This year’s awards season has seen plenty of biographical dramas and historical films. We investigate if they are closer to fact or fiction.

Biopics are a staple of every awards season. Based on real-life events, these films are often assumed to carry an air of gravitas. Yet, like any other creative endeavour, they take artistic licence for various reasons, whether to streamline the story or adjust its pace. We look back at biopics that have made a splash this year and rank them from least to most accurate.

Napoleon

Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, which stars Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, covers a lot of historical ground. To accommodate its narrative sprawl, the Oscar-nominated film condenses, rushes through, and skips over events. Several key battle scenes feature scenarios that were completely made up, including showing Napoleon’s troops firing cannons at the pyramids in Egypt. Napoleon is depicted leading the cavalry charge at the Battle of Waterloo when he was famously sick that day and did not enter the battlefield. Many have also taken issue with the movie’s characterisation of Napoleon as petulant and childish. Additionally, Napoleon was 6 years younger than his wife, but Phoenix is 14 years older than his co-star Vanessa Kirby, who played Joséphine in the movie. Scott has been infamously antagonistic to historians pointing out these and many other inaccuracies, telling them to “get a life”.

Accuracy: 1.5/5

Click here to read more about the historical accuracy of the movie.

The Iron Claw

Writer-director Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw tells the intensely tragic story of the Von Erich wrestling family. The movie mostly focuses on Kevin Von Erich (Zac Efron), who was one of six brothers. Durkin had to make changes to the true story because the reality was even sadder than what was depicted in the movie, which already contains so much tragedy. The Iron Claw completely omits the youngest Von Erich brother, Chris. David Von Erich’s (Harris Dickinson) personal life, including his divorce from his wife Candy and their daughter’s death of SIDS, is also left out of the movie. The real-life Kevin, while approving of Efron’s portrayal, takes issue with the movie’s depiction of his father, Fritz (Holt McCallany), as a demanding man who puts immense pressure on his sons; Kevin has called his father “an honourable, good man” on the Talk Is Jericho podcast.

Accuracy: 3/5

The Boys in the Boat

Director George Clooney adapted the story of the University of Washington rowing team, chronicled in Daniel James Brown’s book The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, for the big screen. “He got the spirit of the story, but I didn’t expect him to transcribe the book,” Brown tells USA Today about Clooney. The team’s journey from underdogs to Olympic champion took three years, but the movie shaves the timeframe down to one. Regardless, it gets many details right, including the effort to raise the US$5,000 that the team needed to travel to Berlin. The dramatic turn of stroke oar rower Don Hume (Jack Mulhern) contracting a respiratory illness on the journey to Berlin by ship is also historically accurate. The movie’s biggest invention is depicting the competition results being determined by a photo finish rather than the judges’ deliberation.

Accuracy: 3.5/5

Killers of the Flower Moon

Based on David Grann’s book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, Martin Scorsese’s critically acclaimed adaptation is a tale of greed, romance, and resilience set in 1920s Oklahoma. It focuses on Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), his wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone), and his uncle William King Hale (Robert De Niro). The events, including the Osage’s wealth from oil deposits on their land, are largely accurate, but the scope of the Osage Nation murders was, in real life, much larger than what was depicted on screen and involved other figures beyond Hale.

Accuracy: 4/5