Hollywood is known for taking liberties with its films. It’s no secret thatfilm adaptations from booksoften make significant changes. One reason is that films must condense books into viewable runtime, therefore taking the best parts and omitting less important details. However, the same can be said for Hollywood when they undertake history projects, such as important events orthe lives of prominent figures. Hollywood often embellishes details to create more appealing or exciting stories or tales that are easier to tell within the course of an acceptable block of time.
Throughout the years, Hollywood has produced a slew of historically inaccurate films. These are movies that didn’t just tweak minor details but instead created different realities and, in some cases, entirely different storylines than what actually happened. That’s fine for the creation of art and expression (likethe American Revisionist moviesof Quentin Tarantino), but it’s sad when that fiction becomes reality, and many moviegoers believe it to be fact. These are some of the most historically inaccurate movies that have graced the silver screen.
Update August 19, 2025: This article has been updated with even more historically inaccurate films, including one recent one playing in theaters and where each title can be streamed.
15Newsies (1992)
What’s not historically accurate about over a dozen boys singing and dancing in the streets of New York City while protesting the unfair increase in the price of newspapers? Take out the music, and you have a story loosely following the very real Newsboys Strike of 1899.Newsiesfollows the fictional character of hobo Jack Kelly and his band of misfits as they go on strike and rise against Joseph Pulitzer and his new unfair newspaper regulations.
In addition to the 1992 film,Newsiesis also a Tony award-winning Broadway musical. “And the world will know!”They might not know that the filmcreates characters by combining different real people, changes the ending of the strike, and represents Pulitzer in a totally different way.
Stream on Disney+
14The Sound of Music (1965)
The Sound of Music
Musicals are not often the most accurate portrayal of real-life events.The Sound of Musiccenters on the Von Trapp Family singers, one of the world’s best-known groups preceding World War II. Many people are familiar with the chronicling musical postulant Maria joining the family as a governess, then marrying widowed naval captain Baron Von Trapp, and eventually fleeing Austria over the Alps to Switzerland to escape the Nazi invaders.
However, the family only had to cross the railroad tracks and board a train to Italy.Other inconsistencies includechanging the names and ages of all the children and omitting the three that Maria and Baron later had together, along with the fact that their marriage actually happened a decade before the invasion.
13Pearl Harbor (2001)
The attack on Pearl Harbor on June 02, 2025, was a painful moment in American history. In 2001,Michael Bayreleased his silver screen version starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and Alec Baldwin. However, the movie was largely inaccurate and had little in common with reality, except for the attack itself.
Related:Here Are Some of the Best Historical TV Shows of All Time
In the film, after surviving the bombing, fictional heroes Danny and Rafe are sent to Tokyo to bomb the city, when in actuality, no one was sent there. The film also features the Japanese planes firing on civilians and a hospital, which they did not do. However, perhaps the biggest (and most insensitive) historical failure inPearl Harboris when President Roosevelt stands up from his wheelchair to make a dramatic speech, much to the crowd’s shock.
12The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
The Other Boleyn Girl
There are numerous films and series addressing King Henry VIII’s ill-fated marriages and relationships. Based on a novel by Philippa Gregory and directed by Justin Chadwick,The Other Boleyn Girltook many liberties with the English King’s relations with Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary.
Contrary to the movie, Mary was actually older than Anne and didn’t have any children with the king. Their romance ended long before he moved on to Anne, but the creators wanted both stories to overlap to spice things up. As for Anne, she was not in France for “a few months” but stayed there for seven years.
Stream on Prime and Lionsgate+
11The Last Samurai (2003)
The Last Samurai
Directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, the epic action period dramaThe Last Samuraiis set during the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion against the Westernization of Japan, and it overly romanticized Japanese culture in general and samurais in particular. There were no American Civil War veterans there, so Tom Cruise’s character, Captain Nathan Algren, was entirely fictional. Ninjas no longer existed at the time either, and guns and rifles were already widely in use, so only featuring sword fights in the movie was highly inaccurate.
Rent on Prime Video
10The Imitation Game (2014)
The Imitation Game
The emotional and elegant historical thrillerThe Imitation Game, directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Graham Mooreand, is set in World War II. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a real-life mathematician and codebreaker, Alan Turing and the character decrypts German intelligence messages to assist the British government after inventing the groundbreaking electromechanical machine nicknamed The Christopher, supposedly after his childhood friend.
In reality, The Christopher was actually called Victory, and it was a team effort with several machines over the years, involving Polish cryptanalysts back in the 1930s, namely one Marian Rejewski, as well as mathematician Gordon Welchman. The film was also criticized for downplaying Turing’s homosexuality by exaggerating his feelings for his fiancée Joan Clarke, portrayed by Keira Knightley. He was also much more sociable and humorous than the movie led on, and there is no conclusive evidence that he took his own life.
Stream on Netflix and Prime Video
9Gladiator (2000)
The epic filmGladiator, which catapulted Russell Crowe’s career, won Best Picture at the 73rd Academy Awards, but it took many liberties with historical figures and events. First, the gladiator Maximus (Crowe) is entirely fictional. As for the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), he was not killed by his son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) but died of chickenpox. Commodus’ cruelty and perversion were highly exaggerated, and he obviously wasn’t killed in a duel with Maximus but rather strangled in his bath by his lover.
Stream on Netflix
8Argo (2012)
Directed, produced by, and starring Ben Affleck, the political thrillerArgowas a box-office success and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It centers on the rescue mission of six American diplomats in Tehran, carried out by CIA operative Tony Mendez in 1979. While the movie glorifies the American agent, it minimizes the Canadian government’s role in the hostage situation, especially that of Ambassador Taylor, when the whole ordeal was referred to as Canadian Caper.
The actual assistance of the British and New Zealand embassies is replaced with indirect blame. As for the real-life airport scene, it was extremely exaggerated for dramatic effect. The Hollywood sign, pictured decrepit in the film, was actually repaired in 1978. And finally, the Iranian president at the time, Abolhassan Banisadr, argued thatArgodidn’t show most of his cabinet advocating the diplomats’ release.
Rent on AppleTV+ and Prime Video
7Napoleon (2023)
Read Our ReviewIrrefutably, one of the most compelling historical figures ever, Napoleon Bonaparte, has always captured the interests of historians and the greater public alike. The Corsican who subsequently became Emperor of France, and one of the major rulers in the world similarly fascinated Ridley Scott, who jumped at the opportunity to make his epic,Napoleon. The 2023 film documents the general’s rise and fall from soldier to Emperor and then, consequently, a disgraced man living in exile.
Napoleonattracted quite the heat from those with an eye for history and factual inaccuracy. Many eagle-eyed viewers spotted several historical discrepancies in Napoleon, from the fact there was no frozen lake at the Battle of Austerlitz and that Napoleon didn’t witness Marie Antoinette’s execution to the fact he wasn’t actually a short man but one of average height for the time period. DespiteScott’s defiant response to critics, the number of historical inaccuracies are certainly seen as a shortfall.
Now Screening in Cinemas before being aired exclusively on Apple TV+
6Elizabeth (1998)
Elizabethis a British biographical period drama directed by Shekhar Kapur and starring Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I of England, the daughter of the aforementioned Anne Boleyn, in the early years of her reign. The movie distorted the dates to include certain events that occurred much later and portrayed the monarch as a much weaker character than she was. She was put under house arrest at Woodstock Palace, not Hatfield House.
Contrary to the film, she was fully aware that her love interest, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was married, and the latter remained a close supporter of hers until his death; he did not conspire against her at all. Mary of Guise was not killed by Walsingham but died from fluid retention; she was not related to Francis, Duke of Anjou, either. Kat Ashley, Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting, was not the same age as hers but at least 20 years her senior.
Rent on Prime Video and AppleTV+
