The Best Movies Inspired by True Stories Ranked, Crowded with Award Nominees and Winning Titles!

Stories inspired by true events can be the best and the most inspiring ever made, as proven by the string of awawds that can be found in the top ten movies on this list. Look through it, and we promise you, you won’t be disappointed.

1

Schindler's List

Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes
Steven Spielberg
1993

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

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8.9 IMDB
2

The Pianist

Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay
Roman Polanski
2002

The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.

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8.5 IMDB
3

The Intouchables

François Cluzet, Omar Sy, Audrey Fleurot
Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache
2011

A true story of two men who should never have met – a quadriplegic aristocrat who was injured in a paragliding accident and a young man from the projects.

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8.5 IMDB
4

Braveheart

Mel Gibson, Catherine McCormack, Sophie Marceau
Mel Gibson
1995

Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.

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8.3 IMDB
5

A Beautiful Mind

Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly
Ron Howard
2001

John Nash is a brilliant but asocial mathematician fighting schizophrenia. After he accepts secret work in cryptography, his life takes a turn for the nightmarish.

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8.2 IMDB
6

12 Years a Slave

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong\'o
Steve McQueen
2013

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.

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8.1 IMDB
7

Hotel Rwanda

Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte
Terry George
2004

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

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8.1 IMDB
8

Spotlight

Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams
Tom McCarthy
2015

The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.

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8.1 IMDB
9

Hacksaw Ridge

Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Vince Vaughn
Mel Gibson
2016

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

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8.1 IMDB
10

The Imitation Game

Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode
Morten Tyldum
2014

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

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8 IMDB
11

The Pursuit of Happyness

Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Thandie Newton
Gabriele Muccino
2006

A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional career.

8 IMDB
12

The Revenant

Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson
Alejandro González Iñárritu
2015

In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.

8 IMDB
13

The King's Speech

Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter
Tom Hooper
2010

The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country into war.

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8 IMDB
14

Dallas Buyers Club

Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Steve Zahn
Jean-Marc Vallée
2013

Loosely based on the true-life tale of Ron Woodroof, a drug-taking, women-loving, homophobic man who in 1986 was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and given thirty days to live.

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8 IMDB
15

The Irishman

Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci
Martin Scorsese
2019

Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task of helping Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union leader related to organized crime, with whom Frank will maintain a close friendship for nearly twenty years.

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7.9 IMDB
16

Captain Phillips

Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Catherine Keener
Paul Greengrass
2013

The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.

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7.8 IMDB
17

Remember the Titans

Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Ryan Hurst
Boaz Yakin
2000

After leading his football team to 15 winning seasons, coach Bill Yoast is demoted and replaced by Herman Boone – tough, opinionated and as different from the beloved Yoast as he could be. The two men learn to overcome their differences and turn a group of hostile young men into champions.

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7.8 IMDB
18

Argo

Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston
Ben Affleck
2012

As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

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7.7 IMDB
19

The Theory of Everything

Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox
James Marsh
2014

The Theory of Everything is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.

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7.7 IMDB
20

The Social Network

Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
David Fincher
2010

On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room as a small site among friends soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history... but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.

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7.7 IMDB
21

Control

Sam Riley, Samantha Morton, Alexandra Maria Lara
Anton Corbijn
2007

Control is the biography of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, taking his story from schoolboy days of 1973 to his suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980.

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7.7 IMDB
22

The Flowers of War

Christian Bale, Ni Ni, Tong Dawei
Zhang Yimou
2011

A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.

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7.6 IMDB
23

127 Hours

James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn
Danny Boyle
2010

The true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah.

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7.6 IMDB
24

The Blind Side

Quinton Aaron, Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw
John Lee Hancock
2009

The story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who became an All American football player and first round NFL draft pick with the help of a caring woman and her family.

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7.6 IMDB
25

Moneyball

Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Bennett Miller
2011

The story of Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to put together a baseball team on a budget, by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.

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7.6 IMDB
26

Bridge of Spies

Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan
Steven Spielberg
2015

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers' only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan, recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man's freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel, the convicted spy who Donovan defended in court.

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7.6 IMDB
27

Lone Survivor

Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch
Peter Berg
2013

Four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative must make an impossible moral decision in the mountains of Afghanistan that leads them into an enemy ambush. As they confront unthinkable odds, the SEALs must find reserves of strength and resilience to fight to the finish.

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7.5 IMDB
28

42

Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Nicole Beharie
Brian Helgeland
2013

The powerful story of Jackie Robinson, the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he joined the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The film follows the innovative Dodgers’ general manager Branch Rickey, the MLB executive who first signed Robinson to the minors and then helped to bring him up to the show.

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7.5 IMDB
29

Sully

Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney
Clint Eastwood
2016

On 15 January 2009, the world witnessed the 'Miracle on the Hudson' when Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger glided his disabled plane onto the frigid waters of the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 aboard. However, even as Sully was being heralded by the public and the media for his unprecedented feat of aviation skill, an investigation was unfolding that threatened to destroy his reputation and career.

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7.4 IMDB
30

Invictus

Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Tony Kgoroge
Clint Eastwood
2009

Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

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7.3 IMDB
31

Unbroken

Jack O\'Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund
Angelina Jolie
2014

A chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II.

7.2 IMDB
32

The Post

Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bob Odenkirk
Steven Spielberg
2017

A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between journalist and government. Inspired by true events.

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7.2 IMDB
33

Silence

Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson
Martin Scorsese
2016

Two Jesuit priests travel to seventeenth century Japan which has, under the Tokugawa shogunate, banned Catholicism and almost all foreign contact.

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7.2 IMDB
34

The Zookeeper's Wife

Jessica Chastain, Daniel Brühl, Johan Heldenbergh
Niki Caro
2017

The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.

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7 IMDB