays Paul Gauguin
• Marie-Antoinette reine de France – French film starring Michèle Morgan in the title role
• Somebody Up There Likes Me – based on the life and career of middleweight boxing champion Rocky Graziano, starring Paul Newman
• The Wrong Man – Alfred Hitchcock film with Henry Fonda portraying a man wrongly accused of armed robbery
• The Buster Keaton Story – the life of actor Buster Keaton
• Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – story of Wyatt Earp
• Man of a Thousand Faces – the life of silent film actor Lon Chaney, the child of deaf-mute parents, played by James Cagney
• Nine Lives – Norwegian film about Resistance hero Jan Baalsrud
• Portland Exposé – film noir based on Jim Elkins, ringleader of a crime syndicate in Portland, Oregon
• Queen Louise – German film starring Ruth Leuwerik as Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
• The Spirit of St. Louis – depiction of Charles Lindbergh's first solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, with James Stewart as "Lucky Lindy"
• The Three Faces of Eve – is a 1957 American CinemaScope drama–mystery film adaptation based on a book by psychiatrists Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, who also helped write the screenplay. It was based on their case of Chris Costner Sizemore, also known as Eve White, a woman they suggested might suffer from dissociative identity disorder. Sizemore's identity was concealed in interviews and this film, and was not revealed to the public until 1975. The film is directed by Nunnally Johnson
• ' – the story of HMS Amethyst; a war film telling the story of a British frigate caught up in the Chinese Civil War
• A Night to Remember – documentary-style retelling of the Titanics demise, from the 1955 book by Walter Lord
• I Want to Live! – heavily fictionalized story of Barbara Graham, convicted of murder and facing execution
• I Was Monty's Double – based on the autobiography of M. E. Clifton James, who pretended to be General Montgomery as part of a campaign of disinformation during World War II
• The Inn of the Sixth Happiness – the story of Gladys Aylward, rescuing Chinese orphaned children
• Too Much, Too Soon – the unfortunate story of Diana Barrymore, daughter of John Barrymore, based on her autobiography
• Beloved Infidel – story of F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Compulsion – based on the murder committed by Leopold and Loeb and the subsequent trial
• The Five Pennies'' – semi-biographical 1959 film starring Danny Kaye as cornet player and bandleader Red Nichols

  1960s

1960

• Inherit the Wind – dramatization of the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial
• Mughal-e-Azam - Indian epic historical drama film about Emperor Akbar.
• Oscar Wilde – the story of Oscar Wilde
• Psycho – inspired by the crimes of the real-life serial killer Ed Gein
• Sink the Bismarck! – the behemoth Bismarck is wanted by the Royal Navy after sinking their prized battlecruiser and is chased throughout the North Atlantic before being bombarded and sent to the bottom in May 1941
• Spartacus – Stanley Kubrick's epic treatment of the Roman slave revolt known as the Third Servile War in 73 B.C.
• Ten Who Dared – the story of John Wesley Powell's 1869 expedition down the Colorado River
• The Trials of Oscar Wilde – the story of Oscar Wilde

  1961

• El Cid – a highly romanticized story of the life of the Castilian knight El Cid
• The Great Impostor – based on the life of Ferdinand Waldo Demara, starring Tony Curtis
• Greyfriyars Bobby – based on the true story of a dog who sleeps on its recently deceased owner's grave every night in an Edinburgh churchyard.
• Judgment at Nuremberg – Spencer Tracy portrays an American judge in Nuremberg in 1948, assigned to preside over the trial of four German judges, each allegedly guilty of war crimes, charged with having abused the court system to help cleanse Nazi Germany of the politically and socially undesirable
• Kappalottiya Thamizhan – Indian Tamil film based on the life of V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, starring Sivaji Ganesan and Gemini Ganesan

  1962

• Axel Munthe – Der Arzt von San Michele – O.W. Fischer plays Swedish doctor Axel Munthe
• Birdman of Alcatraz – Burt Lancaster portrays convicted murderer Robert Stroud
• The Counterfeit Traitor – William Holden stars as World War II spy Eric Erickson, whose life view is broadened by the woman he loved, played by Lilli Palmer
• Escape from East Berlin – based on an actual escape that took place on January 28, 1962
• Gypsy – musical about the relationship between legendary stripper Gypsy Rose Lee and her irrepressible stage mother, adapted from the Broadway show, which was in turn based on Lee's memoir
• Lawrence of Arabia – David Lean's epic about T. E. Lawrence
• The Longest Day – depiction of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, during World War II
• The Miracle Worker – the story of blind and deaf humanitarian Helen Keller and her teacher, the titular Annie Sullivan
• Mutiny on the Bounty – a retelling of the famous mutiny
• The Password Is Courage – a somewhat blasé version of the exploits of British Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, a POW in World War II; he was bizarrely awarded the Iron Cross and also smuggled himself into Auschwitz and gave testimony at the Nuremberg Trials; starring Dirk Bogarde, with a cameo appearance by Coward

  1963

• Cleopatra – chronicles the struggles of Cleopatra VII, the young Queen of Egypt, to resist the imperialist ambitions of Rome
• The Great Escape – Allied prisoners attempt a mass, 175-man breakout of Stalag Luft III; 76 escape
• Miracle of the White Stallions – A film about the evacuation of the Lipizzaner horses from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna during World War II
• PT 109 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy's exploits and heroism as captain of the ill-fated patrol boat, cut in half by a Japanese destroyer during World War II
• The Sadist – first feature film loosely based on the teenage serial killers Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate

  1964

• Becket – historical drama film about the changing relationship between King Henry II of England and Thomas Becket who became Archbishop of Canterbury, starring Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton
• Fall of the Roman Empire – an epic battle film starring Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Mel Ferrer and Omar Sharif, directed by Anthony Mann
• Zulu – historical war film depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between the British Army and the Zulus in January 1879

  1965

• The Agony and the Ecstasy – dramatization of conflicts between Michelangelo and Pope Julius II during the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
• Battle of the Bulge – based on the last major German offensive campaign of World War II, starring Henry Fonda
• Harlow – biographical film about the life of film star Jean Harlow, starring Carroll Baker in the title role
• The Sound of Music – the story of the Von Trapp family, with Julie Andrews as the young woman who leaves an Austrian convent to become a governess to a widowed naval officer's seven children

  1966

• The Battle of Algiers – based on events during the Algerian War against French colonial rule in North Africa, the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers
• Born Free – based on the true events with Joy and George Adamson, a real-life couple who raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood, and released her into the wilderness of Kenya
• Cast a Giant Shadow – the life of Colonel Mickey Marcus, who volunteered to help Israel in the war of independence; starring Kirk Douglas

  1967

• Bonnie and Clyde – a highly romanticized story of outlaw couple Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
• Hour of the Gun – about the aftermath of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
• In Cold Blood – the account of the Clutter family murder in 1959 Kansas, adapted from Truman Capote's book of the same name
• The St. Valentine's Day Massacre – based on the true events leading to the 1929 murder of seven mob associates of the North Side gang, led by Al Capone's South Side gang, starring Jason Robards

  1968

• The Boston Strangler – Tony Curtis plays Albert DeSalvo, convicted and imprisoned for the Boston area "Green Man" rapes and suspected of the murders of 13 women from 1962 through 1964
• Charge of the Light Brigade – British film about the Crimean War and the events leading up to the charge of the Light Brigade, an event immortalized by the 1854 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Isadora – biographical film of the American dancer Isadora Duncan, starring Vanessa Redgrave
• The Lion in Winter – historical film dramatizing Henry II's decision to name a successor to the English throne and his conflicts with his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and sons

  1969

• Anne of the Thousand Days – the story of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII and mother of the future queen of England, Elizabeth I
• Battle of Britain – the dogfights between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe, resulting in the failure of Hitler's Operation Sea Lion
• Battle of Neretva – based on theevents of the Battle of the Neretva in 1943
• Beatrice Cenci – historical horror drama about Italian noblewoman Beatrice Cenci who sets up a plan to murder her abusive father, directed by Lucio Fulci
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – an account of an outlaw pair who flee the closing Old West for greener pastures in Bolivia
• Ring of Bright Water – loosely based on Gavin Maxwell's autobiographical book of the same name, about his life with pet otters in Scotland

  1970s

1970

• A Bullet for Pretty Boy - American feature action film about gangster Pretty Boy Floyd
• Airport – based on the Continental Airlines Flight 11 suicide bombing
• Chisum - American western film loosely based on events and characters from the Lincoln County War of 1878 in the New Mexico Territory, which involved historical figures John Chisum,, Pat Garrett, and Billy the Kid among others
• Cromwell – British historical drama film, based on the life of Oliver Cromwell, who led the Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War
• The Cross and the Switchblade - American crime film about David Wilkerson and Nicky Cruz
• Dreams of Love - Liszt - Hungarian-Soviet film based on the life of Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt
• The Honeymoon Killers - American crime film about American serial killer couple Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck
• Julius Caesar - British independent film about Julius Caesar
• Michael the Brave - Romanian historical epic film about the life of Wallachia's ruler Michael the Brave
• Ned Kelly - British-Australian biographical film about Australian Bushranger Ned Kelly
• Patton – biographical story of U.S. General George S. Patton
• Shangani Patrol – a war film, shot on location in Rhodesia, based on the pursuit of King Lobengula in 1893, ending with the heroic last stand of Major Allan Wilson and his men
• Song of Norway - film about Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg
• Tora! Tora! Tora! – sprawling Japanese and American production of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor
• Tropic of Cancer - American drama film about American novelist Henry Miller.
• The Wild Child - French film about feral child Victor of Aveyron

  1971

• 10 Rillington Place – depiction of the events surrounding the wrongful execution of Timothy Evans, a Welshman framed for the death of his daughter by his landlord, English serial killer John Christie, who killed women in his flat at 10 Rillington Place; parts of the film were filmed in the actual location; exterior shots were filmed in Number 10; interiors were shot in Number 7
• Brian's Song – the story of Brian Piccolo, a running back for the Chicago Bears, his cross-racial friendship with teammate Gale Sayers, and his ultimately losing battle with cancer, starring James Caan as Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams as Sayers
• The Devils - British historical drama horror film dramatised historical account of the rise and fall of Urbain Grandier, a 17th-century Roman Catholic priest executed for withcraft following the supposed possessions in Loudon, France; it also focuses on Sister Jeanne des Agnes, a sexually repressed nun who inadvertently incites the accusations
• Dirty Harry – inspired by the Zodiac killings of the 1960s and early 70s; the detective on the case, Dave Toschi, was the inspiration for Harry Callahan and Frank Bullitt in Bullitt
• Doc – story of Doc Holliday
• Evel Knievel - American biographical film about motorcycle stunt performer and daredevil artist Evel Knievel
• The French Connection – based on the story of drug smuggling from Marseilles to New York City in the 1960s
• The Life of Leonardo Da Vinci - dramatising the life of the Italian Renaissance genius Leonardo Da Vinci
• Macbeth - historical drama film about Macbeth of Scotland
• Mary, Queen of Scots - British-American biographical film based on the life of Mary, Queen of Scots
• The Music Lovers - based on the life and career of 19th-century Roman composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• Nicholas and Alexandra – Czar Nicholas II, the inept monarch of Russia insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family

  1972

• 1776 – adaptation of the 1969 Broadway musical of the same name about the composition and signing of the United States Declaration of Independence
• The Assassination of Trotsky - British historical drama about Leon Trotsky
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God - epic historical drama film about the travels of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in South America in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado
• Brother Sun, Sister Moon - biography about Saint Francis of Assisi
• Dirty Little Billy - biography about Billy the Kid
• The Great Waltz - biographical musical film about Austrian composer Johann Strauss II
• Henry VIII and His Six Wives - British film about Henry VIII
• Lady Caroline Lamb - British epic romantic drama film based on the life of Lady Caroline Lamb, lover of Lord Byron and wife of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
• Lady Sings the Blues – about jazz singer Billie Holiday, loosely based on her 1956 autobiography
• The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean - based on the life of Judge Roy Bean
• Living Free - biography about George Adamson and Joy Adamson
• - about Ludwig II of Bavaria
• The Mattei Affair - depicts the life and mysterious death of Enrico Mattei, an Italian businessman who in the aftermath of World War II managed to avoid the sale of the nascent Italian oil and hydrocarbon industry to US companies and developed them in the Eni, a state-owned oil company which rivalled the 'seven sisters' for oil and gas deals in northern African and Middle Eastern countries
• Pancho Villa - about legendary Mexican revolutionary general Francisco "Pancho" Villa
• Pope Joan - American historical drama film based on the story of Pope Joan
• Savage Messiah - British biographical film based on the life of French painter and sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
• The Valachi Papers – true story of American Mafia informant Joseph Valachi, based on the book by Peter Maas

  1973

• Badlands – fictionalized account of the 1957 Nebraska murder spree by Charles Starkweather and his 15-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate
• The Day of the Jackal – the film is about a professional assassin known only as the "Jackal" who is hired to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle in the summer of 1963
• Dillinger – the story of the 1930s gangster, starring Warren Oates
• The Exorcist – based on William Peter Blatty's novel of the same name, which is based on a 1949 case of demonic possession that Blatty heard about as a student at Georgetown University
• Ludwig - biographical film about the life and death of King Ludwig II of Bavaria.
• Papillon – based on the life of French convict Henri Charrière
• Serpico – the story of New York City policeman Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino, directed by Sidney Lumet
• Walking Tall – about real life Sheriff Buford Pusser, a former wrestler turned lawman in McNairy County, Tennessee

  1974

• Houston, We've Got a Problem – television film about the Apollo 13 spaceflight
• Lenny – biographical film about the comedian Lenny Bruce
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – horror film based on the murders of two women by Ed Gein
• Trapped Beneath the Sea – television film loosely based on the 1973 Johnson Sea Link accident

  1975

• Dersu Uzala – Soviet-Japanese co-production film based on the 1923 memoir Dersu Uzala by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev
• Dog Day Afternoon – depiction of the events surrounding a 1972 Brooklyn bank robbery, which American bank robber John Wojtowicz, played by Al Pacino, said was "only 30% true"
• The Hindenburg – depiction of German airship LZ 129 Hindenburg, which exploded on landing in 1937; the film's sabotage theme was superseded by new evidence in the 1990s
• The Legend of Lizzie Borden – made-for-television movie directed by Paul Wendkos and starring Elizabeth Montgomery; based on the 1892 trial of Lizzie Borden and presented a fictionalized scenario in which Lizzie could have successfully gotten away with murder

  1976

• All the President's Men – reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal leading to President Nixon's resignation
• Bound for Glory – biopic about Depression-era folk singer and social advocate Woody Guthrie
• Helter Skelter – an account of the Tate / Leno and Rosemary LaBianca murders in Los Angeles in 1969, perpetrated by the Manson Family
• The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case – dramatization of the Lindbergh kidnapping, investigation, and trial of Bruno Hauptmann
• The Message – epic biographical film about the life and times of Prophet Muhammad
• Salon Kitty – erotic-war-drama based on the novel of the same name by Peter Norden, covering the Salon Kitty incident
• Sybil – Two-part TV mini-series inspired by the life of Shirley Ardell Mason, who was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder
• The Tenth Level – inspired by the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures
• The Town That Dreaded Sundown – loosely based on the actual crimes attributed to an unidentified serial killer known as the Phantom Killer who terrorized the residents in the town of Texarkana, Texas

  1977

• A Bridge Too Far – the story of the failure of Operation Market Garden during World War II
• MacArthur – a retelling of World War II-era General of the Army Douglas MacArthur's life from 1942, before the Battle of Bataan, to 1952, after he had been removed from his Korean War command by President Truman for insubordination
• Operation Thunderbolt – based on the Israeli commando raid in Entebbe, Uganda, to release more than 100 hostages

  1978

• The Buddy Holly Story – biopic about Texas musician Buddy Holly
• Midnight Express – based on the book by William Hayes and his experiences after he is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison

  1979

• The Amityville Horror – based on the alleged real-life experiences of the Lutz family, who buys a new home in Long Island, only to flee after they experience a series of frightening paranormal events along with the murders of the DeFeo family by Ronald DeFeo, Jr.
• Caligula – Italian-American erotic historical drama film about the Roman Emperor Caligula, played by Malcolm McDowell
• Escape from Alcatraz – American prison film, directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood, based on true events, dramatizing possibly the only successful escape attempt from the maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island
• Norma Rae – based on the true story of Crystal Lee Jordan; Sally Field plays Norma Rae, who works in a North Carolina textile mill, and becomes involved in organizing a union
• Operación Ogro – Spanish and Italian drama film based on the assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco by 4 members of ETA in 1973
• Zulu Dawn – war film about the 1879 Battle of Isandlwana; prequel to Zulu

  1980s

1980

• Breaker Morant – based on the 1902 court martial of Breaker Morant during the Boer War
• Coal Miner's Daughter – adapted from the autobiographical book by Loretta Lynn and George Vecsey, directed by Michael Apted
• The Elephant Man – the story of Joseph Merrick, an Englishman with severe deformities who was exhibited as a human curiosity named the Elephant Man; directed by David Lynch
• Heaven's Gate – Western film loosely based on the Johnson County War of 1889–1893; directed by Michael Cimino
• Lion of the Desert – Historical war film which tells the story of Omar Mukhtar fighting against the fascist regime of Mussolini in Libya
• McVicar – based on the story of British gangster John McVicar, played by The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey
• Raging Bull – based on the life and career of middleweight boxing champ Jake LaMotta, played by Robert De Niro
• The Sea Wolves – based on the events surrounding Operation Creek during World War II

  1981

• The Bushido Blade – Historical martial-arts film portraying a fictional sideline to the true events surrounding the treaty Commodore Matthew Perry signed with the Shogun of feudal Japan
• Christiane F. – We Children from Bahnhof Zoo – West German drama depicting the life of teenage girl Christiane F.
• The Entity – based on Carla Moran and her experiences with a supernatural being that plagued her family for years
• Gallipoli – depiction of the Anzac battlefield at Gallipoli and the Battle of the Nek on August 7, 1915
• Inchon – South Korean–American war film about the Battle of Inchon in 1950; financed by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon
• Mommie Dearest – based on controversial biography by Joan Crawford's adopted daughter Christina Crawford, the film documents the later years of Joan's career and her alleged abuse against her daughter
• Reds – American journalist and radical John Reed becomes involved with the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, during which he wrote Ten Days That Shook the World

  1982

• Antonieta – Spanish film based on the life of Mexican writer Antonieta Rivas Mercado
• Frances – based on the story of actress Frances Farmer, who battled the studio system and mental illness
• Gandhi – biographical film based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi
• Heatwave – based on the murder of Juanita Nielsen
• Luz del Fuego – based on the life Brazilian vedette and activist Dora Vivacqua, stage name Luz del Fuego
• Missing – based on the true story of American journalist Charles Horman, who disappeared in the bloody aftermath of the US-backed Chilean coup of 1973 that deposed the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende
• We of the Never Never – based on the experiences of Jeannie Gunn in the Australian outback during the 1930s

  1983

• 10 to Midnight – parallels the murders committed by American mass murderer Richard Speck, directed by J. Lee Thompson
• Adam – television film about the 1981 kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh
• Adi Shankaracharya – Sanskrit film based on the life of philosopher Adi Shankaracharya by G. V. Iyer
• The Amorous Dentist – Australian television drama based on a bizarre murder trial which scandalized the people of Sydney in 1865.
• Cross Creek – Mary Steenburgen stars as The Yearling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, based in part on the author's 1942 memoir, Cross Creek
• The Dean Case – – Australian television drama that tells the story of George Dean, a Sydney-based ferry boat master, arrested in 1895 for attempting to poison his wife.
• Love Is Forever – adventure drama based on the experiences of Australian journalist John Everingham in Laos and Thailand
• The Right Stuff – based on Tom Wolfe's 1979 book about the test pilots involved in early high-speed aeronautical research and the United States' first attempt at manned spaceflight
• Silkwood – inspired by the true-life story of Karen Silkwood, who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant where she worked

  1984

• Amadeus – a story adapted by playwright Peter Shaffer, directed by Miloš Forman, based on the theory that composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was murdered by fellow composer Antonio Salieri
• The Burning Bed – based on the true story of Francine Hughes ; an abused battered wife has enough of her abusive husband; after he rapes her one night, she sets the bed on fire with him asleep in it
• The Killing Fields – based on the Cambodian Civil War
• The Schippan Mystery – Australian television film about the murder of Bertha Schippan in 1902.
• Who Killed Hannah Jane? – Australian television film about the murder conviction of Arthur Peden.

  1985

• Dance with a Stranger – directed by Mike Newell, starring Miranda Richardson; the story of Ruth Ellis, the society hostess who was the last woman to be hanged in Britain
• Displaced Persons – Australian TV movie about refugees arriving in Australia in 1945.
• The Doctor and the Devils – based on the 1828 Burke and Hare murders, though the names of the characters have been changed
• The Emerald Forest – loosely based on the true story of a Peruvian worker whose son was abducted by Amazonian indigenous people
• The Falcon and the Snowman – based on the story of childhood friends, Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee, turned traitor spies
• Marie – based on Marie Ragghianti's exposure of the 1970s Tennessee Board of Parole scandals, adapted from the book Marie: A True Story by Peter Maas
• Mask – American biographical drama film based on the life and early death of a boy, Roy L. "Rocky" Dennis, who suffered from craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, an extremely rare disorder known commonly as lionitis due to the disfiguring cranial enlargements that it causes
• Out of Africa – recounts events of the seventeen years when Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke lived in Kenya, then called British East Africa, on a coffee plantation
• Sweet Dreams – the story of country music legend Patsy Cline, played by Jessica Lange
• – NBC television film starring Richard Chamberlain as Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat instrumental in saving thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust.

  1986

• Act of Vengeance – based on the Joseph Yablonski family murders in connection with the United Mine Workers
• At Close Range – based on the rural Pennsylvania crime family led by Bruce Johnston, Sr., directed by James Foley
• The Delta Force – based heavily on the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, directed by Menahem Golan
• Heartburn – based on Nora Ephron's autobiographical novel about the breakup of her marriage to Carl Bernstein
• Hoosiers – based loosely on the 1953–54 Milan High School basketball team, winners of that year's Indiana state high school basketball championship, despite representing a school of only 160 students
• The Mission – depiction of the experiences of 18th-century Jesuits in South America, starring Robert De Niro
• Salvador – the story of an American journalist in El Salvador during the Salvadoran Civil War
• Sid and Nancy – based on the relationship of Sex Pistols bassist, Sid Vicious and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, Sid's drug use, and the controversy surrounding Nancy's death

  1987

• 84 Charing Cross Road – based on the long-distance friendship that develops between American writer Helene Hanff and English bookseller Frank Doel through letters exchanged from 1949 to 1968; starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins
• Cry Freedom – based on the life of South African activist Steve Biko
• Escape from Sobibor – British television film about the prison camp escape of Jewish prisoners from the Sobibór extermination camp
• Full Metal Jacket – based on the book The Short-Timers, which tells of the experience of a soldier during the Vietnam War
• Hachiko Monogatari – Japanese drama film, the tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death.
• Hamburger Hill – based on the events surrounding the Battle of Hamburger Hill, also during the Vietnam War
• La Bamba – based on the real-life events affecting the lives of rock star Ritchie Valens, his half-brother Bob Morales, his girlfriend Donna Ludwig and their families
• The Last Emperor – based on the life of Chinese emperor Pu Yi
• Life Story – television docudrama based on true events during 1953 at King's College London, about discovery of the structure of DNA; starring Tim Pigott-Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Juliet Stevenson and Alan Howard
• Kids like these – based on the book of Emily Perl Kingsley about her life with the kid suffering from Down syndrome; starring Tyne Daly and Richard Crenna
• Macu, The Policeman's Woman – based on the life of Argenis Rafael Ledezma, a Venezuelan police officer convicted of three homicides
• Matewan – John Sayles' film dramatizing the events of the Battle of Matewan, a coal miners' strike in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia
• Nayakan – based on the life of underworld don Varadarajan Mudaliar
• The Untouchables – loosely based on the 1930s crackdown on Chicago gangster Al Capone by the United States Department of the Treasury agent Eliot Ness
• White Mischief – based on the events of Sir John "Jock" Delves Broughton and the Happy Valley set in 1940 during World War II

  1988

• A Cry in the Dark – Meryl Streep, with an Australian accent, plays an unlikeable woman convicted of her child's murder by the court of public opinion, directed by Fred Schepisi
• The Accused – depiction of two trials for the 1983 gang rape of Cheryl Araujo at Big Dan's Tavern in New Bedford, Massachusetts; this film frankly addresses the unspoken prejudice against rape victims
• ' – based on Miep Gies' book Anne Frank Remembered which documents her life in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II
• Bird – Forest Whitaker portrays the troubled life of jazz musician Charlie 'Bird' Parker, directed by Clint Eastwood
• Bloodsport – martial arts action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. The film is partly based on unverified claims made by martial artist Frank Dux
• Bloody Wednesday – based on the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre
• Buster – about the great train robber Buster Edwards, played by the rock drummer Phil Collins
• Eight Men Out – based on the Black Sox scandal during the play of Major League Baseball's 1919 World Series
• Mississippi Burning – based on the FBI investigation following the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, directed by Alan Parker
• Running on Empty – Politico's Jeffrey Ressner writes that Arthur and Annie Pope were loosely modeled after Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. John Simon states that the characters' bombing of a napalm research facility was inspired by the Sterling Hall bombing of 1970.
• Stand and Deliver – based on the story of math teacher Jaime Escalante.
• Talk Radio – based on the assassination of radio host Alan Berg, directed by Oliver Stone
• ' – the story of Preston Tucker, the maverick car designer and his ill-fated challenge to the auto industry with his revolutionary car concept, the 1948 Tucker Sedan
• Young Toscanini – Italian-French biographical drama film starring C. Thomas Howell as Arturo Toscanini

  1989

• A City of Sadness – based on the February 28 Incident, telling the story of a family embroiled in the tragic "White Terror" that was wrought on the Taiwanese people by the Kuomintang government after their arrival from mainland China in the late 1940s, during which tens of thousands of Taiwanese were rounded up, shot, and/or sent to prison; the film won the Golden Lion award at the 1989 Venice Film Festival
• ' – NBC TV movie based on the 1985 ruling Thurman v. City of Torrington, concerning a homemaker who sued the city police department in Torrington, Connecticut, claiming a failure of equal protection under the law against her abusive husband; starring Nancy McKeon, Dale Midkiff, and Bruce Weitz
• Born on the Fourth of July – autobiography of Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, directed by Oliver Stone
• Casualties of War – based on the events of the incident on Hill 192 in 1966 during the Vietnam War
• ' – based on the story of Jessica McClure, an 18-month-old toddler who was stuck in a well in the backyard of her home in Midland, Texas, for 58 hours
• Glory – based on the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War; directed by Edward Zwick
• Great Balls of Fire! – American biographical film directed by Jim McBride and starring Dennis Quaid as rockabilly pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis.
• I Know My First Name Is Steven – true story of Steven Stayner's life after being kidnapped at the age of seven and held with his captor and sexually abused. When his captor kidnapped another younger boy, he took the boy to the police station only to be found by his own parents.
• Lean on Me – based on the true story of Joe Louis Clark, a principal at Paterson, New Jersey's Eastside High School who gained public attention in the 1980s for his unconventional and controversial disciplinary measures, starring Morgan Freeman.
• My Left Foot – the story of Christy Brown, a disabled Irish writer who could type only with the toes on his left foot, starring Daniel Day Lewis.
• Resurrected – based on the story of the British soldier Philip Williams, who is presumed dead and left behind in the Falkland Islands but is accused of desertion when he reappears seven weeks after the end of the Falklands War
• Save and Protect – inspired by Flaubert's Madame Bovary. It depicts the decline of a childlike woman as she engages in adultery and falls into crippling debt
• Small Sacrifices – American made-for-TV movie written by Joyce Eliason and based on the best-selling true crime book by Ann Rule of the same name about Diane Downs and the murder and attempted murder of her three children; starring Farrah Fawcett
• Wired – adaptation of Bob Woodward's book of the same name about the life of John Belushi, played by Michael Chiklis

  1990s

1990

• Awakenings – American drama film based on British neurologist Oliver Sacks's memoir of the same title, about his discovery of the beneficial effects of the drug L-DOPA, which he administered to catatonic patients, who awakened after decades of catatonia; directed by Penny Marshall
• Challenger – American television film based on the events surrounding the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
• ' – American television film about L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
• Ek Doctor Ki Maut – Indian film based on the life of Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay, an Indian Physician who pioneered the IVF treatment just around the same time when another leading scientist Dr. Robert Edwards was conducting separate experiments in England.
• Europa Europa – German film based on the true story of author and motivational speaker Solomon Perel's life
• GoodFellas – based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, the true story of New York City mobster Henry Hill; directed by Martin Scorsese
• Henry & June – based on the book Henry and June by Anais Nin, the true story of the Millers, Anais Nin and Ian Hugo; directed by Philip Kaufman
• ' – The movie follows the perspective of several characters and how they lived or tried to survive the effects felt during the aftermath of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima., during World War II.
• The Krays – a trendy take on the criminally insane East End gangsters the Kray twins, who enjoyed a brief, black-humored celebrity during London's Swinging Sixties
• Reversal of Fortune – the true story of the unexplained coma of socialite Sunny von Bülow, the subsequent attempted murder trial, and the eventual acquittal of her husband, Claus von Bülow, who was defended by Alan Dershowitz
• Too Young to Die? – television movie starring Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis, touching on the debate concerning the death penalty, loosely based on the true story of Attina Marie Cannaday
• Vincent & Theo – the intense relationship between an art dealer Vincent van Gogh and his alienated older brother Theo, directed by Robert Altman
• White Hunter Black Heart – based on the location filming of The African Queen in 1951

  1991

• Black Robe – tells the story of the first contacts between the Huron Indians of Quebec and the Jesuit missionaries from France who came to convert them to Catholicism, and ended up delivering them into the hands of their enemies
• The Boys from St. Petri – Danish World War II film inspired by the activities of the Churchill Club
• Bugsy – the glamorized and sanitized story of mobster Bugsy Siegel, the putative father of the Las Vegas Strip, directed by Barry Levinson
• The Doors – based on the life of Jim Morrison, the lead singer for the American rock band The Doors before his death in Paris, directed by Oliver Stone
• JFK – loosely based on New Orleans DA Jim Garrison's late-1960s prosecution of defendant Clay Shaw – in addition to pieces of a half-dozen other conspiracy theories – in the John F. Kennedy assassination
• Let Him Have It – the story of the murder of a London policeman killed during an attempted break in by Christopher Craig and Derek Bentley; covers the subsequent trial and execution of what has turned out to be an innocent man; starring Christopher Eccleston and Paul Reynolds, directed by Peter Medak
• Not Without My Daughter – the story of American author and public speaker Betty Mahmoody, who was abducted and held hostage with her daughter in Iran, directed by Brian Gilbert
• Mission of the Shark – based on the saga of the USS Indianapolis
• Switched at Birth – the true story of Kimberly Mays and Arlena Twigg, babies switched soon after birth in a Florida hospital in 1978
• – American television film about James Brady, who was shot during the 1981 attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan

  1992

• ' – the very sanitized story of Taino homelands of by the Italian colonialist Christopher Columbus and the effect this had on the indigenous peoples of the Americas
• A League of Their Own – based on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II
• A Thousand Heroes – Made for TV movie starring Charlton Heston about the crash landing of United Airlines flight 232 at Sioux City, IA in 1989.
• Baby Snatcher – CBS television movie of the week based on the actual kidnapping of Rachael Ann White. The movie stars Veronica Hamel, Nancy McKeon, Michael Madsen, David Duchovny, and Penny Fuller.
• Beyond the Law – based on the real life story of an undercover DEA Agent infiltrating a notorious biker gang involved with drug and gun running; starring Charlie Sheen
• Chaplin – based on the life of British comedian-actor Charlie Chaplin, starring Robert Downey, Jr.
• Daens - drama based upon a novel by Louis Paul Boon, telling the true story of Adolf Daens, a Catholic priest in Aalst, Belgium, who strives to improve the miserable working conditions in the local factories
• Hoffa – based on the life of the Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa before his disappearance in 1975.
• Lorenzo's Oil – based on the true story of Augusto and Michaela Odone, two parents in a relentless search for a cure for their son Lorenzo's adrenoleukodystrophy
• Malcolm X – bio-epic of the controversial and influential Black leader, directed by Spike Lee
• Newsies – musical drama film about the New York City newsboys' strike of 1899
• ' – television film based on the story of Wanda Holloway

  1993

• Alive – based on the Piers Paul Read that tells the story of the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in 1972, directed by Frank Marshall
• The Amy Fisher Story – television film dramatizing the events surrounding Amy Fisher's teenage affair with Joey Buttafuoco and her conviction for aggravated assault in the shooting of Buttafuoco's wife Mary Jo
• And the Band Played On – American television film docudrama adapted from the book of the same title by Randy Shilts, chronicling the discovery and spread of HIV and AIDS, with emphasis on political infighting and government indifference to what was then perceived as a specifically gay disease; directed by Roger Spottiswoode
• Cool Runnings – based on the true story of the first Jamaican bobsled team trying to make it to the 1988 Winter Olympics, directed by Jon Turteltaub
• – American biographical drama film, written and directed by Rob Cohen, starring Jason Scott Lee and Lauren Holly
• Gettysburg – based on the story of the Battle of Gettysburg; originally made to be a TV miniseries, it is one of the longest feature films ever released at 254 minutes
• Heaven & Earth – based on the experiences of Le Ly Hayslip during the Vietnam War
• The Man With Three Wives – This 1993 TV movie, about a polygamist physician, was fact based upon life of the late Dr. Norman J. Lewiston, a professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine; where at the time of his passing, was juggling through three marriages at once.
• The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom – television film based on the story of Wanda Holloway
• The Puppetmaster – the story of Li Tian-lu, who becomes a master puppeteer but is faced with demands to turn his skills to propaganda during Japanese-ruled Taiwan from pre-1896 to the end of World War II in 1945; won the Jury Prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Prize at Istanbul International Film Festival
• Rudy – based on the story of Notre Dame football walk-on Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, directed by David Anspaugh
• Sardar – based on life of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of India's greatest freedom fighters and the first Home Minister of India
• Schindler's List – adapted from the book Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally about Oskar Schindler and his actions to save over 1,000 Jews from the Holocaust, directed by Steven Spielberg
• Shadowlands – biographical film about the relationship between writer and Oxford academic C.S. Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman, their marriage, and her death from cancer, starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger
• This Boy's Life – biographical coming-of-age drama film based on the memoir of the same name by American author Tobias Wolff
• Tombstone – story of Wyatt Earp

  1994

• 8 Seconds – based on the story of American rodeo legend Lane Frost, who died from injuries sustained riding a bull at the 1989 Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo
• Ed Wood – based on the story of film director Edward D. Wood Jr., starring Johnny Depp as Ed Wood and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, and directed by Tim Burton
• Heavenly Creatures – based on the true story of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, principals in the 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case in New Zealand
• The Madness of King George – the true story of King George III's deteriorating mental health, which stemmed from porphyria; based on the play The Madness of George III
• Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle – about writer Dorothy Parker and the members of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, actors and critics who met almost daily from 1919 to 1929 at Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel
• Princess Caraboo – based on the story of Mary Baker who was a noted imposter who fooled an entire British town for months that she was a princess from a far off kingdom.
• Queen Margot – Period film based on Alexandre Dumas' novel about Catholics and Protestant Huguenots fighting over political control of France
• Quiz Show – adapted from a book by Richard N. Goodwin about the real-life American television quiz show scandals of the 1950s, directed by Robert Redford
• Tom & Viv – based on the turbulent relationship between T.S. Eliot and his first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot
• Wyatt Earp – story of Wyatt Earp

  1995

• Apollo 13 – the story of the Apollo 13 lunar mission, based on the book Lost Moon by Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, directed by Ron Howard
• Balto – live-action/animated historical adventure account of Balto, a Siberian husky who helped make the 1925 serum run to Nome
• The Basketball Diaries – based on the autobiographical book of the same name by author and musician Jim Carroll, an edited collection of diaries he kept between the ages of 12 and 16
• Bombay – Indian Tamil bilingual film centered on the 1993 Bombay riots
• Braveheart – historical drama war film based on the story of William Wallace of Scotland, a 13th-century Scottish warrior who led the Scots in the First War of Scottish Independence against King Edward I of England, directed by and starring Mel Gibson
• Carrington – chronicles the relationship between English painter Dora Carrington and writer Lytton Strachey, starring Emma Thompson
• Casino – a Pileggi / Scorsese collaboration telling the story of the last mafia-run casino in Las Vegas, the fictional Tangiers, based on Frank Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont, and Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago Outfit from the 1970s until the early 1980s
• Citizen X – based on the investigation into murders committed by Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo
• Dangerous Minds – based on the story of teacher LouAnne Johnson who takes on the challenge of an unruly class and wins them over
• Heat – loosely based on Chicago police officer Chuck Adamson's pursuit of career criminal Neil McCauley in the 1960s, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, directed and produced by Michael Mann
• ' – based on a real-life court case, the film finds members of the McMartin family on trial for alleged sexual molestation and abuse of children at their well-regarded preschool
• ' – James Woods plays the evil 1920s serial killer Carl Panzram, who befriended prison guard Henry Lesser; directed by Tim Metcalfe
• Nixon – the story of American President Richard Nixon
• Operation Dumbo Drop – American comedy film based on a true story by United States Army Major Jim Morris, about Green Berets during the Vietnam War in 1968 who attempt to transport an elephant through jungle terrain to a local South Vietnamese village, which in turn helps American forces monitor Viet Cong activity, starring Danny Glover and Ray Liotta
• Pocahontas – highly fictionalized film about the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, the first feature-length animated film by Disney to be based on historical events
• – Hindi film based on a doctor's story, centered on kidney smugglers and a serial killer
• The Young Poisoner's Handbook – dark comedy, based on the life of Graham Young, more commonly known as "The Teacup Murderer" of the 1970s

  1996

• Apollo 11 – television film about the Apollo 11 spaceflight
• Basquiat - American biographical drama film directed, co-written and co-composed by Julian Schnabel in his feature directional debut. Based on the life of American postmodernist/neo expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
• Bastard Out of Carolina – based on real-life events of child abuse from the semi-autobiographical book of the same title by Dorothy Allison, directed by Anjelica Huston
• The Crucible – drama based on the Salem witch trials between 1692 and 1693, written by Arthur Miller and based on his play of the same name
• Deadly Voyage – television film directed by John Mackenzie about Kingsley Ofosu, the sole survivor of a group of nine African stowaways murdered on the cargo ship MC Ruby in 1992
• The Dentist – horror film based on real-life dentist/serial killer Nick Rex; directed by Brian Yuzna
• Fly Away Home – adapted from the book by Bill Lishman, dramatizing the actual experiences of Bill Lishman who in 1986 started training geese to follow his ultralight and succeeded in leading their migration in 1993; directed by Carroll Ballard
• The Ghost and the Darkness – fictionalized account about two lions that attacked and killed workers in Tsavo, Kenya during the building of the African Uganda-Mombasa Railway in 1898, killing 130 people over a nine-month period
• Ghosts of Mississippi – based on the 1994 third retrial of Byron De La Beckwith, white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers; directed by Rob Reiner
• I Shot Andy Warhol – based on the life of Valerie Solanas and her relationship with Andy Warhol
• Michael Collins – based on the life of IRA leader Michael Collins
• White Squall – based on the fate of the brigantine Albatross, which sank May 2, 1961, allegedly because of a white squall
• The Whole Wide World – biographical drama film about Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian

  1997

• Amistad – based on the true story of a slave mutiny that took place aboard the ship La Amistad in 1839, and the legal battle that followed
• Anastasia – loosely based on the story of the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman
• Boogie Nights – loosely based on the life of porn star John Holmes
• Border – Indian war film based on the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971
• The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca - Spanish-American biographical drama film directed by Marcos Zurinaga. It is based on a book by Ian Gibson about the life and murder of Spanish poet Frederico García Lorca
• Donnie Brasco – loosely based on Joseph D. Pistone, the FBI agent who successfully infiltrated the Bonanno crime family in New York City during the 1970s
• Four Days in September – Brazilian thriller film that tells the true story of the abduction of American ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick in 1969 by the MR-8 group, adapted from the book by Fernando Gabeira, directed by Bruno Barreto
• Hoodlum - American crime drama film directed by Bill Duke that gives a fictionalised account of the gang war between the Italian/Jewish mafia alliance and the black gangsters of Harlem that took place in the late 1920's and early 1930's. The film concentrated on Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, Dutch Schultz, and Charles "Lucky" Luciano.
• Iruvar – Indian Tamil political drama based on the life of Indian actor, director, producer and politician M. G. Ramachandran and Indian politician M. Karunanidhi
• Kundun – based on the life of the Dalai Lama, the exiled political and spiritual leader of Tibet
• Mrs. Brown – based on the relationship between Queen Victoria and Scottish servant John Brown following the death of Prince Albert
• Paradise Road – American war film about a group of English, American, Australian, and Dutch women imprisoned by the Japanese in Sumatra during World War II
• Prefontaine – based on the life of Olympic hopeful Steve Prefontaine, a middle and long-distance runner who competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics and died at age 24 in a car accident
• Private Parts – based on eccentric radio DJ Howard Stern's 1993 autobiography of the same name
• Rosewood – dramatization of a 1923 racist lynch mob attack on an African American community
• Selena – based on the life of Mexican-American singer Selena Quintanilla Perez
• Seven Years in Tibet – based on the autobiographical travel book written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, based on his real life experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951 during World War II and the interim period before the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army resumed control of Tibet in 1950
• Titanic – based on the events of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, directed by James Cameron
• Wilde – based on events in the life of Irish writer Oscar Wilde; starring Stephen Fry

  1998

• 23 – German drama thriller film about a young hacker who died on 23 May 1989, a presumed suicide.
• A Civil Action – based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Harr, telling the true story of environmental pollution that took place in Woburn, Massachusetts, in the 1980s
• Daun di Atas Bantal – Indonesian award-winning film based on true stories of the lives of three street boys in Yogyakarta in Java, Indonesia, directed by Garin Nugroho
• Elizabeth – centered on the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I of England and her difficult task of learning what is necessary to be a monarch
• Fifteen and Pregnant – based on the true story of Tina, a 15-year-old pregnant girl.
• Gia – based on the life of Gia Carangi, a top American fashion model during the late 1970s and early 1980s
• Gods and Monsters – depiction of the last days of British film director James Whale
• Of Freaks and Men – Russian film centered on two families and their decline at the hands of one man, Johann, and his pornographic endeavours.
• Patch Adams – the story of the medical doctor, clown, performer, and social activist Patch Adams, directed by Tom Shadyac
• Psycho – inspired by the crimes of the real-life serial killer, Ed Gein; remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
• Savior – war film about a U.S. mercenary escorting a Bosnian Serb woman and her newborn child to a United Nations safe zone during the Bosnian War.
• Saving Private Ryan – inspired by the story of the Niland Brothers during World War II, directed by Steven Spielberg
• Without Limits – biographical film about the relationship between record-breaking distance runner Steve Prefontaine and his coach Bill Bowerman, who later co-founded Nike, Inc., directed by Robert Towne
• Witness to the Mob – follows the rise of Sammy Gravano in ranks in the Gambino crime family, one of the "Five Families" of the New York Cosa Nostra.

  1999

• Angela's Ashes – Irish-American drama based on the memoir of the same title by Frank McCourt, telling the story of McCourt and his childhood after he and his family are forced to move from America back to Ireland because of financial difficulties and family problems caused by his father's alcoholism
• Anna and the King – the story of Anglo-Indian travel writer, educator and social activist Anna Leonowens and her experiences in Siam, directed by Andy Tennant
• Boys Don't Cry – the story of hate crime victim Brandon Teena, directed by Kimberly Peirce
• Girl, Interrupted – based on author Susanna Kaysen's memoir of the same name, chronicling her 18-month stay at a mental institution, directed by James Mangold
• The Hunley – American television film about the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, the first combat submarine to sink a warship
• The Hurricane – based on the imprisonment of middleweight boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, directed by Norman Jewison
• In Too Deep – loosely based on a book about the takedown of a Boston gang lord, aided by an undercover cop
• The Insider – based on the experiences of Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, a tobacco industry whistleblower, directed by Michael Mann
• Joan of Arc – Canadian miniseries based on the story of Joan of Arc, a young girl who believed she was God's messenger
• Man on the Moon – biopic about the life of late comedian Andy Kaufman
• – based on the story of Joan of Arc, a young girl who believed she was God's messenger
• Music of the Heart – A dramatization of the true story of Roberta Guaspari, portrayed by Meryl Streep, who co-founded the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music and fought for music education funding in New York City public schools, directed by Wes Craven
• October Sky – American biographical film adapted from the memoir Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the launch of Sputnik 1 to take up rocketry against his father's wishes, and eventually became a NASA engineer; directed by Joe Johnston
• The Pirates of Silicon Valley – based on the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and their rivalry on the development of the personal computer
• RKO 281 – the story of the making of Citizen Kane, directed by Benjamin Ross
• Rogue Trader – British biographical drama. The film centres around the life of former derivatives broker Nick Leeson and the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, written and directed by James Dearden. Produced by Sir David Frost
• The Straight Story – based on the story of Alvin Straight's journey across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawnmower
• Topsy-Turvy – musical drama concerning the period in 1884–1885 leading up to the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, focusing on the creative conflict between playwright and composer, and the decision by the two men to continue their partnership
• Tuesdays with Morrie – television film based on the memoir of the same title

  2000s

2000

• ' – television film based on Mary Kay Letourneau's illicit affair with one of her sixth grade students
• Almost Famous – comedy-drama film based on Cameron Crowe's early life, telling the coming-of-age story of a teenage journalist writing for Rolling Stone magazine while covering a fictitious rock band named Stillwater
• Bawandar – Indian film based on the true story of Bhanwari Devi, a rape victim from Rajasthan, India
• Bharathi – Tamil biographical film based on the life of Indian writer, poet, journalist, Indian independence activist and social reformer Mahakavi Bharathiyar
• Britannic – spy TV film. It is a fictional account of the sinking of the ship of the same name off the Greek island of Kea in November 1916.
• Chopper – based on the biography of Australian criminal Chopper Read, directed by Andrew Dominik
• The Dish – the story of the Parkes antenna in New South Wales, Australia, how it plays a key role in the first Apollo moon landing, and the quirky characters of the nearby town of Parkes
• Erin Brockovich – biographical film about American legal clerk and environmental activist Erin Brockovich, directed by Steven Soderbergh
• Essex Boys – inspired by the range rover murders in Rettendon
• ' - television biographical drama film about Cuban jazz musician Aurturo Sandoval.
• The Iron Ladies – Thai comedy film based on a men's volleyball team composed of gay and transgender athletes
• The Legend of Rita – German film that focuses on collusion between the East German secret police, or Stasi, and the West German terrorist group Red Army Faction. The fictional characters all have close parallels to real-life RAF members.
• Men of Honor – based on Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear the first African-American Master Diver of the U.S. Navy, directed by George Tillman, Jr.
• The Perfect Storm – adapted from the book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger about the 1991 Perfect Storm, also known as the Halloween Nor'easter of 1991; directed by Wolfgang Petersen
• Remember the Titans – based on the 1971 football season of the newly integrated T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia
• Shadow of the Vampire – the story of the making of Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, directed by E. Elias Merhige
• Thirteen Days – set during the two-week Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, centering on how President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and others handled the explosive situation
• When the Sky Falls – film à clef inspired by the assassination of Veronica Guerin

  2001

• Ali – biographical film of sports legend, Muhammad Ali, from his early years to his days in the ring
• A Beautiful Mind – adapted from Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind, an unauthorized biography of American mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr., directed by Ron Howard
• Behind Enemy Lines – loosely based on the Mrkonjić Grad incident, directed by John Moore
• The Believer – loosely based on the true story of Daniel Burros, a member of the American Nazi Party, and the New York branch of the United Klans of America, who committed suicide after being revealed as Jewish by a New York Times reporter
• Black Hawk Down – adapted from Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern Warfare by Mark Bowden about the Battle of Mogadishu
• Blow – based on the American cocaine smuggler George Jung, directed by Ted Demme
• Bully – based on the case of Bobby Kent, who was murdered by seven teens in what is now Weston, Florida, directed by Larry Clark
• The Cat's Meow – inspired by the mysterious death of film mogul Thomas H. Ince
• Enemy at the Gates – based on Vasily Zaytsev during the Battle of Stalingrad, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud
• From Hell – based on the murders of Jack the Ripper
• Iris – biographical account of the life of Irish novelist Iris Murdoch and her mental decline from Alzheimer's disease
• James Dean – based on the life and career of Hollywood actor James Dean, as well as his relationship with his estranged father.
• Kandahar – the story of Afghan refugee Nelofer Pazira's return to Afghanistan, directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
• Mockingbird Don't Sing – independent film based on the true story of Genie, a modern-day feral child.
• Pearl Harbor – based on the events of the Pearl Harbor attack and the Doolittle Raid, directed by Michael Bay
• Quitting – Chinese drama based on the life of actor Jia Hongsheng, who suffered from heroin and marijuana addiction from 1992 to 1997
• Riding in Cars with Boys – based on the life of memoirist, children's author and creative writing teacher Beverly Donofrio, who wrote the autobiographical book on her life by the same title
• Rock Star – tells the story of Chris "Izzy" Cole, a tribute band singer whose ascendance to the position of lead vocalist of his favorite band was inspired by the real-life story of Tim "Ripper" Owens
• There is a Secret in my Soup – based on the Hello Kitty murder
• The Tunnel – German film loosely based on true events in Berlin following the closing of the East German border in August 1961 and the subsequent construction of the Berlin Wall.

  2002

• 24 Hour Party People – based on the story of Tony Wilson and Factory Records from 1976 to 1992.
• Adaptation – based both on Susan Orlean's non-fiction book The Orchid Thief, as well as screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's struggle to adapt the book into a film.
• Auto Focus – based on the life and career of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane, as well as his friendship with John Henry Carpenter
• Bloody Sunday – based on the events of Bloody Sunday on January 30, 1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland, in which 26 unarmed civil-rights protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers of the British Army
• Catch Me If You Can – the story of con artist Frank Abagnale, directed by Steven Spielberg
• Chicago – adapted from the stage musical by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb, exploring the themes of celebrity, scandal, and corruption in Jazz Age Chicago, directed by Rob Marshall
• City of God – Brazilian crime drama film, adapted from a book by Paulo Lins, depicting the growth of organized crime in Rio de Janeiro between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s, directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind – biographical spy comedy film depicting the life of popular game show host and producer Chuck Barris, who claimed to have also been an assassin for the Central Intelligence Agency
• Dahmer – the story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer
• Frida – the story of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo
• The Laramie Project – adapted from the play The Laramie Project, both by Moisés Kaufman, telling the story of the aftermath of the 1998 murder of American student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming
• The Mothman Prophecies – adapted from the 1975 book of the same name by John Keel, telling the story of the Mothman sightings in the Point Pleasant, West Virginia, area in 1966 and 1967
• Paid in Full – based on events in the life of drug dealer Azie Faison during the crack epidemic in 1980s Harlem, leading up to the murders of his friends Rich and Donnell Porter, directed by Charles Stone III
• The Pianist – based on the memoir by Władysław Szpilman, a Polish musician of Jewish origins and a childhood survivor of Nazi-occupied Poland
• – based on the 2002 court case Marc Hall v. Durham Catholic School Board
• Rabbit-Proof Fence – Australian drama film based on the book Follow The Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara, based on the true story of the author's mother and two other mixed-race Aboriginal girls who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement north of Perth, Western Australia, to return to their Aboriginal families after having been placed there in 1931; directed by Phillip Noyce
• The Rookie – based on the life of American professional baseball player Jim Morris, known for his brief Major League Baseball career
• Ted Bundy – the story of serial killer Ted Bundy
• We Were Soldiers – based on the Battle of Ia Drang, the first major engagement of American troops in the Vietnam War; directed by Randall Wallace

  2003

• ' – based on the real-life story of the 1997 robbery known as the North Hollywood shootout
• Antwone Fisher – American drama based on the autobiographical book Finding Fish, directed by Denzel Washington in his directorial debut
• Baadasssss! - American biographical film written, directed, and starring Mario Van Peebles. The film is based on the struggles of Van Peebles' father Melvin Van Peebles, as he attempts to film and distribute Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, a film that was widely credited with showing Hollywood that a viable African-American audience existed, and thus influencing the creation of the Blaxploitation genre.
• Blind Flight - British film based on the true-life story of the kidnapping and imprisonment of the Irish academic Brian Keenan and the English journalist John McCarthy, two of the hostages in the Lebanon hostage crisis.
• ' – American television film about the September 11 attacks as seen from the point of view of President George W. Bush and his staff
• – American television film based on the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002.
• Elephant – based on the events surrounding the April 20, 1999, Columbine High School massacre in Columbine, Colorado
• Evil – Swedish drama film set in a private boarding school in the late-1950s with institutional violence as its theme.
• Gacy – based on serial killer John Wayne Gacy; focuses on Gacy's life after he moved to Norwood Park in 1971 up until his arrest in 1978
• Gods and Generals – prequel to Gettysburg, about General Stonewall Jackson
• LOC Kargil – Indian war film based on the 1999 Kargil War
• Memories of Murder – South Korean film based on the true story of the country's first known serial murders, which took place between 1986 and 1991
• Monster – the story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, directed by Patty Jenkins
• Ned Kelly – The film dramatises the life of Ned Kelly, a legendary bushranger and outlaw who was active mostly in Victoria, the colony of his birth. In the film. Kelly, his brother Dan, and two other associates – Steve Hart and Joe Byrne – form a gang of Irish Australians in response to Irish and English tensions that arose in 19th century Australia.
• Open Water – based on the story of Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who were left behind on their scuba diving trip in the South Pacific, directed by Chris Kentis
• Radio – based on the real-life story of South Carolina high school football coach Harold Jones and his mentally challenged assistant, James Robert "Radio" Kennedy, adapted from a 1996 Sports Illustrated article by Gary Smith titled "Someone to Lean On"
• Seabiscuit – based on the book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand about the champion American thoroughbred racehorse
• Shattered Glass – based on Stephen Glass's journalistic career at The New Republic during the mid-1990s and the discovery of his widespread journalistic fraud
• Stander – based on the life and death of Andre Stander, a South African police captain turned bank robber
• Veronica Guerin – based on the true story of Irish journalist Veronica Guerin
• Wonderland – based on the Wonderland murders in Los Angeles in 1981, directed by James Cox

  2004

• ' – TV movie about the life and death of legendary NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt
• 12 Days of Terror – based on true events that occurred in July 1916 in central and southern New Jersey; recounts 12 days during which people along the Jersey coast were subjected to attacks by a shark
• 18-J - Argentine docudrama film. The film focuses on the July 18, 1994, bombing of the AMIA Building in Buenos Aires, where 18 people were killed and 300 others wounded. The perpetrators were never caught. AIMA is the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, a charity, and the attacks is considered the largest single incident of terrorism against Jews since World War II.
• 36 Quai des Orfèvres – French film based on a true story about the police
• Against the Ropes – drama based on the life of American boxing manager Jackie Kallen, the first woman to become a success in the sport
• The Alamo – About the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution.
• Alexander – based on the life of Alexander the Great
• The Assassination of Richard Nixon – the story of would-be assassin Samuel Byck, who plotted to kill Richard Nixon in 1974, directed by Niels Mueller
• The Aviator – the story of Howard Hughes, directed by Martin Scorsese
• Ay Juancito - Argentine biographical drama film about the life of Juan Duarte, Eva Perón's brother and a political officer in Juan Domingo Perón's first presidency.
• Beyond the Sea – based on the life of singer Bobby Darin
• Black Friday – Indian Hindi film based on the 1993 Bombay bombings
• ' - American biographical drama film based on the life of golfer Bobby Jones, the only player in the sport to win all four of the men's major golf championships in a single season
• The Clearing - drama film and the directional debut of Pieter Jan Brugge. The film is loosely based on the real life kidnapping of Gerrit Jan Heijn that took place in the Netherlands in 1987.
• Cazuza – O Tempo Não Pára - Brazilian biographical film about the life of Brazilian singer-songwriter Cazuza.
• The Chorus - French drama film inspired by the origin of the boys' choir The Little Singers of Paris.
• De-lovely – the story of the marriage of the songwriter Cole Porter and Linda Lee Thomas
• Downfall – German film based on the final twelve days of Adolf Hitler's life in his Berlin bunker and Nazi Germany in 1945
• Drum – based on the life of South African investigative journalist Henry Nxumalo
• Evilenko – English-language Italian thriller loosely based on the real life Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo
• Finding Neverland – the story of Sir James Matthew Barrie's friendship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan
• Friday Night Lights – adapted from ' by H. G. Bissinger, about the 1988 football season of Permian High School in Odessa, Texas, directed by Peter Berg
• Hidalgo – the story of American distance rider Frank Hopkins and his mustang Hidalgo, recounting his racing his horse in Arabia in 1891 against Bedouin riding pure-blooded Arabian horses, directed by Joe Johnston
• The Hillside Strangler – based on the true story of the Hillside Strangler serial killers, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Jr., who kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed girls and women in late 1977 to early 1978 in the hills above Los Angeles, California
• Hotel Rwanda – the story of Paul Rusesabagina's experiences during the Rwandan genocide, directed by Terry George
• Iron Jawed Angels – follows Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party's attempts to force President Wilson to grant American women the right to vote during World War I
• Kaadhal – Tamil romantic drama based on a true love story
• Kamaraj – Tamil biographical film based on the life of Indian politician K. Kamaraj, known as the "Kingmaker" during the 1960s in India
• Kaya Taran - Indian Hindi film based on the backdrop of the 2002 Gujarat riots against Muslims and 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
• King Arthur - British-American historical adventure film about King Arthur.
• Kinsey – a look at the life of Alfred Kinsey, a pioneer in human sexuality research
• The Libertine - British-Australian drama film starring Johnny Depp, John Malkovich, Samantha Morton and Rosamund Pike. Depp stars as John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, a notorious rake and libertine poet in the court of King Charles II of England. Samantha Morton plays Elizabeth Barry, an actress whose budding talent blossoms and makes her much in demand under Rochester's tutelage.
• The Life and Death of Peter Sellers - British-American television film about the life of English comedian Peter Sellers.
• Miracle – the story of Herb Brooks and the U.S. Olympic hockey team leading up to, and during, the 1980 Winter Olympics, directed by Gavin O'Connor
• Modigliani - biographical drama film based on the life of the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.
• The Motorcycle Diaries – biographical film about the early life of Che Guevara
• ' - Indian epic biographical war film. The film depicts the life of the Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose in Nazi Germany: 1941-1943, and in Japanese-occupied Asia 1943-1945, and the events leading to the formation of Azad Hind Fauj.
• Nobody Knows – Japanese drama film based on the 1988 Sugamo child abandonment case.
• Olga - Brazilian biographical film about German-Brazilian communist militant Olga Benário Prestes.
• The Passion of the Christ American biblical drama film produced, co-written and directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus of Nazareth, Maia Morgenstern as the Virgin Mary, and Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene.
• Ray – biographical film about singer Ray Charles
• The Remains of Nothing - Italian historical drama film about Eleonora Pimentel.
• Rikidōzan - South Korean-Japanese biographical sports drama film based on the life of Rikidōzan, a legendary ethnic Korean professional wrestler who became a national hero in Japan in the 1950s.
• Something the Lord Made – about black cardiac pioneer Vivien Thomas and his complex and volatile partnership with white surgeon Alfred Blalock, the world-famous "Blue Baby doctor," who pioneered modern heart surgery
• Stage Beauty - romantic period drama directed by Richard Eyre. The film is based on 17th-century English actor Edward Kynaston.
• - Italian television movie based on real life events of Roman Catholic priest John Bosco.
• Saint Rita - Italian television movie based on real life events of Augustinian nun and Saint Rita of Cascia.
• The Sea Inside - Spanish drama film based on the real-life story of Ramón Sampredro, who was left quadriplegic after a diving accident, and his 28-year campaign in support of euthanasia and the right to end his life.
• Troy - epic historical war drama film loosely based on Homer's Iliad in its narration of the entire story of the decade-long Trojan War - condensed into little more than a couple of weeks, rather than just the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in the ninth year.

  2005

• Aurore – biographical drama based on the murder of Aurore Gagnon, a Canadian child abuse victim
• Beyond the Gates – based on events during the early days of the Rwandan genocide, directed by Michael Caton-Jones
• Capote – biographical film about Truman Capote who, during his research for his book In Cold Blood, an account of the murder of a Kansas family, develops a close relationship with murderer Perry Smith
• Cinderella Man – based on the story of James J. Braddock, a supposedly washed-up boxer who comes back to become a champion and an inspiration in the 1930s
• Coach Carter – based on the Richmond High School basketball team led by coach Ken Carter
• Domino – inspired by Domino Harvey, the English daughter of stage and screen actor Laurence Harvey, who became a Los Angeles bounty hunter.
• Dreamer – The movie is loosely inspired by the story of the mare Mariah's Storm. She was a promising filly who was being pointed towards the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies in 1993.
• Get Rich or Die Tryin' – about Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson's life
• Good Night, and Good Luck – chronicles Edward R. Murrow's opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the anti-Communist senate hearings of the mid-1950s, directed by George Clooney
• The Great Raid – the story of the raid at Cabanatuan on the Philippine island of Luzon during World War II, directed by John Dahl
• The Greatest Game Ever Played – based on the life of golfer Francis Ouimet, directed by Bill Paxton
• Green River Killer – based on real-life serial killer Gary Ridgway, directed by Ulli Lommel
• Jarhead – based on the Gulf War memoir of Anthony Swofford, directed by Sam Mendes
• Kingdom of Heaven - epic historical drama film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by William Monahan. The story is set during the Crusades of the 12th Century. A French village blacksmith goes to the aid of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in its defence against the Ayyubid Muslim Sultan, Saladin, who is fighting to claim the city from the Christians; this leads to the Battle of Hattin.
• The Last Hangman – based on the life and career of British executioner Albert Pierrepont, from early 1933 through the end of his career in 1955, during which he executed some 608 people, including the Nuremberg war criminals and Ruth Ellis, the last women to be executed in Britain
• Lies My Mother Told Me – Canadian television movie based on the real life murder of Larry McNabney by his wife, Elisa McNabney, with the help of a college student
• Lord of War – crime drama film, inspired by the stories of several real-life arms dealers and smugglers.
• Lords of Dogtown – biographical film based on the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys about an influential group of skateboarders who revolutionized the sport, directed by Catherine Hardwicke
• Munich – loosely based on Operation Wrath of God following the aftermath of the Munich massacre, directed by Steven Spielberg
• The New World – depicts the founding of the Jamestown, Virginia, settlement, inspired by the historical figures Captain John Smith and Pocahontas
• North Country – American drama film chronicling the case of Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co., which changed sexual harassment law, directed by Niki Caro
• Sehar – Indian Hindi film depicting organized crime in the late 1990s in India, loosely based on real-life gangster and hired killer Shri Prakash Shukla
• Sins – Bollywood film based on the true story of a Catholic priest from Kerala who was hanged due to his sexual relationship with a married woman
• Syriana – geopolitical thriller film loosely based on the book See No Evil by Robert Baer, a former FBI agent, based on his experiences.
• Stoned – British biographical drama film about Brian Jones, the founder and original leader of the English rock band The Rolling Stones.
• Virginia, la monaca di Monza - Italian-Spanish television movie loosely based on real life events of Marianna de Leyva.
• Walk the Line – based on two autobiographies of Johnny Cash, Man in Black and Cash: The Autobiography
• Wolf Creek – inspired by the Backpacker murders by Ivan Milat
• The World's Fastest Indian – the life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle, a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967
• The Zodiac – about the Zodiac Killer

  2006

• 300 – fictionalized account of the Battle of Thermopylae, based on the comic series written by Frank Miller
• Alpha Dog – American crime drama based on the kidnap and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz and surrounding events in 2000, organized mainly by Jesse James Hollywood, a young middle-class drug dealer in California
• Amazing Grace – the story of William Wilberforce's fight to outlaw the slave trade in the British parliament
• Black Book – Dutch film based on the true story of a young Jewish girl, set during World War II
• The Black Dahlia – based loosely on the true story of the unsolved Black Dahlia homicide in January 1947, directed by Brian De Palma
• Bobby – based on speculated events leading to the shooting of Robert F. Kennedy at The Ambassador Hotel in 1968, directed by Emilio Estevez
• Buenos Aires, 1977 – Argentinian political thriller film which tells the true story of four men who narrowly escaped death at the hands of a military death squad during the Argentine Dirty War in the 1970s
• Catch a Fire – based on the experiences of former migrant worker turned Umkhonto we Sizwe member Patrick Chamusso during apartheid in the 1980s, directed by Phillip Noyce
• Dresden – German TV-movie depicting a romance story during the historical attack against the city of Dresden in February 1945.
• Find Me Guilty – based on the trial of mobster Giacomo "Jackie" DiNorscio, which became the longest Mafia trial in American history; directed by Sidney Lumet
• Flags of Our Fathers – based on the book Flags of Our Fathers, written by James Bradley and Ron Powers, about the Battle of Iwo Jima and the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima
• Flight 93 – based on the events aboard United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11, directed by Peter Markle
• Glory Road – based on the story of the 1965–66 Texas Western Miners basketball team and its march to the national championship, although some liberties were taken
• Gridiron Gang – based on real incidents involving youth gang members in a youth jail named "Killpatrick Camp" who played for a football team led by coach Sean Porter
• The Hoax – recounting Clifford Irving's elaborate hoax on publishing an autobiography of Howard Hughes in the early 70s.
• Hollywoodland – based on the suspicious death of actor George Reeves on June 16, 1959, directed by Allen Coulter
• Infamous – while researching his book In Cold Blood, writer Truman Capote develops a close relationship with convicted murderers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith
• Invincible – based on the story of Vince Papale, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1970s as a walk-on
• Karla – based on the true story of serial killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka
• The Killing of John Lennon – the story of Mark Chapman's plot to kill John Lennon
• The Last King of Scotland – based on factual events during Idi Amin's rule of Uganda, directed by Kevin Macdonald
• Lonely Hearts – loosely based on the investigation of homicide detective Elmer C. Robinson into the Lonely Hearts Killers, directed by his own grandson Todd Robinson
• Marie Antoinette – based on the life of Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France, from her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI to her reign as queen to the French Revolution
• Miss Potter – Anglo-American biographical film about children's author and illustrator Beatrix Potter
• Only the Brave – the story of the rescue of the Lost Battalion by the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II, directed by Lane Nishikawa
• Provoked – based on the true story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, who murdered her abusive husband
• Take the Lead – based on the story of Pierre Dulaine, a well-known ballroom dancer and dance instructor, known for "Dancing Classrooms," as he teaches potential high school dropouts how to ballroom dance during detention in an attempt to raise their self-respect and confidence
• The Pursuit of Happyness – based on the true story of Chris Gardner's nearly one-year struggle with homelessness, starring Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith
• The Queen – after the death of Princess Diana, HM Queen Elizabeth II struggles with her reaction to a sequence of events nobody could have predicted
• Rescue Dawn – based on the story of Dieter Dengler, a U.S. Navy pilot who was shot down in Laos during the Vietnam War
• Traces of Love – based on the Sampoong Department Store collapse of 1995
• United 93 – based on United Airlines Flight 93 and the passengers on board who prevented the hijackers from reaching their intended target, directed by Paul Greengrass
• We Are Marshall – the story of the aftermath of the 1970 plane crash that killed 5 members of flight crew, 25 boosters, 8 coaches and 37 players of the Marshall University football team, directed by McG
• World Trade Center – based on the rescue of John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, both freed from the wreckage of the collapsing World Trade Center towers

  2007

• 1612 - Russian epic historical drama film about the 17th century Time of Troubles and the Polish-Muscovite War with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
• A Mighty Heart – based on the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan
• Alexandra - Russian film about the Second Chechen War
• American Gangster – based on the true life story of Frank Lucas, a former heroin dealer, and organized crime boss in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s
• An American Crime – American crime drama based on the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Indianapolis housewife Gertrude Baniszewski
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – based on the last year of Jesse James' life, leading up to his assassination by Robert Ford
• Battle In Seattle – based on the protest activity at the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999
• Becoming Jane – biographical portrait of a pre-fame Jane Austen and her romance with a young Irishman
• Black Friday - based on the 1993 Bombay bombings
• Borderland – loosely based on serial killer/cult leader Adolfo Constanzo
• Breach – based on the capture of Soviet spy Robert Hanssen
• Caravaggio - Italian television film based on the real life events of Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio
• Chapter 27 – biographical film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman
• Charlie Wilson's War – based on Texas congressman Charlie Wilson's covert dealings in Afghanistan to help launch Operation Cyclone, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War
• ' – based on the notorious mass murderer Richard Speck, who systematically tortured, raped and murdered a group of student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital in 1966
• Control – based on the story of Ian Curtis, the singer of Joy Division, whose personal, professional and romantic life led him to commit suicide at the age of 23
• The Counterfeiters – Austrian film based on Operation Bernhard
• Curse of the Zodiac – American horror film based on the Zodiac killings in the San Francisco Bay area in the early 1970s
• Dark Matter - American drama film loosely based on the University of Iowa shooting
• Death Defying Acts - British-Australian romance film about the life of Hungarian-American escapologist Harry Houdini at the height of his career in the 1920s
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – biographical drama based on the life of Jean-Dominique Bauby, depicting his life after suffering a massive stroke in December 1995 at the age of 43, which left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome
• Don't Waste Your Time, Johnny! - Italian biographical comedy-drama loosely based on real life events of musician Fausto Mesolella, a member of Piccola Orchestra Avion Travel
• ' - based on the crimes of Ed Gein
• Eichmann – biographical drama detailing the interrogation of Adolf Eichmann
• El Cantante – based on the life of legendary salsa singer, Hector Lavoe, directed by Leon Ichaso
• ' – sequel to the 1998 film Elizabeth, depicting a mature Queen Elizabeth I of England, who endures multiple crises late in her reign, including court intrigues, an assassination plot, the Spanish Armada, and romantic disappointments
• Freedom Writers – based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell, based on Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Eastside, Long Beach, California
• Gandhi, My Father - Indian biographical drama film about the troubled relationship between Mahatma Gandhi and his son Harilal Gandhi
• The Girl Next Door – American horror film loosely based on the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Indianapolis housewife Gertrude Baniszewski and based on the book The Girl Next Door, written by Jack Ketchum
• Goodbye Bafana – based on the relationship between Nelson Mandela and writer James Gregory
• The Great Debaters – the story of the efforts of debate coach Melvin B. Tolson at historically black Wiley College to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s
• Guru – Indian bi-language film loosely based on the life of Indian business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani, who helped found Reliance Industries in Mumbai, India
• Hwang Jin Yi - South Korean biographical drama film about the life of Hwang Jin Yi, the most famous courtesan in Korean history
• I'm Not There. – about the life of Bob Dylan, in which six characters embody a different aspect of the musician's life and work
• ' - Italian television film depicts real life events of road racing cyclist Marco Pantani
• In the Valley of Elah – based loosely on the homicide of returning Iraq War veteran Richard T. Davis in 2003 by fellow soldiers from Baker Company, directed by Paul Haggis
• Into the Wild – based on the 1996 non-fiction book of the same name by Jon Krakauer about the adventures and travels of Christopher McCandless across North American and his life spent in the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s
• Kalloori – Indian Tamil movie based on a real-life incident in which three girls were burnt to death in Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, India; directed by Balaji Shakthivel
• The Kingdom – loosely based on the 1996 bombing of the Khobar housing complex and the 2003 bombing of the Riyadh compound.
• La Vie en rose - French biographical musical film about the life of French singer Édith Piaf
• Las 13 rosas - Spanish film that follows the tragic fate of thirteen young women, fighting for their ideals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War
• Maradona, the Hand of God - Italian-Argentine biographical film based on real life events of footballer Diego Maradona
• Molière - French historical drama film about French playwright and actor Molière
• Mongol – intended to be the first in a trilogy of films based on the life of Genghis Khan
• Periyar – Indian Tamil biographical film based on the life of social reformer and rationalist Periyar E. V. Ramasamy
• Piano, solo - Italian drama film depicts the real life events of jazz pianist and composer Luca Flores
• Pride – based loosely on the true story of Philadelphia swim coach Jim Ellis and his African American swim team in 1974 Philadelphia
• Primeval – based on tales of a real man-eating crocodile named Gustave, still living in Burundi
• Rise of the Footsoldier – British gangster film based on the true story of the Rettendon murders and the autobiography of Carlton Leach, a former football hooligan of the infamous Inter City Firm, who became a powerful figure of the English underworld
• Rohtenburg – based on the "Rotenburg Cannibal"
• Rogue - inspired by the true story of Sweetheart, a giant male saltwater crocodile that attacked boats in the late 1970s, although Sweetheart was never responsible for an attack on a human
• Satham Podathey – Indian Tamil psychological thriller film based on a true story
• September Dawn – based on the September 7–11, 1857, Mountain Meadows massacre
• Shootout at Lokhandwala – Hindi film based on the 1991 Lokhandwala Complex shootout, a real-life gun battle between gangsters and Mumbai Police during an encounter with gangster Maya Dolas
• The Sovereign's Servant - Russian swashbuckler film depicting the events of the Great Northern War, with a particular focus on the Battle of Poltava
• ' - Italian television film based on real life events of doctor and then Roman Catholic Saint Giuseppe Moscati
• Stuck – loosely based on the hit and run committed by Chante Jawan Mallard, who left her victim to die slowly in her garage
• Sybil – true story based on the life of Shirley Ardell Mason, who was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder
• Talk To Me – based on the life of Washington, D.C., radio personality Ralph "Petey" Greene
• ' - Italian biographical film about Saint Teresa of Ávila
• What We Do Is Secret – based on the 1970s Los Angeles punk band the Germs and their lead singer Darby Crash
• Zodiac – based on the story of the Zodiac Killer

  2008

• 21 – inspired by the story of the MIT Blackjack Team
• American Violet – the story is based on Regina Kelly, a victim of Texas police drug enforcement tactics
• The Baader Meinhof Complex – based on German militant group the Red Army Faction, retells the story of the early years of the RAF, concentrating on its beginnings in 1967 up to the German Autumn of 1977
• Baby Blues – based on Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in 2001 in a severe case of postpartum psychosis
• The Bank Job – based on a 1971 London robbery allegedly concocted by MI5
• Bronson – fictionalized and based on the life of Britain's most violent prisoner Michael Gordon Peterson, better known as Charles Bronson
• Cadillac Records – based on the life of influential Chicago-based record company executive Leonard Chess and the singers who recorded for Chess Records
• Camino – inspired by the real story of a girl who died from spinal cancer at the age of 14 in 1985 and is currently in the process of canonization
• Cape No. 7 – a story based on a report about a Taiwanese postman who successfully delivered a piece of mail addressed in the old Japanese style; the sender was the former Japanese employer of the recipient; Taiwan was ruled by Japan from 1896 to 1945, and the film depicts the subtly long-lasting relations between the people in Taiwan and Japan
• Changeling – loosely based on the real-life Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, involving Christine Collins and the disappearance of her son
• Che – a merged version of two films: The Argentine and Guerrilla, about the life of Marxist revolutionary, Che Guevara
• December Heat – historic action drama about the 1924 Estonian coup d'état attempt
• Defiance – the story of the Bielski partisans
• The Duchess – based on the life of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
• Everlasting Moments – Swedish drama based on the true story of Maria Larsson, a Swedish working-class woman in the early 20th century who wins a camera in a lottery and goes on to become a photographer
• – based on the life of "The Elmira Express" Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy
• Felon – based on events at California State Prison, Corcoran in the 1990s
• Fifty Dead Men Walking – loose adaptation of Martin McGartland's 1997 autobiography of the same name
• Flammen & Citronen – based on the lives of Bent Faurschou-Hviid and Jørgen Haagen Schmith, members of the Holger Danske, a Danish resistance group in Nazi-occupied Denmark
• Flash of Genius – the story of Robert Kearns, inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper and his claims and lawsuit against Ford Motor Company
• Forever the Moment – based on the achievements of the South Korean women's national handball team at the 2004 Summer Olympics
• Frost/Nixon – the story of the 1977 televised Frost/Nixon interviews
• Haber – the work of Fritz Haber in developing chemical weaponry for the German army during World War I
• Hunger – based on Bobby Sands and the 1981 Irish hunger strike
• The Hurt Locker – Oscar-winning war film about a three-man explosive ordnance disposal team during the Iraq War
• Ip Man – based on the life of Ip Man", a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun and master of Bruce Lee
• Jodhaa Akbar – based on the life of Mughal emperor Akbar the Great
• Living Proof – based on the true life story of Denny Slamon, who helped develop the breast cancer drug Herceptin 2
• Marley & Me – based on the memoir of the same title by journalist John Grogan
• Max Manus – Norwegian biographic war film based on real events in the life of resistance fighter Max Manus, who helped to save his country from the Germans during World War II
• Milk – based on the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California
• North Face – German film about the 1936 attempt by Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser to summit the Eiger via the north face
• The Other Boleyn Girl – based on the lives of sisters Anne and Mary Boleyn, who compete for the affection of King Henry VIII
• The Red Baron – German-British biographical action war film written and directed by Nikolai Müllerschön about the World War I fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, known as the "Red Baron".
• Stone of Destiny – the story of attorney Ian Hamilton, who helped recapture the Stone of Scone for Scotland
• The Stoning of Soraya M. – the story of Soraya Manutchehri, a victim of stoning in Iran
• Valkyrie – the story of the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country
• W. – based on the life and presidency of George W. Bush

  2009

• Accident on Hill Road – based on Chante Mallard, a Fort Worth, Texas, woman convicted and sentenced to 50 years' imprisonment for her role in the death of a 37-year-old homeless man
• April Showers – American independent film inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School shooting and the days that followed
• Amelia – a look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to circumnavigate the globe
• The Blind Side – adapted from the 2006 Michael Lewis book ', focusing on the life of future NFL player Michael Oher
• Bright Star – drama based on the three-year romance between 19th-century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, which was cut short by Keats' untimely death at age 25
• Coco avant Chanel – about fashion designer Coco Chanel before she was famous
• The Damned United – British sports film based on Brian Clough's tenure as Leeds United's manager
• Everyman's War – based on the Battle of the Bulge during World War II
• Formosa Betrayed – American political thriller which depicts the KMT government's intentional wipe-out of the Taiwan people's opposition voices in the 1980s, inspired by two actual events – one the death of Professor Chen Wen-chen of Carnegie Mellon University in 1981, and the other the 1984 assassination of journalist Henry Liu in California
• ' – based on the life of Ben Carson, who grew up to become a world-famous neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins and first surgeon to separate conjoined twins
• – based on the faithful Akita Hachikō. Remake of the Japanese film Hachiko Monogatari, and now set in the United States.
• I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell – An independent comedy film loosely based on the work and persona of writer Tucker Max, who co-wrote the screenplay.
• I Love You Phillip Morris – American black comedy drama film based on the 1980s and 1990s real-life story con artist, imposter and multiple prison escapee Steven Jay Russell.
• The Informant! – based on the real-life story of Mark Whitacre, the highest-ranked executive in U.S. history to turn whistleblower
• Ingenious – American film based on the rags-to-riches story of two friends, a small-time inventor and a sharky salesman, who hit rock bottom before coming up with a gizmo that becomes a worldwide phenomenon
• In Her Skin – Australian drama based on the brutal murder of 15-year-old Melbourne girl Rachel Barber, who went missing on March 1, 1999
• Invictus – based on the real-life story of South African president Nelson Mandela and François Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks, the South African rugby union team
• Julie & Julia – American comedy drama contrasting the lives of two food writers: pioneer chef Julia Child in the 1940s and 21st-century New Yorker Julie Powell, who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook in 365 days
• The Killing Room – psychological thriller based on the Project MKUltra programme by the CIA, with fictionalized characters
• Lula, o filho do Brasil – based on the life of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
• Mao's Last Dancer – based on the autobiography of ballet dancer Li Cunxin
• Middle Men – American drama film directed by George Gallo and written by Gallo and Andy Weiss. The movie is based on the experiences of Christopher Mallick, who was previously associated with the Internet billing companies Paycom and ePassporte. Christopher Mallick has been accused of stealing millions of dollars from his customers at ePassporte to fund the creation of the film.
• Moonshot – British television film about the events leading up to the Apollo 11 spaceflight
• Notorious – depiction of the life and career of rapper Biggie Smalls/The Notorious B.I.G.
• Pazhassi Raja – Malayalam historical drama film based on the life of Pazhassi Raja, a Hindu king who fought against the British in the 18th century
• The Perfect Game – American drama film directed by William Dear. The film is based on the events leading to the 1957 Little League World Series, which was won by the first team from outside the United States, the Industrial Little League of Monterrey, Mexico, who defeated the heavily favoured U.S. team. Mexican pitcher Ángel Macías threw the first, and so far only, perfect game in championship game history.
• Prayers for Bobby – the true story of gay rights crusader Mary Griffith, whose teenage son committed suicide due to her religious intolerance, based on the book of the same title by Leroy F. Aarons
• Public Enemies – American biographical crime film in which the FBI tries to take down notorious American gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s
• The Soloist – based on the life of Nathaniel Ayers, a musician who developed schizophrenia and became homeless
• The Stoneman Murders – Hindi film based on the real life Stoneman serial killings, which made headlines in the early 1980s in Mumbai
• Taking Chance – based on the experiences of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, who escorted the body of Marine Chance Phelps back to his hometown from Iraq
• Taking Woodstock – American comedy based on the Woodstock Festival of 1969, directed by Ang Lee
• The Young Victoria – dramatization of the turbulent first years of Queen Victoria's rule, and her enduring romance with Prince Albert

  2010s

2010

• 22 Bullets - French gangster-action film directed by Richard Berry. It tells a part of the life story of Jacky Imbert.
• 127 Hours – based on the story of Aron Ralston, the American mountain climber who amputated his own arm to free himself after being trapped by a boulder for six days in Bluejohn Canyon in 2003.
• All Good Things – inspired by the life of accused murderer Robert Durst, the film chronicles the life of the wealthy son of a New York real estate tycoon, a series of murders linked to him, and his volatile relationship with his wife and her subsequent unsolved disappearance.
• Angel of Evil - Italian crime film about Italian bank robber and mobster Renato Vallanzasca.
• Animal Kingdom – Australian crime drama film written and directed by David Michôd. Inspired by events which involved the Pettingill criminal family of Melbourne, Victoria. In 1991, two brothers Trevor Pettingill and Victor Peirce were acquitted in the 1998 shooting murder of two Victorian police officers.
• Antardwand – Indian film based on the cases of groom kidnapping reported in Bihar in India.
• The Assault - French action thriller film directed by Julien Leclercq, based on the 1994 hijacking of Air France Flight 8969 by Algerian Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and the raid to free the hostages by the GIGN, the elite counter-terrorism unit of the French National Gendarmerie.
• The Bang Bang Club – Canadian-South African film based on the lives of four photojournalists active within the townships of South Africa during apartheid, especially between 1990 and 1994.
• Belgrano – Argentine biographical drama film based on the life of the Argentine national hero Manuel Belgrano.
• Beneath Hill 60 – Australian war drama directed by Jeremy Sims. Set during World War I, the film tells the story of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company's efforts in mining underneath Hill 60 in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. During the war, a series of mines filled with explosive charges were placed beneath the German lines to aid the advance of British troops. The screenplay is based on an account of the ordeal written by Captain Oliver Woodard.
• Black Venus - French drama film directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. It is based on the life of Sarah Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman who in the early 19th century was exhibited in Europe under the name "Hottentot Venus".
• Bonded by Blood – based on the Essex boys, a group involved in organised crime in Essex, England, and their suspicious murders, which are still debated today.
• Bruce Lee, My Brother – based on the life of Bruce Lee from his teenage years through part of his adult years.
• Burke & Hare – British black comedy film, loosely based on the Burke and Hare murders in 1828.
• Conviction – legal drama based on the story of a single mother, Betty Anne Waters, who goes to law school so she can become her brother Kenny's attorney after Kenny is wrongly convicted of murder.
• Casino Jack – comedy-drama thriller film directed by George Hickenlooper and starring Kevin Spacey. The film focuses on the career of Washington, D.C. lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff, who was involved in a massive corruption scandal that led to his conviction as well as the conviction of two White House officials, Rep. Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and congressional staffers. Abramoff was convicted of fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion in 2006, and of trading expensive gifts, meals and sports trips in exchange for political favours. Abramoff served three and a half years of a six-year sentence in federal prison, and was assigned to a halfway house. He was released on December 3, 2010.
• Caterpillar - Japanese drama film. The film is a critique of the right-wing militarist nationalism that guided Japan's conduct in Asia during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
• The Conspirator - American mystery historical drama film directed by Robert Redford. The film tells the story of Mary Sturratt, the only female conspirator charged in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the first woman to be executed by the United States federal government.
• Crook – Indian Hindi-language action thriller film based on the controversy regarding the allegedly racial attacks on Indian students in Australia between 2007 and 2010.
• D.C. Sniper – American direct-to-video drama thriller based on the Beltway sniper attacks of October 2002 committed by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo.
• Dear Mr. Gacy – Canadian drama thriller based on the book The Last Victim by Jason Moss.
• Extraordinary Measures – medical drama based on the story of John Crowley and Aileen Crowley, whose children have Pompe disease.
• Eat Pray Love – American biographical romantic drama film starring Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert, based on Gilbert's 2006 memoir of the same name.
• The End is My Beginning - German-Italian biographical drama film directed by Jo Baier. It is based on the posthumous autobiographical best-seller with the same name written by Tiziano Terzani.
• Fair Game – based on the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame by members of the US government.
• The Fighter – based on the life of boxer Micky Ward and his half-brother, Dicky Eklund.
• ' - French drama film written and directed by Joann Sfar. It is based on the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg.
• Green Zone – British-French-American war thriller depicting the events from the end of the invasion phase of the 2003 invasion of Iraq until the transfer of power to the Iraqis.
• ' - Mexican film directed by Antonio Serrano. It is about Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and his part in the Mexican War of Independence.
• Holly Rollers – American independent crime drama film directed by Kevin Asch and written by Antonio Macia. The film is inspired by a true story of a young Hasidic man who was lured into the world of international drug trafficking in the late 90s.
• Hurricane Season – American sports drama film directed by Tim Story. The film is based on the true story John Ehret High School's 2005–06 State championship team. After Hurricane Katrina, Al Collins, a John Ehret high school basketball coach in Jefferson Parish, across the river from New Orleans in Marrero, Louisiana, assembles a team of players who had previously attended five different schools before the disaster and leads them on the path to winning the state championship.
• Ip Man 2 – based on the life of Ip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun, and the story of him in Hong Kong.
• ' - German historical drama film about Austrian actor Ferdinand Marian.
• Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey – Indian Hindi movie based on Chittagong uprising of 1930.
• King of Devil's Island – French-Norwegian action drama film based on true events that occurred at Bastøy Prison in Norway.
• The King's Speech – historical British drama based on King George VI, who suffered from a severe stammer.
• ' - Hong Kong biographical martial arts film based on the early life of the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man.
• Letters to God – based on the true story of Tyler Doughtie, an 8-year-old suffering from cancer with a love of writing and sending letters to God.
• Malik Ek – Hindi spiritual film on Sai Baba of Shirdi.
• Meek's Cutoff – American western film directed by Kelly Reichardt. The story is loosely based on a historical incident on the Oregon Trail in 1845, in which frontier guide Stephen Meek led a wagon train on an ill-fated journey through the Oregon desert along the route later known as the Meek Cutoff in the western United States.
• Montevideo, God Bless You! – based on the events leading to the participation of the Yugoslavia national football team at the first FIFA World Cup in Montevideo, Uruguay in July 1930.
• Mr. Nice – loosely based on the Welsh former drug smuggler turned author, Howard Marks, who achieved notoriety through high-profile court cases.
• Nadunissi Naaygal – Indian Tamil psychological thriller film based on a true story about murderer Veera.
• Nanga Parbat - German motion picture mountaineering movie about Reinhold and Günther Messner, who climbed Nanga Parbat.
• Of Gods and Men – based on the assassination of the monks of Tibhirine.
• Once Upon a Time in Mumbai – Indian Hindi-language gangster film loosely based on the lives of Mumbai underworld gangsters Haji Mastan and Dawood Ibrahim.
• Oranges and Sunshine – Australian drama film directed by Jim Loach at his directional debut. Based on the book Empty Cradles by Margaret Humphreys.
• Rakta Charitra – Indian trilingual biographical crime film based on the life of political leader and factionist Paritala Ravindra, directed by Ram Gopal Varma.
• Rasputin - Italian film about Grigori Rasputin.
• - Argentine historical epic film. The film follows the life of José de San Martín, with special forces focus on the Crossing on the Andes.
• The Robber - German drama film based on a novel by Austrian author Martin Prinz the novel's character is based on Austrian bank-robber and runner Johann Kastenberger.
• The Runaways – American drama based on the 1970s all-girl rock band The Runaways, focusing in particular on the relationship between rockers Cherie Currie and Joan Jett, adapted from Currie's memoir.
• Secretariat – based on the story of a Thoroughbred named Secretariat, who won the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes and still holds the record after 37 years, and his owner, Penny Chenery
• Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll - British biographical film about English new wave musician Ian Dury.
• The Silent House – Uruguayan Spanish-language horror film directed by Gustavo Hernández, allegedly inspired by real events that took place in the 1940s.
• The Social Network – based on the creation and lawsuits of Facebook.
• The Special Relationship – American-British political film based on relationship between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President Bill Clinton.
• Striker – Bollywood action drama film set in a Mumbai ghetto in the mid 1980s, a story of triumph and human spirit over indomitable odds.
• Temple Grandin – biopic directed by Mick Jackson and starring Claire Danes as Temple Grandin, a woman with autism who revolutionized practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and slaughterhouses.
• Unstoppable – American action thriller loosely based on the CSX 8888 incident, which tells the story of a runaway train carrying hazardous material, which puts cities and people in danger.
• The Way Back – true story of seven men who escape from prison in Siberia, then walk through the Gobi Desert, Himalayas and all the way to Sikkim, India.
• The Whistleblower – thriller which tells the story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska police officer who was recruited to serve as a U.N. peacekeeper with DynCorp International in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999.
• You Don't Know Jack – television film based in part on the book Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian's Life And The Battle To Legalize Euthanasia, focusing on the life and work of physician-assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian.
• The Zero Hour – based on the events during the 1996 Venezuelan medical strike.

  2011

• 17 Miracles – based on the alleged experiences of members of the Willie Handcart Company of Mormon pioneers following their late-season start and subsequent winter journey to Salt Lake City in 1856
• 1911 – Chinese historical drama based on the 1911 Revolution and Xinhai Revolution, starring Jackie Chan
• 50/50 – comedy-drama film loosely based on the life of screenwriter Will Reiser
• A Dangerous Method – set on the eve of World War I, describes the turbulent relationships between Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology; Sigmund Freud, founder of the discipline of psychoanalysis; and Sabina Spielrein, initially a patient of Jung and later a physician and one of the first female psychoanalysts
• Age of Heroes - British war film based on the real-life events of the formation of Ian Fleming's 30 Commando unit during World War II.
• – TV-movie based on the murder of Meredith Kercher and the trial of the accused of Amanda Knox
• Anonymous - period drama film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by John Orloff. The film is a fictionalised version of the life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, poet and patron of the arts, and suggests that he was the actual author of William Shakespeare's play.
• Bernie – black comedy film based on the 1996 murder of 81-year-old millionaire Marjorie Nugent in Carthage, Texas, by her 39-year-old companion
• Blackthorn – western film based on the life of an aged Butch Cassidy living under the assumed name of James Blackthorn in a secluded village in Bolivia 20 years after his disappearance in 1908
• Confessions of a Brazilian Call Girl - Brazilian drama film about Bruna Surfistinha.
• The Conquest - French biographical film on Nicolas Sarkozy directed by Xavier Durringer.
• The Craigslist Killer – the film is inspired by the true story of a man named Philip Markoff who killed one woman and is known to have assaulted at least two others in Massachusetts and Rhode Island
• The Cup - Australian biographical film about Damien Oliver's victory in the 2002 Melbourne Cup.
• Dear Friend Hitler - Indian drama film based on letters written by Mohandes Gandhi to the leader of the Nazi Party and Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler.
• The Devil's Double – allegedly biographical film based on Latif Yahia, body double for Uday Hussein, the playboy son of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
• The Dirty Picture – Bollywood biopic movie based on the life of Silk Smitha, a South Indian actress known for her erotic roles
• Dolphin Tale – inspired by the true story of a bottlenose dolphin named Winter who was rescued off the Florida coast and taken in by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where she is fitted with a prosthetic tail after she loses her natural tail after becoming entangled in a rope attached to a crab trap
• The Eagle - epic historical drama film based on the Ninth Spanish Legion's supposed disappearance in Britain.
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – based on the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers
• The Fields – based on the life of screenwriter Harrison Smith.
• Free Man - French war film which recounts the largely untold story about the role that Algerian and other North African Muslims in Paris played in the French resistance and as rescuers of Jews during the German occupation.
• The Help – American drama about a young white woman and her relationship with two black maids during the civil rights era
• The Intouchables – French comedy drama based on the true story of a paralyzed man who develops a friendship with his caretaker
• The Iron Lady – British biographical film based on the life of Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of the 20th century
• Isoruku - Japanese war drama film about Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto.
• J. Edgar – biopic based on the life of J. Edgar Hoover, directed by Clint Eastwood
• Janie Jones – American film based on the story of a young girl who is abandoned by her meth-addicted former-groupie mother, who informs a fading rock star that she is his daughter
• Juan y Eva – Argentinian movie based on the first meeting of Argentine president Juan Perón and Eva Perón during the 1944 San Juan earthquake
• Kill the Irishman – biopic based on the life of Irish American mobster Danny Greene
• The Lady - French-British biographical film directed by Luc Besson, starring Michelle Yeoh as Aung San Suu Kyi and David Thewlis as her late husband Micheal Aris.
• The Lost Bladesman - Hong Kong-Chinese historical war and biographical action film loosely based on the story of Guan Yu crossing five passes and slaying six generals in the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
• Machine Gun Preacher – biopic based on the life of former gang biker turned preacher and defender of Africa orphans Sam Childers, starring Gerard Butler
• Margin Call – American independent film loosely modeled on Lehman Brothers and the financial crisis of 2007–2008
• Moneyball – American biographical sports drama film based on Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team's 2002 season by Michael Lewis
• Monica – Indian Hindi film based on a true story inspired by the murder case of Shivani Bhatnagar, a journalist working for the Indian Express newspaper
• My Week with Marilyn - British-American drama film directed by Simon Curtis. It depicts the making of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl, which starred Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Oliver. The film focuses on the week during the shooting of the 1957 film when Monroe was escorted around London by Colin Clark, after her husband Arthur Miller had returned to the United States.
• No One Killed Jessica – based on real life murder case of Jessica Lall, a model in New Delhi who was working as a celebrity barmaid at a crowded socialite party when she was shot dead in April 1999
• Not a Love Story – Bollywood movie based on the 2008 Neeraj Grover murder case
• Puncture – based on a true story about Mike Weiss, a young Houston lawyer and a drug addict
• Ragini MMS – Bollywood horror thriller based on a true story of a girl from Delhi named Deepika
• Raspoutine - Franco-Russian historical film about the last year of the life of one of the most enigmatic figures of Russian history of the 20th century - Grigori Rasputin.
• Red Dog – Australian family film based on a true story about a Kelpie/cattle dog cross who was well known for his travels through Western Australia's Pilbara region
• The Resistance, Chinese action/adventure film, inspired by an actual event of Nanking Massacre that occurred in China during WWII; starring Peng Zhang Li
• The Rite – based on the book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Rome-based Matt Baglio, published in 2009, and based on the early life of Father Gary Thomas
• Sanctum – inspired by Andrew Wight's near-death experience after leading a diving expedition miles into a system of underwater caves, then having to find a way out after a freak storm collapses the entrance, produced by James Cameron
• The Silence of Joan - French historical film about Joan of Arc's capture and execution in 1431.
• Silenced – South Korean drama film based on the novel The Crucible by Gong Ji-young. It is based on events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s
• Silent House – American independent horror film based on a young woman who is terrorized in her family vacation home while cleaning the property with her father and uncle
• Snowtown – based on the Snowtown murders
• Soul Surfer – American drama about Bethany Hamilton, a 13-year-old surfer who loses her arm in a shark attack, but is determined to get back in the water
• Texas Killing Fields – based on true events surrounding the murder of women picked up along I-45 and dumped in an old oil field in League City, Texas
• Thambi Vettothi Sundaram – Indian Tamil film based on a true story, set in Kaliyikkavila, a town on the state border
• Traffic – Malayalam thriller film based on actual events that happened in Chennai
• United - British television film based on the true story of Manchester United's "Busty Babes" and the aftermath of the 1958 Munich air disaster.
• Violeta Went to Heaven - Chilean biopic film about singer and folklorist Violeta Parra.
• We Bought a Zoo – comedy-drama family film based on a memoir by Benjamin Mee, owner of Dartmoor Zoological Park near the village of Sparkwell in the county of Devon in England
• White Vengeance - Chinese historical film directed by Daniel Lee. The film is loosely based on events in the Chu-Han Contention, an interregnum between the fall of the Qin dynasty and the founding of the Han dynasty in Chinese history.
• Yugapurushan – Malayalam film based on the life of the saint Sree Narayana Guru
• Yuriko, Dasvidaniya - Japanese biographical film directed by Sachi Hamano. Set in 1924, the film follows the relationship between author Yuriko Miyamoto and openly lesbian Russian literature translator Yoshiko Yuasa.

  2012

• Act of Valor – American film based on real US Navy SEALs missions around the world.
• Aravaan – Tamil period film which based on a Tamil novel depicting the history of Madurai from 1310 to 1910.
• Argo – based on the Canadian Caper, dramatization of the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran in 1979 during the Iran hostage crisis.
• As One – Korean film based on the true story of the first ever united South and North Korea table tennis in World Table tennis Championship in Japan.
• Big Miracle – true story based on Operation Breakthrough in 1988.
• Blue Eyed Butcher – based on Susan Wright stabbing her husband numerous times in 2003.
• Buddha in a Traffic Jam – Bollywood movie loosely based on the life of Indian author and political activist Arundhati Roy.
• Chasing Mavericks – based on the life of surfer Jay Moriarity.
• Compliance – based on the strip search prank call scam.
• Dandupalya – Kannada crime film based on the real life incidents of a notorious gang named Dandupalya.
• Emperor – American-Japanese film based on the investigation of the role of Emperor Hirohito in World War II.
• For Greater Glory – historical war drama based on the Mexican Catholic counter-revolution of the 1920s.
• Game Change – HBO political movie based on John McCain's 2008 presidential election campaign.
• Gangs of Wasseypur – Indian crime movie based on a true story about events in Wasseypur, India, directed by Anurag Kashyap.
• Hitchcock – based on the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho about the relationship between director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville during the filming of Psycho.
• House on the Hill – based on a true story, chronicling the outrageous 1980s murder spree of serial killer Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, who targeted, kidnapped, robbed and killed people.
• Hyde Park on Hudson – British biographical historical comedy-drama film based on the diaries of Margaret Suckley, a close friend of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• The Iceman – American crime thriller based on the life of notorious Mafia hitman Richard Kuklinski.
• The Impossible – based on a Spanish family who survives a tsunami tragedy on December 26, 2004, in Thailand, directed by J.A. Bayona and starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor.
• Ivan Megharoopan – Malayalam film based on the life of Malayalam poet P. Kunhiraman Nair.
• Kazhugu – Indian Tamil movie revolving around four people, referred to as "Kazhugu," who recover the bodies of suicide victims who jump off a cliff.
• Kon-Tiki – The film is the dramatized story of Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947.
• Last Flight to Abuja – Nigerian thriller disaster film based on a 2006 Nigerian aviation tragedy.
• Lincoln – American epic historical drama film based on the final four months of President Lincoln's life and his efforts in January 1865 to have the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
• Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom – the film was said to be based on a real-life incident that happened in the life of cinematographer C. Prem Kumar, described as a humorous tale about a young man who forgets a few days of his life even as he is about to get married.
• No – Chilean drama based on the unpublished play El Plebiscito, focusing on how advertising tactics came to be widely used in political campaigns.
• Paan Singh Tomar – based on the life of Paan Singh Tomar, Indian steeplechase champion and national record holder turned dacoit.
• People Like Us – based on the true story of a sister and brother who never knew that they were siblings.
• Shadow Dancer – based on the novel of the same name by Tom Bradby on an IRA member turned MI5 Informant.
• Vinmeengal – Indian Tamil movie based on a real life incident.
• The Vow – romantic movie based on Kim and Krickitt Carpenter's story.
• Won't Back Down – loosely based on the events surrounding the use of the parent trigger law in Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles in 2010.
• Zero Dark Thirty – war film based on the decade-long manhunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

  2013

• 12 Years a Slave – based on Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free negro who was deceived and kidnapped in Washington, D.C., and sold into slavery.
• 42 – based on Jackie Robinson's breaking of the "color barrier" of Major League Baseball in the 1940s.
• 3096 – based on the story of Natascha Kampusch who was kidnapped at age 10 and held in captivity for 8 years.
• American Hustle – a con man, Irving Rosenfeld, along with his seductive British partner, Sydney Prosser, is forced to work for a wild FBI agent, Richie DiMaso, who pushes them into a world of Jersey power brokers and mafia.
• An Adventure in Space and Time – British television film about the production of the first three seasons of Doctor Who, starring David Bradley as William Hartnell.
• The Attacks of 26/11 – based on the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• Attahasa – Kannada biopic film based on the notorious forest brigand Veerappan.
• Belle – The film is inspired by the 1779 painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle beside her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, at Kenwood House, which was commissioned by their great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, then Lord Chief Justice of England.
• Bhaag Milkha Bhaag – Hindi film based on life of Indian athlete Milkha Singh.
• The Bling Ring – American satirical black comedy crime film based on the Bling Ring, also known as the Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch, who broke into Hollywood Hills homes from October 2008 through August 2009.
• Bozo – Japanese film based on the Akihabara massacre.
• The Butler – a Lee Daniels film based on the life of Cecil Gaines, who went from working on a cotton plantation to an African American White House butler.
• Captain Phillips – biopic of merchant mariner Captain Richard Phillips, who was taken hostage by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean during the Maersk Alabama hijacking in 2009 led by Abduwali Muse.
• Celluloid – Malayalam movie based on the life story of J. C. Daniel, the father of Malayalam cinema.
• ' – biopic which follows Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, formed as the group TLC, and their rises and falls in their music careers while being "the best selling girl group of all time".
• Dallas Buyers Club – in 1985 Dallas, electrician and hustler Ron Woodroof works around the system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is himself diagnosed with the disease.
• Devil's Knot – biographical crime-drama thriller based on a true story as told in Mara Leveritt's 2002 book of the same name, concerning three teenagers known as the West Memphis Three, who were convicted for killing three young boys and subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
• The Devil's Violinist – film based on the life of Niccolò Paganini.
• Diana – British film based on the last two years in the life of Diana, Princess of Wales.
• Empire State – American film based on two childhood friends who plan to rob an armored car depository
• The Fifth Estate – thriller film directed by Bill Condon, about the news-leaking website WikiLeaks.
• The Frozen Ground – American thriller film based on the real-life 1980s Alaskan hunt for serial killer Robert Hansen, written and directed by Scott Walker.
• Fruitvale Station – based on the true story of a 22-year-old African-American man, Oscar Grant, and his last day in Oakland, CA before being shot by transit police in 2009.
• ' – Russian docudrama biopic about the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, and the mission of Vostok 1.
• Gibraltar – French movie about the story of Marc Fievet, an informant who served French customs in October 1987, in which he finds himself in the center of massive drug traffic in Gibraltar, Spain.
• Gimme Shelter – the story of a young girl Vanessa Hudgens who feels unwanted and runs away to find her father, but finds out she's pregnant.
• Hope – South Korean film based on the infamous Nayoung Case in 2008, in which an 8-year-old girl, named "Na-young" in the Korean press, was raped and beaten by a drunk 57-year-old man in a public toilet.
• Jobs – American biographical drama film based on the life of Steve Jobs.
• Kill Your Darlings – a 1944 murder is linked to a group of young poets hoping to change literature.
• Lone Survivor – true account of military courage and survival, based on Operation Red Wings.
• The Look of Love – British film based on the life of Paul Raymond.
• Louis Cyr – biopic of Louis Cyr, the 19th-century strong man still considered to be one of the strongest men to have ever lived.
• Lovelace – the story of Linda Lovelace, who is used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband, before taking control of her life.
• Madras Cafe – based on events during the Sri Lankan civil war.
• – South African film based on the 1994 autobiography by Nelson Mandela.
• One Chance – British-American biographical comedy-drama film about opera singer and Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts.
• Orissa – Malayalam film based on the love story between a police constable and an Odisha girl.
• Pain & Gain – American crime-comedy film based on the kidnapping, extortion, torture, and murder of several people by an organized group of criminals that included a number of bodybuilders affiliated with Sun Gym in Florida.
• Philomena – a world-weary political journalist picks up the story of a woman's search for her son, who was taken away from her decades ago after she became pregnant and was forced to live in a convent.
• Rush – based on the true story of the Formula One season in 1976 with the unforgettable battle for the championship between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, and Lauda's remarkable recovery from a near fatal accident at the 1976 German Grand Prix.
• Saving Mr. Banks – based on the untold true story of the Walt Disney adaptation of the book Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers.
• Shootout at Wadala – Hindi film based on infamous Indian urban dacoit and most feared gangster in the Mumbai underworld Manya Surve.
• Snitch – based on the true story of a drug dealer.
• Special 26 – Bollywood movie inspired by the 1987 Opera House heist where a group posing as Central Bureau of Investigation officers executed an income tax raid on the jeweler in Mumbai.
• Tracks – in 1977, Robyn Davidson travels from Alice Springs across 2,700 kilometres of Australian deserts to the Indian Ocean with her dog and four camels; National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan documents her journey.
• U Want Me 2 Kill Him? – loosely based on the true story of two teenage schoolboys who are drawn into a complicated world of online chatrooms, alter egos and deception, eventually leading to one stabbing the other.
• Wolf Creek 2 – inspired by the Backpacker murders by Ivan Milat and the murder of Peter Falconio by Bradley John Murdoch.
• The Wolf of Wall Street'' – based on the true story of Jordan Belfort starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill.

  2014

• 50 to 1 – American drama film based on the true story of Mine That Bird, an undersized thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2009 Kentucky Derby in one of the biggest upsets in the history of the race.
• ' – South Korean war drama based on Yi Sun-Shin in Joseon's final stand at the epic Battle of Myeongnyang in 1597
• American Sniper – American biographical war drama film based on the life of Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history.
• An Honest Liar – the life of former magician, escape artist, and skeptical educator James Randi, in particular the investigations through which Randi publicly exposed psychics, faith healers, and con-artists.
• A Murder Beside Yanhe River – Chinese historical film based on the murder case of Huang Kegong, who was a general of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
• Bad Country – film based on a true story starring Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe, Amy Smart and Tom Berenger. When Baton Rouge police detective Bud Carter busts contract killer Jesse Weiland, he convinces Jesse to become an informant and rat out the South's most powerful crime ring. So when the syndicate orders Carter's death and Weiland's ID'd as a snitch, the two team up to take down the mob and the crime boss who ordered the hit.
• Chaar Sahibzaade – Punjabi language Indian 3D computer-animated historical film based on the sacrifices of the sons of 10th Sikh guru Guru Gobind Singh-Sahibzada Ajit Singh, Jujhar Singh, Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh.
• Diplomacy – As the Allied Forces move toward Paris, Adolf Hitler commands General Dietrich von Choltitz to destroy the city. Choltitz sends a team to demolish the city's famous landmarks and to overflow the Seine. A Swedish diplomat named Raoul Nordling sneaks into the general's office in the Hotel Meurice by means of a secret passageway.
• The Face of an Angel – British psychological thriller inspired by the book Angel Face, drawn from crime coverage by Newsweek / Daily Beast writer Barbie Latza Nadeau, based on the real-life story of Amanda Knox, who was accused of the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007.
• Foxcatcher – American biographical true crime drama loosely based on the events surrounding multimillionaire E.I. du Pont family heir and wrestling enthusiast John E. du Pont's 1986 recruitment of 1984 U.S. Olympic gold medalist wrestlers Mark Schultz and his older brother Dave to help coach U.S. wrestlers for participation in national, world, and Olympic competition.
• Get on Up – American biographical musical drama film about the life of singer James Brown.
• Heaven Is for Real – based on the book of the same name; four-year-old Colton reports seeing visions of Heaven during emergency surgery.
• Houdini – a two-part, four-hour, look at the life of famed illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini.
• The Imitation Game – a British historical thriller loosely based on the biography ' by Andrew Hodges about the British cryptanalyst Alan Turing, who helped solve the Enigma code during the Second World War and was later prosecuted for homosexuality.
• Jersey Boys – American musical drama film based on the Tony Award-winning jukebox musical of the same name. The film tells the story of the musical group The Four Seasons.
• Kajaki – based on the true story of Mark Wright and a small unit of British soldiers stationed near the Kajaki dam, in Afghanistan.
• Kill the Messenger – American crime thriller film directed by Michael Cuesta and written by Peter Landesman. Based on the book of the same name by Nick Schou and the book Dark Alliance by Gary Webb which focuses on CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking.
• Love & Mercy – American biographical film about musician and songwriter Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.
• Marie's Story – French biographical film based on the true story of Marie Heurtin, a girl who was born deaf and blind in late 19th century France.
• Marvellous – British drama television film about the life of Neil Baldwin
• Mary Kom – Indian biographical sports drama about five-times female World Boxing Champion and Olympic bronze medalist Mary Kom, the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships.
• Million Dollar Arm – based on the true story of baseball pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel who were discovered by sports agent J.B. Bernstein after winning a reality show competition.
• The Monuments Men – American-German war film loosely based on the non-fiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter; the film follows an Allied group from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, tasked with finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before their destruction or theft by the Nazis during World War II.
• Mr. Turner – a biographical drama film based around the last twenty-five years of the life and career of painter J. M. W. Turner.
• Noble – film written and directed by Stephen Bradley about the true life story of Christina Noble, a children's rights campaigner, charity worker and writer, who founded the Christina Noble Children's Foundation in 1989.
• Pawn Sacrifice – American biographical film portraying Cold War-era championship chess match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky.
• Pride – British LGBT-related historical comedy-drama film written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Matthew Warchus; depicts a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help families affected by the British miners' strike in 1984.
• Rosewater – in 2009, London-based Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari is detained in Iran after he reports on violence against protesters of the country's presidential election.
• Selma – American historical drama based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches.
• The Theory of Everything – British biographical coming of age romantic drama adapted from the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Wilde Hawking, which deals with her relationship with her ex-husband, English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
• Timbuktu – film about the brief occupation of Timbuktu, Mali by Ansar Dine. Parts of the film were influenced by a 2012 public stoning of an unmarried couple in Aguelhok. The film was shot in Oualata, a town in south-east Mauritania.
• Unbroken – film biography about USA Olympian and athlete Louis "Louie" Zamperini, played by Jack O'Connell. Zamperini survived in a raft for 47 days after his bomber crash landed in the ocean during World War II, then was sent to a series of prisoner of war camps.
• United Passions – English-language French drama film about the origins of FIFA, starring Tim Roth as Sepp Blatter.
• Wild – American biography and road movie about Cheryl Strayed who went on a survival quest.

  2015

• The 33 – English-language Chilean film based on the real events of the 2010 mining disaster, in which a group of thirty-three miners were trapped inside the San José Mine in Chile for over two months.
• A Dark Reflection – British independent investigative thriller based on actual events surrounding the issue of Aerotoxic Syndrome.
• The Big Short – four denizens of the world of high-finance predict the credit and housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s, and decide to take on the big banks for their greed and lack of foresight.
• Black Mass – American action organized crime-drama based on the 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob, written by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill, about Irish-American mobster Whitey Bulger.
• Born to Be Blue – film about American jazz musician Chet Baker, portrayed by Ethan Hawke.
• Bridge of Spies – American historical spy thriller based on the 1960 U-2 incident, in which lawyer James B. Donovan is thrust into the center of the Cold War when he is given a mission to negotiate the release of Francis Gary Powers, a pilot whose plane was shot down in the Soviet Union.
• Captive – American crime-drama thriller based on the non-fiction book An Unlikely Angel by Ashley Smith about Brian Nichols, who escaped from the Fulton County courthouse in Atlanta on 11 March 2005 and held Smith as a hostage.
• Child 44 – loosely based on the case of Andrei Chikatilo.
• Colonia – film set against the backdrop of the 1973 Chilean military coup and the real "Colonia Dignidad", a notorious cult in the South of Chile, led by German lay preacher Paul Schäfer.
• Concussion – American sports drama, based on the 2009 GQ article "Game Brain" by Jeanne Marie Laskas, focused on a forensic pathologist and neuropathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, who discovers CTE in the brains of two NFL players.
• Danny Collins – American comedy-drama inspired by the true story of folk singer Steve Tilston.
• The Danish Girl – love story inspired by the lives of artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, whose marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.
• Eddie the Eagle – based on the life of Michael Edwards, a British skier who in 1988 became the first competitor to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping since 1928.
• Everest – American historical biography action adventure disaster thriller based on the real events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster and the non-fiction book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.
• I Killed My BFF – a Lifetime television film starring Katrina Bowden, Chris Zylka and Olivia Crocicchia, written by Blake Berris and Danny Abel, and directed by Seth Jarrett. Inspired by a true story, the murder of Anne Marie Camp by Jamie Dennis and her husband, Michael Gianakos, in Minnesota in 1997.
• In the Heart of the Sea – American biographical thriller based on Nathaniel Philbrick's 2000 non-fiction book of the same name, about the sinking of the whaleship Essex.
• Ip Man 3 – third in the Ip Man film series based on the life of the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man and features Donnie Yen reprising the title role. The film also stars Mike Tyson, and Yip Man's pupil Bruce Lee is portrayed by Danny Chan.
• I Am Michael – American biographical drama film written and directed by Justin Kelly. The film stars James Franco as Micheal Glatze, a gay activist who renounces homosexuality and becomes a Christian pastor.
• I Saw The Light – American biographical drama film about country music legend Hank Williams.
• Joy – American biographical comedy-drama about a struggling single mom of three children, Joy Mangano, who invented the Miracle Mop and is the President of Ingenious Designs, LLC.
• The Lady in the Van – British comedy-drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner, written by Alan Bennett, and starring Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings. It tells the true story of Mary Shepherd, an elderly woman who lived in a dilapidated van on Bennett's driveway in London for 15 years.
• Last Cab To Darwin – Based on terminally ill taxi driver, Max Bell who drove to Darwin in the 1990s.
• Legend – British crime thriller based on real-life London gangsters, the Kray twins; adapted from the book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins by John Pearson.
• The Man Who Knew Infinity – British biographical drama about the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, based on the 1991 The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel.
• Manjhi – The Mountain Man – biopic based on the life of Dashrath Manjhi, popularly known as the "Mountain Man", who lived in Gehlaur village, near Gaya, in Bihar; directed by Ketan Mehta; starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte.
• Manto – Pakistani biographical drama film based on the life of Pakistani short-story writer Sadat Hassan Manto, starring Sarmad Sultan Khoosat.
• McFarland, USA – American sports drama based on the true story of a 1987 cross country team from a predominantly Mexican-American high school, McFarland High School, in McFarland, California.
• The Program – biographical drama film about Lance Armstrong.
• Queen of the Desert – American epic biographical drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and is based on the life of British traveller, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer and political officer Gertrude Bell.
• The Revenant – American western thriller adapted from Michael Punke's 2003 novel of the same name, partially based in the life of frontiersman Hugh Glass.
• Rudramadevi – Indian Telugu 3D historical film based on the life of Rudrama Devi, one of the prominent rulers of the Kakatiya dynasty in the Deccan Plateau, and one of the few ruling queens in Indian history.
• Spare Parts – American drama based on the true story of a group of high school students who compete in a 2004 underwater robotics competition.
• Spotlight – American crime drama film based on the true story of John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting boys; an investigative team of journalists from The Boston Globe investigates the allegations.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment – based on the Stanford prison experiment in which students played the role of a prisoner or a prison guard, conducted at Stanford University under supervision of psychology professor Philip Zimbardo in 1971.
• Steve Jobs – American biographical drama based on the life of Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, based on a screenplay adapted from Walter Isaacson's biography Steve Jobs.
• Straight Outta Compton – American biographical drama which revolves around the rise and fall of the Compton, California rap group N.W.A.
• Suffragette – historical drama based on the early feminist movement.
• True Story – American drama film based on the memoir of journalist Michael Finkel about his encounter with wanted murderer Christian Longo, who hid under Finkel's identity.
• Trumbo – biographical drama film following the life of Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and his exile due to his political beliefs.
• Visaranai – Indian Tamil-language docudrama-crime thriller film written and directed by Vetrimaaran. It is based on the novel Lock Up by M. Chandrakumar which tells the true story of police brutality, corruption, and loss of innocence in the face of injustice.
• The Walk – American biographical film based on the story of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit's walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on 7 August 1974.
• Woman in Gold – British-American drama based on the true story of Maria Altmann, an elderly Holocaust survivor who, together with her young lawyer, E. Randol Schoenberg, fought the government of Austria to reclaim Gustav Klimt's painting of her aunt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which culminated in the 2004 case before the Supreme Court of the United States, Republic of Austria v. Altmann.
• Woodlawn – American Christian sports drama film based on the true story of Tony Nathan and the Woodlawn High Colonels football team as coaches and teammates struggle to ease racial tensions during the 1973 desegregation of the Birmingham, Alabama school system.

  2016

• ' – American war film based on Mitchell Zuckoff's 2014 book 13 Hours; recounts the true life events of six members of a security team who fought to defend the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, after waves of terrorist attacks on September 11, 2012.
• Airlift – Bollywood movie based on evacuation of Indian people from Kuwait during the Invasion of Kuwait.
• Aligarh – biographical bollywood drama film based on professor Ramchandra Siras who was shacked from Aligarh University for his homosexuality.
• All the Way – American HBO biographical TV drama film based on events of the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
• Amateur Night – American biographical comedy film based on the early experiences of film writers Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario in Hollywood.
• Anthropoid – historical thriller that tells the story of Operation Anthropoid, the World War II assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Exile Czechoslovak soldiers on May 27, 1942.
• Azhar – based on life of former captain of Indian cricket team Mohammad Azharuddin.
• Barry – American drama film directed by Vikram Gandhi about Barack Obama's life at Columbia University in 1981.
• The Birth of a Nation – American-Canadian period drama film based on the story of Nat Turner, the enslaved man who led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.
• Brain on Fire – biographical drama film directed and written by Irish filmmaker Gerard Barrett. The film is based on Susannah Cahalan's memoir Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness.
• 'Christine' – biographical drama film based on news reporter Christine Chubbuck, known for being the first person to commit suicide on a live television broadcast.
• Confirmation – about Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court nomination hearings, and the controversy that unfolded when Anita Hill alleged she was sexually harassed by Thomas.
• Dangal – The film is loosely based on the Phogat family, telling the story of Mahavir Singh Phogat, an amateur wrestler, who trains his daughters Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari to become India's first world-class female wrestlers.
• Deepwater Horizon – American biopic disaster film directed by Peter Berg, written by Matthew Sand and Matthew Michael Carnahan, and starring an ensemble cast including Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O'Brien and Kate Hudson. Based on the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Denial – based on the true story of Holocaust denier David Irving's libel case against author Deborah Lipstadt in the Irving v Penguin Books Ltd case.
• Ek Thi Marium – 2016 Pakistani biographical television film based on the life of Pakistani female fighter pilot Marium Mukhtiar.
• El Inca – Venezuelan drama film about professional boxer Edwin Valero.
• Elvis & Nixon – American comedy-drama film directed by Liza Johnson and written by Joey Sagal, Hanala Sagal, and Cary Elwes. The film stars Micheal Shannon as singer Elvis Presley and Kevin Spacey as President Richard Nixon, and focuses on the December 21, 1970 meeting between the two men at the White House.
• The Finest Hours – American disaster drama based on the 2009 book of same name, by Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias, about the true story of the Pendleton rescue mission attempt by U.S. Coast Guard ships.
• Florence Foster Jenkins – Film starring Meryl Streep as Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who became an opera singer known for her painful lack of singing skill.
• The Founder – based on a true story about Ray Kroc and the start of the McDonald's franchise, starring Michael Keaton.
• Free State of Jones – American war film inspired by the life of Newton Knight and his armed rebellion against the Confederacy in Jones County, Mississippi, during the American Civil War. Written and directed by Gary Ross, the film stars Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mahershala Ali and Keri Russell.
• Genius – British-American biographical drama film directed by Micheal Grandage and written by John Logan, based on the 1978 National Book Award-winner Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg.
• Gold – loosely based on the true story of the 1993 Bre-X mining scandal, when a massive gold deposit was supposedly discovered in the jungles of Indonesia.
• Hacksaw Ridge – biographical war drama film about the World War II experiences of Desmond Doss, an American pacificist combat medic who was a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, refusing to carry or use a firearm or weapons of any kind. The film was directed by Mel Gibson and stars Andrew Garfield.
• Hands of Stone – American biographical sports film about the career of Panamanian former professional boxer Roberto Durán.
• Hidden Figures – American film about African American female mathematicians who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA during the Space Race. The film stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson.
• I'm Not Ashamed – based on Rachel Scott, the first victim of the Columbine High School massacre.
• The Infiltrator – American crime drama film directed by Brad Furman and written by Ellen Brown Furman. The film is based on the autobiography of the same name by Robert Mazur, a U.S. Customs special agent, who in the 1980s helped bust Pablo Escobar's money-laundering organization by going undercover as a corrupt businessman. The film stars Bryan Cranston, Diane Kruger, Benjamin Bratt, John Leguizamo, and Amy Ryan.
• LBJ – American political drama film about the beginning of the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson following the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy.
• The Legend of Ben Hall – Australian bushranger film, it is based on the exploits of bushranger Ben Hall.
• Lion – based on the true story of Saroo Brierly who got lost at a train station in India and his remarkable journey to find home by using Google maps.
• The Lost City of Z – American biographical adventure drama film which portrays real events surrounding the British explorer Percy Fawcett, who was sent to Brazil and made several attempts to find a supposed ancient lost city in the Amazon.
• Loving – based on the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who were plaintiffs in the 1967 U.S Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, which deemed anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.
• Masterminds – American comedy film based on the 1997 Loomis Fargo Robbery in North Carolina. Directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey, the film stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudeikis.
• Miracles from Heaven – based on a 10-year-old girl Annabel Beam who was diagnosed with a digestive disorder with no known cure. After a severe fall she suffers only a concussion, then unexpectedly recovers from her illness. Afterwards she says her soul left her body during the fall and God promised that she would be cured.
• ' – Indian film based on the journey of Mahendra Singh Dhoni becoming a master cricketer and captain of Team India.
• Neerja – Bollywood biographical thriller movie based on hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 and life sacrifice of flight attendant Neerja Bhanot during the event.
• Patriots Day – based on the true story of the Boston Marathon bombing and the subsequent terrorist manhunt.
• – film centered on the relationship between Pelé and his father.
• The Promise – historical drama telling a story of a love triangle in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
• Queen of Katwe – American biographical drama feature film directed by Mira Nair and written by William Wheeler. Starring David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong'o, and Madina Nalwanga, the film depicts the life of Phiona Mutesi, a girl living in Katwe, a slum of Kampala, the capitol of Uganda. She learns to play chess and becomes a Woman Candidate Master after her victories at World Chess Olympiads.
• Race – biographical sports drama film about African American athlete Jesse Owens, who won a record-breaking four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games
• Rustom – Bollywood movie loosely based on the real life incident of Naval Officer K.M. Nanavati and businessman Prem Ahuja.
• Sarbjit – Bollywood biopic of Sarabjit Singh, was an Indian national convicted of terrorism and spying by a Pakistani court. Sarabjit claimed he was a farmer who strayed into Pakistan from his village located on the border, three months after the bombings.
• Snowden – American biographical political thriller based on the books The Snowden Files by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena.
• Southside with You – American biographical romantic drama film depicting the first date of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.
• Sully – Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger tries to make an emergency landing in New York's Hudson River after US Airways Flight 1549 strikes a flock of geese.
• Veerappan – South Indian movie based on the real-life Indian bandit Veerappan and the events leading to Operation Cocoon, a mission to capture and kill him.
• War Dogs'' – American biographical black comedy war film about two arms dealers, Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz, who receive a US Army contract to supply munitions for the Afghan National Army and are eventually charged with fraud for repackaging Chinese ammunition.

  2017

• 9/11 – drama depicting five elevator passengers trapped during the September 11 attacks.
• Aftermath – American thriller film based on events and persons surrounding the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision of a passenger airline with a cargo jet, although the names, places, nationalities, and incidents were changed.
• The Age of Pioneers – Russian historical drama film about cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first human to perform a spacewalk.
• All Eyez on Me – biographical drama about hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur.
• All the Money in the World – crime thriller film directed by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa. The film depicts the events surrounding the actual 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in Italy and the refusal of his grandfather, The multi-billionaire oil tycoon, J Paul Getty, to cooperate the extortion demands of the organized crime Mafia group ‘Ndrangheta.
• American Made – biographical crime film about Barry Seal, a drug-smuggling pilot who became a government informant.
• Battle of the Sexes – biographical sports drama of the between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
• The Big Sick – American romantic comedy film loosely based on the real-life romance between Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon, it follows an interethnic couple who must deal with cultural differences after Emily becomes ill.
• Bitter Harvest – a romantic-action drama film based in Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s.
• Borg vs McEnroe – sports drama film focusing on the famous rivalry between tennis players Björn Borg and John McEnroe at the 1980 Wimbledon Championships.
• Breathe – biographical drama film that tells the story about Robin Cavendish, who became paralysed from the neck down by polio at age 28.
• The Case for Christ – American Christian drama film directed by Jon Gunn and written by Brian Bird, based on the true story that inspired the 1998 book of the same name by Lee Strobel.
• Chappaquiddick – American drama film directed by John Curran, and written by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan. The film stars Jason Clarke as Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy and Kate Mara as Mary Jo Kopechne, with Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan, Clancy Brown, and Olivia Thirlby in supporting roles. The plot details the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident in which Kennedy drove his car into the Poucha Pond, killing Kopechne, as well as the Kennedy family's response.
• Churchill – British historical war-drama film about Winston Churchill in June 1944 – especially in the hours leading up to D-Day.
• The Current War – American historical drama film inspired by the 19th century competition between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over which electric power delivery system would be used in the United States.
• Darkest Hour – war drama film set in May 1940, it stars Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill and is an account of his early days as Prime Minister during World War II and the May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis, while Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht swept across Western Europe and threatened to defeat the United Kingdom. The German advance leads to friction at the highest levels of government between those who would make a peace treaty with Adolf Hitler, and Churchill, who refused.
• The Death of Stalin – British satirical black-comedy film that depicts the power struggle following the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953.
• Detroit – American period crime drama film of the Algiers Motel incident during the 1967 Detroit riot.
• The Disaster Artist – A comedy-drama film based on Tommy Wiseau's 2003 The Room.
• Dunkirk – about the Dunkirk evacuation in France during World War II.
• Final Portrait – British-American drama film about the friendship between Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker Alberto Giacometti and American writer James Lord.
• First They Killed My Father – Story on how they forced 7-year-old Ung, to be trained as a child soldier while my siblings were sent to labor camps.
• The Glass Castle – American biographical drama film directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. It is based Jeannette Walls' 2005 best-selling memoir of the same name. Depicting Wall's childhood, where her family lived in poverty and sometimes as squatters.
• Goodbye Christopher Robin – British biographical drama film about A. A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin Milne, the inspiration for the Winnie-the-Pooh books.
• The Greatest Showman – musical biographical drama film, the film is inspired by the story of P. T. Barnum's creation of Barnum's American Museum and the lives of its star attractions.
• I, Tonya – American biographical film with elements of black comedy and crime drama, it follows the life of figure skater Tonya Harding and her connection to the 1994 attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan.
• The Institute – American thriller film about a young girl's stay at The Rosewood Institute.
• Jungle – This true story of Yossi Ghinsberg surviving being lost in the Bolivian Jungle.
• The Man Who Invented Christmas – biographical drama film directed by Bharat Nalluri and written by Susan Coyne based on the book of the same name by Les Standiford. It stars Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, and Jonathan Pryce. The plot follows Charles Dickens as he conceives and writes A Christmas Carol.
• The Man with the Iron Heart – English-language French-Belgian biographical war-drama-thriller film directed by Cédric Jimenez and written David Farr, Audrey Diwan, and Jimenez. It is based on French writer Laurent Binet's novel HHhH, and focuses on Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich in Prague during World War II.
• ' – American biographical political thriller film directed and written by Peter Landesman. The film depicts on how Mark Felt became the anonymous source nicknamed "Deep Throat" for reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and helped them in the investigation which led them to the Watergate scandal, which resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
• Marshall – American biographical legal drama film starring Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, and focuses on one of the first cases of his career, the State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell.
• Megan Leavey – American biographical drama film based on the true events about a young female marine named Megan Leavey and a combat dog named Rex.
• The Mercy – British biographical drama film, directed by James Marsh and written by Scott Z. Burns. It is based on the true story of the disastrous attempt by the amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst to complete the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968 and his subsequent attempts to cover up his failure.
• Molly's Game – American biographical crime drama film based on the memoir of the same name by Molly Bloom.
• The Most Hated Woman in America – In 1995, Madalyn Murray O'Hair is kidnapped along with her son Garth and granddaughter Robin by three men.
• Only the Brave – The story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire.
• Papillon – biographical drama film directed by Micheal Noer. It tells the story of French convict Henri Charriere, nicknamed Papillon, who was imprisoned in 1933 in the notorious Devil's Island penal colony and escaped in 1941 with the help of another convict, counterfeiter Louis Dega.
• The Pirates of Somalia – drama about Jay Bahadur and his reporting on piracy in Somalia.
• The Polka King – American biographical comedy film directed by Maya Forbes and written by Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky. The film is about real-life Polish-American polka band leader Jan Lewan, who was imprisoned in 2004 for running a Ponzi scheme.
• ' – An Indian Hindi language biographical adventure film directed by Rahul Bose. The film stars himself with Aditi Inamdar as Malavath Poorna, the youngest girl to climb the Mount Everest.
• The Post – American historical political thriller film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, and written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer. It stars Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham, the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, the executive editor of The Washington Post. Set in 1971, The Post depicts the true story of attempts by journalists at The Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers, classified documents regarding the 20-year involvement of the United States government in the Vietnam War.
• Professor Marston and the Wonder Women – biographical drama film about William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman.
• Roxanne Roxanne – American drama film written and directed by Micheal Larnell. The film revolves around the life of rapper Roxanne Shante.
• Salyut-7 – Russian historical drama film about the 1985 Soyuz T-13 mission to the Salyut 7 space station.
• Same Kind of Different as Me – Ron Hall, a successful art dealer, comes to the home of Julio, a man he previously sold a painting to. Julio allows Ron to write a book about his life and a life-changing event he experienced.
• Sand Castle – The film centers on Matt Ocre, a young soldier in the United States Army, who is tasked with restoring water to a village in Iraq. It is based on the true events and the experience of the film's writer Roessner during the Iraq War.
• Stronger – biographical drama film based on the memoir of Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman.
• Thank You for Your Service – American biographical war drama film written and directed by Jason Hall, based on the 2013 non-fiction book of the same name by David Finkel. Finkel, a Washington Post reporter, wrote about veterans of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment returning to the vicinity of Fort Riley, Kansas, following a 15-month deployment in Iraq in 2007. The film is about posttraumatic stress disorder, depicting U.S. soldiers who try to adjust to civilian life.
• Three Christs – American drama film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Jon Avnet. The film is based on Milton Rokeach's nonfiction book The Three Christs of Ypsilanti of three patients whose paranoid schizophrenic delusions cause each of them to believe they are Jesus Christ.
• The Upside – American comedy-drama film directed by Neil Burger and written by Jon Hartmere. It is a remake of the French 2011 film The Intouchables, which was itself inspired by the life of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo.
• Viceroy's House – British-Indian historical drama film directed by Gurinder Chadha and written by Paul Mayeda Berges, Moira Buffini, and Chadha. The film tells the true story of the final months of British rule in India. Viceroy's House in Delhi was the home of the British rulers of India. After 300 years, that rule was coming to an end. For 6 months in 1947, Lord Mountbatten, great grandson of Queen Victoria, assumed the post of the last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people.
• Victoria & Abdul – British biographical comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears and written by Lee Hall. The film is based on the book of the same name by Shrabani Basu, about the real-life relationship between Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her Muslim servant Abdul Karim.
• War Machine – satirical war film depicting a fictionalized version of events surrounding Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal in Afghanistan.
• Women Walks Ahead – American biographical drama film directed by Susanna White and written by Steven Knight. The film is the story of Caroline Weldon, a portrait painter who travels form New York to Dakota to paint a portrait of Sitting Bull in 1890.
• The Zookeeper's Wife'' – war drama film directed by Niki Caro. The film tells the true story of how Jan and Antonina Zabiński rescued hundreds of Jews from the Germans by hiding them in their Warsaw Zoo during World War II.

  2018

• 7 Days in Entebbe – action thriller film that tells about the story of Operation Entebbe, a 1976 counter-terrorist hostage-rescue operation.
• 12 Strong – American action war drama film based Doug Stanton's non-fiction book Horse Soldiers, which tell the story U.S. 5th Special Forces Group who were sent to Afghanistan immediately after the September 11 attacks.
• ' – A Clint Eastwood film on how Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler became friends since elementary school before Spencer and Alek join the Military and the three friends travel on their 2015 European Summer Tour before engaging a potential ISIS gunman on a train bound from Amsterdam to Paris and become heroes to the public when rising to public prominence.
• 22 July – A film about Norway's worst terrorist attack in which over seventy people were killed. Directed by Paul Greengrass.
• Adrift – based on the true story of a couple who get stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and must navigate to Hawaii with no communication or navigation tools.
• At Eternity's Gate – biographical drama film about the final years of painter Vincent Van Gogh's life.
• A Futile and Stupid Gesture – American biographical comedy-drama film about comedy writer Douglas Kenny, during the rise and fall of National Lampoon.
• A Private War – American biographical drama film directed by Matthew Heineman, and starring Rosamund Pike as journalist Marie Colvin.
• The Angel – Israeli-American spy thriller film. It tells the true story of Ashraf Marwan, a high-ranking Egyptian official who became a spy for Israel and helped achieve peace between the two countries.
• Beautiful Boy – American biographical drama film directed by Felix van Groeningen, in his English-language feature debut. It is based on the memoirs by David Sheff.
• Billionaire Boys Club – American biographical crime drama film directed by James Cox and co-written by Cox and Captain Mauzner. The film is based on the real life Billionaire Boys Club from Southern California during the 1980s, a group of rich teenagers who get involved in a Ponzi scheme and eventual muder.
• BlacKkKlansman – American biographical crime film. Set in the early-1970s Colorado Springs, the plot follows Ron Stallworth, the first African-American detective in the city's police department as he sets out to infiltrate and expose the local Ku Klux Klan chapter.
• Blaze – American biographical drama film directed by Ethan Hawke based on the life of country musician Blaze Foley.
• Bohemian Rhapsody – Biopic about the British rock band Queen. It follows singer Freddie Mercury's life leading to Queen's Live Aid performance at Wembley Stadium in 1985.
• Boy Erased – American biographical drama film based on Garrard Conley's 2016. The film stars Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Joel Edgerton, and follows the son of a Baptist parents who is forced to take part in a gay conversion therapy program.
• Burden – American drama film based on the story of Micheal Burden, a member of the Ku Klux Klan who had a falling out with his mentor, John Howard, and at the urging of his girlfriend left the organization. Destitute, the couple turned to the Rev. David Kennedy, the African-American pastor of New Beginning Missionary Baptist Church, for help.
• Brian Banks – American biographical drama film directed by Tom Shadyac, written by Doug Atchison, and starring Aldis Hodge as Brian Banks, a high school football linebacker who was falsely accused of rape and upon his release attempted to fulfil his dream of making the National Football League.
• Can You Ever Forgive Me? – American biographical film directed by Marielle Heller and with a screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, based on the confessional memoir of the same name by Lee Israel.
• Colette – biographical drama film directed by Wash Westmoreland, based upon the life of french novelist Colette.
• Come Sunday – American drama film based on Carlton Pearson's excommunication directed by Joshua Marston.
• The Favourite – period black comedy film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Set in early 18th-century England, the film's plot examines the relationship between two cousins, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough and Abigail Masham, who are vying to be Court favourites of Queen Anne.
• First Man - Film directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, exploring the events leading up to the mission that made Armstrong the first man to walk on the moon.
• The Front Runner – American political drama film. It chronicles the rise of American Senator Gary Hart, a Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, and his subsequent fall from grace when media reports surfaced of his extramarital affair.
• Gold – Indian historical sports-drama film based upon the national hockey team's title at the 1948 Summer Olympics.
• Green Book – American biographical comedy-drama film. Set in 1962, the film is inspired by the true of a tour of the Deep South by African-American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley and Italian-American bouncer Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga who served as Shirley's driver and bodyguard.
• ' – American drama film based on the real life events about Kermit Gosnell, a physician and abortion provider who was convicted of first degree murder in the deaths of three infants born alive, involuntary manslaughter in the death of a patient undergoing an abortion procedure, 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating a 24-hour informed consent law. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
• Gotti – American biographical crime film about New York City mobster John Gotti.
• The Happy Prince – biographical drama film about Oscar Wilde.
• Hotel Mumbai – action thriller film directed by Anthony Maras and co-written by Maras and John Collee. An Australian-American-Indian co-production, it is inspired by the 2009 documentary Surviving Mumbai about the 2008 Mumbai attacks at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in India.
• Indivisible – American Christian drama film directed by David G. Evans. The film is based on the true story of Darren Turner. It follows an Army chaplain as he struggles to balance his faith and the Iraq War.
• In Like Flynn – Australian biographical film about the early life of actor Errol Flynn.
• Lizzie – American biographical thriller film directed by Craig William Macneil. It is based on the true story of Lizzie Borden, who was accused and acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892.
• Mary Queen of Scots – historical drama film stars Saoirse Ronan as Mary, Queen of Scots and Margot Robbie as her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, and chronicles the 1569 conflict between their two countries.
• The Miracle Season – American drama film directed by Sean McNamara. The film is based on the true story of the Iowa City West High School volleyball team after the sudden death of the team's heart and leader, Caroline Found, in 2011.
• The Mule – American crime drama film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, which recounts the story of Leo Sharp, a World War II veteran who became a drug courier for the Sinaloa Cartel in his 80's.
• The Old Man & the Gun – American film written and directed by David Lowery, about Forrest Tucker, a career criminal and escape artist.
• On My Skin – Italian drama film based on the real story of the last days of Stefano Cucchi, a 31-year old building surveyor who died in 2009 during preventive custody, victim of police brutality.
• On the Basis of Sex – American biographical legal drama film based on the life and early cases of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
• Operation Finale – American historical drama film directed by Chris Weitz, from a screenplay by Matthew Orton. The film stars Oscar Issac, Ben Kingsley, Lior Raz, Mèlanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, and Haley Lu Richardson, and follows the efforts of Israeli Mossad officers to capture former SS officer Adolf Eichmann in 1960.
• Outlaw King – historical action drama film about Robert the Bruce, the 14th-century Scottish King who launched a guerrilla war against the larger English army. The film largely takes place during the 3-year historical period from 1304, when Bruce decides to rebel against the rule of Edward I over Scotland, thus becoming an "outlaw", up to the 1307 Battle of Loudoun Hill.
• ' -The movie is based on India's second secret nuclear test series in Pokhran, Rajasthan in 1998.
• Raazi – Raazi is a 2018 period-thriller film directed by Meghna Gulzar, starring Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal in lead roles. The story revolves around an Indian spy married to a Pakistani man during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
• Sanju – Coming from a family of cinematic legends, East Indian actor Sanjay Dutt reaches dizzying heights of success – but also battles numerous addictions, other personal demons, and the 1993 Bombay Bombings.
• Skin – American biographical drama film written and directed by Israeli-born filmmaker Guy Nattiv. It follows the life of Byron Widner, a former member of a Neo-Nazism-influenced skinhead group.
• Soorma – Soorma is a 2018 Indian biographical sports drama film based on the life of and return of hockey player Sandeep Singh.
• Stan and Ollie – biographical comedy-drama directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Jeff Pope. Based on the later years of the lives of the comedy double act Laurel and Hardy.
• Tag – American comedy film directed by Jeff Tomsic and written by Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen. The film is based on the true story that was published in The Wall Street Journal about a group of grown men who spend one month a year playing the game of tag.
• ' – American Christian drama film directed by Harold Cronk, and acts as a sequel to the 2014 film Unbroken, although none of the original cast or crew returns except the producer Matthew Baer, and actors Vincenzo Amato and Maddalena Ischiale. The film chronicles Louis Zamperini following his return from World War II, his personal struggles to adjust back to civilian life and his eventual conversion to evangelical Christianity after attending one of Billy Graham's church revivals.
• Vice – American biographical comedy-drama film written and directed by Adam McKay. The film stars Christian Bale as former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, with Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Justin Kirk, Tyler Perry, Allison Pill, Lily Rabe, and Jesse Plemons in supporting roles. The film follows Cheney on his path to become the most powerful Vice President in American history.
• Vita and Virginia - British biographical romance drama film based on the love affair between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf.
• Welcome to Marwen – American drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the script with Caroline Thompson. It is inspired by the true story of Mark Hogancamp, a man struggling with PTSD who, after being physically assaulted, creates a fictional village to ease his trauma.
• White Boy Rick – American biographical crime drama film directed by Yann Demange and written by Andy Weiss, and Logan and Noah Miller. Based on a true story, the film stars Richie Merritt as Richard Wershe Jr., who in the 1980s became the youngest FBI informant ever at the age of 14.
• The White Crow – British film written by David Hare and directed by Ralph Fiennes. It chronicles the life and dance career of ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
• Winchester - American supernatural horror film. The film stars Helen Mirren as heiress Sarah Winchester, with Jason Clarke and Sarah Snook, and follows Winchester as she is haunted by spirits inside her San Jose mansion in 1906.