Based on a True Story
335 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 days ago - ★★★★★ - 486 ratingsWe've all seen movies that claim to be 'based on a true story', but have you ever wondered how accurate they are? That's what we'll find out as we compare Hollywood with history.
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Episodes
Titanic
January 16, 2017 11:00 - 1 hourYou've seen the movie. But how much of Titanic was true, and how much of it was made up for the film? Let's compare history with Hollywood's blockbuster film, Titanic. Links Titanic movie Last Dinner On the Titanic: Menus and Recipes from the Great Liner Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/c4eadab1-ac8f-468e-8540-34466835a068 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/35 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/a...
The Pianist
January 09, 2017 11:00 - 32 minutesHe lived through unthinkable measures. At a time when millions were slaughtered, including his family and friends, Wladyslaw Szpilman managed to survive the Holocaust. He was The Pianist, and in 2003 there was a movie starring Adrian Brody telling his incredible story. But how much of it is true? Let's compare history with Hollywood's version of The Pianist. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/b16bd10c-386d-42ff-bc79-9e05ea46b518 Find the transcript and fu...
Hidden Figures
January 02, 2017 11:00 - 32 minutesThis week we'll do something a bit different as we look ahead. Instead of learning about a movie that's already been released, we'll look ahead to a movie coming out this next weekend. Hidden Figures tells the remarkable story of women at NASA who worked as Computers. Before you go see the movie in theaters, learn more about the women so you'll be able to tell just how accurate the movie is on your own. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/60669fb9-4cd7-4253...
A Beautiful Mind
December 26, 2016 11:00 - 28 minutesOn October 11th, 1994, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced their Nobel prize winners. Three brilliant scientists jointly won the coveted award. They were Professor John C. Harsanyi from the University of California, Berkley, Dr. John F. Nash from Princeton University and Professor Dr. Reinhard Selten, from the University of Bonn in Bonn, Germany. Less than a month later, on November 13th, 1994, a writer for The New York Times wrote a great article called The Lost Years of a Nobel ...
Joyeux Noël
December 19, 2016 11:00 - 40 minutesWith the Christmas season upon us, I wanted to cover a film that'd help represent the Christmas spirit. In 2005, French filmmaker Christian Carion released his second full-length feature film. Joyeux Noël, which translated to English means Merry Christmas, was released in France on November 9th, 2005, and only ended up making about $3.5 million at the box office. That's significantly less than the $22 million it cost to make. The film wasn't released in the United States until June of 2006, w...
Spotlight
December 12, 2016 11:00 - 40 minutesTom McCarthy started his acting career with a short movie in 1989 called Roast Suckling. Although that's probably not something most have seen, he's one of those actors that you'd recognize when you see him. Probably because he's been in a lot of movies and TV shows you've seen. He played a background character in Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts' 1997 thriller Conspiracy Theory. In 2000, Tom has a recurring role on Boston Public as the character Kevin Riley. After more background character roles...
The Sound of Music
December 05, 2016 11:00 - 35 minutesThere are few movies that stand near the top of the all-time list for income. One of those movies is The Sound of Music. With a budget of about $8 million when it was produced in the 1960s, it was one of the bigger budget films when it was made. That $8 million is about $62 million in today's United States dollars. When it was released in 1965, it raked in over 35 times that amount, about $286 million on its way to an impressive five Academy Awards, including the Oscar for Best Picture in 196...
Captain Phillips
November 28, 2016 11:00 - 40 minutesBetween 2004 and 2016, Paul Greengrass directed a total of six movies. Four of those have Matt Damon in them. Three of them are about the fictitious Jason Bourne character. Two of them are based on a true story. Today, we're going to be looking at one of those movies. In an effort to make 2013's Captain Phillips as authentic as possible, Paul Greengrass kept two groups of actors separate. One group had Tom Hanks playing the man the movie is named after, Captain Rich Phillips. In the other gro...
Pocahontas
November 21, 2016 11:00 - 33 minutesWith the Thanksgiving season upon us, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to travel back in time to the days of Colonial America. Then I realized there's not really a lot of movies about the actual Thanksgiving story. So I decided to go with something that, although not about the Thanksgiving story itself, could transport us back to those days. And it's also a great opportunity to do something we haven't tackled yet on the podcast, a Disney animation. In the mid-1990s, the animation team at...
Defiance
November 14, 2016 11:00 - 39 minutesNechama Tec was born in Lublin, Poland in 1931. When she was eight years old, her life would forever change as Nazis invaded her hometown. As a Polish Jew, she survived the Holocaust thanks to Polish Catholics who hid her from the Nazis. Over forty years later, in the 1980s, Nechama started doing research on the events that she had lived through. Her book, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland was published in 1986. It was while Nechama was research...
The Wolf of Wall Street
November 07, 2016 11:00 - 28 minutesThe latest in the line of collaborations between actor Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese is 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street. It received positive reviews, and also held the honor of topping the most-pirated films list of 2014. That's according to copyright tracking firm Excipio, which puts out a list of the most pirated films each year. Their report indicated The Wolf of Wall Street was the most-pirated in 2014 with over 30 million illegal downloads. But that didn't stop The Wolf ...
The Conjuring
October 31, 2016 10:00 - 34 minutesHappy Halloween! I wanted to do something special this week. I thought it'd be fun to cover the true story behind something scary. But after starting to look for some movies to fit the bill, I quickly realized most of the scary movies that claim to be based on a true story also require a belief in something extraordinary—something supernatural. Some stories are simply strange, and we don't know the truth. The only thing we do know is what those who lived through the events claim. With that in...
Steve Jobs
October 24, 2016 10:00 - 38 minutesFew can debate the huge impact Steve Jobs had on the world. So it's no wonder that after Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, there was in influx of news and media surrounding the life of the outspoken Apple co-founder and CEO. If you listened to episode on The Social Network, you'll already know how Aaron Sorkin dropped the true story for a good story. So how did he do for his movie about Apple's famous CEO and co-founder? Let's find out as we compare Hollywood with history for 2015's Steve Jobs....
Amazing Grace
October 17, 2016 10:00 - 33 minutesYou've probably heard of the song Amazing Grace. It's one of those Christian hymns that just about everyone has heard, or at least heard of, at some point. It was first published in 1779 by John Newton. While you may think the named after John's song is about John's life, it's not. Instead it's about a man who was perhaps the first to be influenced by John's moving life story and the song. It's about a man who was perhaps the single most influential man in the abolishment of slavery in Britai...
The Finest Hours
October 10, 2016 10:00 - 32 minutesIn a retelling of one of the greatest moments in U.S. Coast Guard's history, The Finest Hours is a feel-good movie of true heroism. When sitting down to write the film, screenwriters Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson had the chance to do something not everyone does: interview the actual people who lived the story. Since they had the chance to talk to the survivors, does that mean the story was historically accurate? Let's find out as we learn about the true story of The Finest Hours. Did you enjo...
The Black Dahlia
October 03, 2016 10:00 - 39 minutesElizabeth Short's murder was considered to be the crime of the century. And it's a mystery that many are still fascinated by, decades later. So when Brian De Palma directed a 2006 movie of the same name, many moviegoers wanted to see a true crime story of The Black Dahlia. They were sorely disappointed. Let's dive into the real story of The Black Dahlia and find out just how accurate the movie was. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/ad3b4776-6d5d-4602-9a24...
Deepwater Horizon
September 26, 2016 10:00 - 25 minutesThe movie Deepwater Horizon comes out on this Friday. So again we're going to take some time to look ahead at a movie. Before you go see the movie in theaters, let's take a few minutes to learn what happened before, during, and after the disaster so you'll know just how accurate Hollywood was during its retelling. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/ca08a419-7062-466f-8cc1-0e26faae9865 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com...
The Great Escape
September 19, 2016 10:00 - 36 minutesDespite having an all-star cast and being based on a true story, most of the characters in the film didn't actually exist. Instead, Hollywood opted to merge together multiple people into a single character to help push the story forward while not having to deal with an ensemble cast in the hundreds. As I'm sure you can guess, this also forced them to change the story around from the way things really happened. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/711a0d24-bb...
Argo
September 12, 2016 11:00 - 28 minutesEven though Argo starts off with text that says it's based on a true story, the movie was actually based primarily on two sources: a book by Tony Mendez, the CIA agent Ben Affleck plays, and a 2007 article on Wired by Joshuah Bearman. So how much of Argo is true? And how much of it was fictionalized for the film? Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/f6ae86e0-8a64-45d0-a2b3-c4931c3512cc Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/...
Pawn Sacrifice
September 05, 2016 11:00 - 30 minutesPawn Sacrifice tells the story of one of the greatest chess players of all time—Bobby Fischer. How do you make the game of chess into an interesting story? With Bobby Fischer's life, you don't need to stretch it too far. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/c9febc84-e115-42ec-aecb-c9313316ef43 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/16 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by suppor...
Apollo 13
August 29, 2016 11:00 - 1 hourRon Howard and Tom Hanks teamed up for their second of now four movies the duo have worked on together in 1995 with Apollo 13. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/79646d4b-573a-4e00-8213-783f2e402dd7 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/15 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by supporting the show: https://links.boatspodcast.com/support Leave a voicemail: https://links.boatsp...
The Danish Girl
August 22, 2016 11:00 - 25 minutesLili Isle Elvenes, better known as Lili Elbe, was one of the first known recipients of a gender reassignment surgery. In 2015, her life was brought to the forefront of many people's minds when Alicia Vikander won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the film. Despite the film's success at the Academy Awards, there was a fair share of inaccuracies in the story on the big screen. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/b49c2cef-4d2e-45ca-8239-c91257753244 Fin...
The Social Network
August 15, 2016 11:00 - 36 minutesThe Social Network tells the story behind one of the world's most popular websites, Facebook. It's got everything that makes for a great story--there's greed, corruption, lawsuits and Justin Timberlake. But how true is the depiction of the site's early days? Let's find out. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/4e34d776-989a-493f-85e3-8123225ddec3 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/13 Support our sponsors: https://links....
Anthropoid
August 08, 2016 11:00 - 52 minutesAnthropoid hits theaters on Friday. It's the story of how the Czechoslovakian government, forced into exile after the Germans occupied their homeland in 1938, tried to fight back and take down Reinhard Heydrich at the height of World War II. Learn the true story before you see the movie. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/352afdb3-6d6f-4e8c-9cd8-5d96d6406b22 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/12 Support our sponsors: ...
Ali
August 01, 2016 11:00 - 39 minutesWill Smith would say Ali was the film he was most proud of as an actor. And it tells a very important story of a true legend: Muhammad Ali. Although it wasn't a box office success by the numbers, Will Smith and Jon Voight would go on to be nominated for their own Academy Awards for the film for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/29246d58-9f5c-440b-ba87-27e1c2aec77a Find the transcript and full show notes...
Pain & Gain
July 25, 2016 11:00 - 30 minutesPain & Gain is the first comedy we've covered here on the show. It was also the first comedy for Michael Bay since another Miami-based story, Bad Boys II in 2003. Another first for Pain & Gain is that, unlike the Transformer series, it is Michael Bay's first movie with a shred of truth. But the real story is anything but a comedy. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/cbc78b1c-aebd-4c30-8c40-097fdcd7081f Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links...
Zodiac
July 18, 2016 11:00 - 39 minutesIn 2007, director David Fincher helmed the movie simply entitled, Zodiac, which tells the thrilling story of a rash of killings in the 1960s and 70s. Despite the film's failure at the box office, the subject is one that seems to pique the public's interest whenever it's mentioned. In fact, it was just a few months ago during this year's presidential race in the United States when an internet meme led to a conspiracy that Republican Senator Ted Cruz was compared to an infamous serial killer kn...
Catch Me If You Can
July 11, 2016 11:00 - 48 minutesIn 2002, Steven Spielberg started filming the life of Frank Abagnale. Fortunately it only took about four months of filming for Spielberg to get the shots he needed. On Christmas Day of 2002, Spielberg's DreamWorks released Catch Me If You Can. The movie, which was directed by Spielberg himself, starred a young Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale along with other Hollywood stars such as Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen. The film was a box office hit as it raked in over $160 mil...
The Hunt for Red October
June 27, 2016 11:00 - 44 minutesTom Clancy is known for his captivating military stories with stunningly accurate technical details. Clancy's career started with a fascinating novel: The Hunt for Red October. The Hunt for Red October is based on the true story of a brilliant young political officer by the name of Valery Sablin. While Clancy was praised by military officers for its technical accuracy, as it turns out the story of Valery Sablin differs pretty significantly from Hollywood's version. Did you enjoy this episode...
Free State of Jones
June 13, 2016 11:00 - 45 minutesNext Friday, on June 24th, director Gary Ross, the three-time Academy Award nominated writer and director behind Seabiscuit, The Hunger Games and Pleasantville, has taken his place behind the camera once again in a movie he's written. This time Ross takes his talents back in time to tell the true true story of a farmer in Mississippi named Newton Knight. But how much of Free State of Jones is truth? Get to know the true story before you see the movie. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a com...
300
May 30, 2016 11:00 - 48 minutesThis year, Zack Snyder directed the epic Batman v Superman superhero movie, but it wasn't his first foray into comics. In fact, that came in 2006 when he directed the epic retelling of Frank Miller's popular comic book, 300. The movie with the same name was a smash hit and became an instant classic as it told the story of the hero King Leonidas and his small band of 300 Spartans against an insurmountable horde of enemies. But we all know Synder's interpretation was based on Miller's comic, so...
Frost/Nixon
May 16, 2016 10:00 - 43 minutesEight years ago, in 2008, Ron Howard directed the Oscar-nominated retelling of what are still the most popular political interviews to ever air on national TV. Frost/Nixon tells the story of 12 interviews performed by British talk-show host David Frost with the former President Nixon. The interviews were performed three years after Nixon had made history by becoming the first United States president -- and only president -- to ever resign from office. Then, in the interviews, Nixon did someth...
The Imitation Game
May 02, 2016 10:00 - 1 hourBenedict Cumberbatch and Kiera Knightley starred in 2014's The Imitation Game. Set in the midst of World War II, The Imitation Game tells the story of British mathematician Alan Turing and his quest to conquer the German Enigma code. While the movie did a great job relaying what it did, there's more to the story of Turing's amazing life and its incredibly sad end. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/062d83e9-20ac-44f0-aed3-b149aa290c3f Find the transcript ...
42
April 18, 2016 10:00 - 29 minutesOn April 15th, Major League Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson Day, in honor of the man who broke down racial barriers by becoming the first black player in the MLB. A few years ago, a movie named after Jackie's jersey number -- 42 -- was released to an extremely positive critical response. How much of the story was true and what was missing from the movie? We'll find out in this week's episode about the movie 42. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/dc9e54...
The Revenant
April 02, 2016 14:53 - 37 minutesWhen a movie says it's based on a true story, how much of that is actually real? In our first episode we'll look at the true story behind 2015's blockbuster hit The Revenant. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/2d02f0c8-2b9e-4b34-ac3d-3b18b8c43db8 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/01 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by supporting the show: https://links.boatspodcast.com/...