Are you looking for a biopic that tells the personal story that made history in the run-up to the film about the scientist Oppenheimer? Would you still like it to be the story of another awkward icon, often in tailored suits? Or do you want something more modern, about a future that is changing before our eyes? Hollywood loves biopics, just look at the Oscars of the past few decades, there’s something for everyone.
We can’t get enough of something that doesn’t make us rediscover the history books! Bye Oppenheimer continues to rip the box office (everywhere except in Italy, where we’re still waiting for it), this list of other films based on true events can offer a series of alternative anecdotes for chatting under the umbrella of those that the historical film summer offers.
Here are 10 movies that will make you exclaim, “Now I’m a comfortable viewer of history.”
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10. JFK – Case still open (1991)
Since its release in theaters, Hollywood’s most constant comparison Oppenheimer was a 1991 film by Oliver Stone, Kennedy. Both films manage to turn dry, hackneyed courtroom dialogue into some of the most compelling cinematic moments ever brought to the screen.
While the political standoff Oppenheimer all about protecting the careers of Oppie (Cillian Murphy) and Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), Kennedy revolves around the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. With a cast that includes Kevin Costner, Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Oldman (who also appears in Oppenheimer), Kennedy paints the story in favor of sensationalism, focusing on conspiracies rather than the truth. Regardless, the film’s three-hour runtime flies by.
LOOK Kennedy on Disney+
9. Milk (2008)
WITH MilkSean Penn won an Academy Award for his portrayal of iconic revolutionary Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California.
Directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Dustin Lance Black, this biopic explores Milk’s early years, his rise to prominence in San Francisco political circles through a gay engagement campaign and grassroots community building, and his untimely assassination at the hands of a colleague. Of course, this is a classic biopic in structure (no clippings from Oppenheimer black and white), but Milk tells a story so powerful and devastating that, unfortunately, it still resonates.
LOOK Milk on Amazon
8. The imitation game (2014)
While Oppenheimer worked on building the atomic bomb in New Mexico, England, in secret rooms, codebreakers struggled to crack German secrets that might give them an advantage over our worst enemy.
Alan Turing, whose post-war attitude towards gays is still considered one of the greatest vices in history, was a cryptanalyst who helped decipher the Enigma machine used by the Nazis to send messages. The film follows him and his team at Bletchley Park as they try to be ahead of the times and help win the war. The classic war film that the British know and love, but Benedict Cumberbatch’s delicate performance as Turing and the supporting cast of Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode and Rory Kinnear make it more than worth watching.
LOOK The imitation game on Netflix.
7. Malcolm X (1992)
Malcolm X has been an inconvenient figure in history. Controversial for his support of violence and religious doctrine, he also played an important role in the civil rights struggle of the black community in America during the 1950s and 1960s.
Directed by Spike Lee, this biopic starring Denzel Washington leans on the theatrical, mixing stylized and fragmented staging with a deft grasp of the weight of the figure in question. Malcolm X he seeks not to rethink history exactly as it was, but to re-educate a community that in the 1990s may have forgotten what it stood for.
LOOK Malcolm X at BFI
6. beautiful mind (2001)
John Nash’s name may not be as famous as Malcolm X, but this Nobel Prize-winning mathematician in economics was instrumental in understanding game theory, a mathematical model of logical interactions.
IN beautiful mind, Nash, played by Oscar-nominated Russell Crowe, is tasked with finding patterns and codes in magazines to intercept Soviet communications, but it’s not until a diagnosis of schizophrenia is revealed that things are not as they are. .. Seems. The film is directed by Ron Howard, which says a lot about how crappy he can be, but there’s no one who can be as crappy as Howard, so…
LOOK beautiful mind on the Amazon.
5. The wolf of Wall Street (2014)
The wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is about one of the most troubling business figures of the past fifty years: Jordan Belfort. After the crash on Wall Street, Belfort realizes that he can use the system to win, regardless of the sacrifices he leaves behind.
Eventually, the law catches up with him, and his castle of excess and ego crumbles. DiCaprio is great as Belfort, as is Margot Robbie as his wife, Naomi LaPaglia. It’s also extremely interesting, for what it’s worth.
LOOK The wolf of Wall Street on Netflix
4. Truman Capote – In Cold Blood (2005)
The world never recovered from the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman, an actor physically incapable of not making every appearance better than the last. Didn’t need to convertible top, however, since the film was already a winner. He took Oscar home anyway, and he did it because he certainly brought a little more magic!
The film centers on Truman Capote, an eccentric writer who has written stories such as in cold blood AND Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Capote is part story, part stranger than fiction, and documents the writer’s journey to Kansas to write in cold bloodhis latest novel, which made him the great American writer we know, centers on a series of murders and an unlikely friendship that develops with a prime suspect.
VIEW Convertible on Amazon.
3. Right to count (2016)
Some biographies imprint a person’s shame on the public mind, others tell stories that might otherwise be lost to history forever. Right to count he certainly belongs to the second group, as he explores the lives of the three black mathematicians who helped send John Glenn into space.
The space race is rife with ideas about men with half-rimmed glasses and rolled-up sleeves, but Right to count, starring Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monáe and Octavia Spencer, reminds us that things are not like they are in the history books. Of course, this is a heartbreaking film.
LOOK Right to count on Disney+.
2. Social network (2010)
However, recent history is history, especially when it comes to the dawn of social media, which makes life 18 times faster than ever before. Everybody knows Social network, a biopic by David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin about the advent of Facebook. Its stars Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and freshman Justin Timberlake were launched into the stratosphere thanks to their roles as tech brothers who made millions.
While it went down in history as the best internet movie, it’s remarkable that it continues to be a great movie, even as our social networks crash around us due to the arrogance of the Silicon Valley culture that is the movie’s plot. explored.
LOOK Social network on the Amazon.
1. First person – First person (2018)
Neil Armstrong is hard to put at the center of the film. Of course, he was the first person to walk on the moon, which is a wonderful fact, but as a person he was very private, quiet and modest.
Ryan Gosling brings his own special kind of introspection to this portrayal of Armstrong, making him a silent thoroughbred amid the space race craze. Damien Chazelle is directing the film, after which he will reunite with Gosling. La La Land, which may seem to transcend the genre of the king of the theater, actually lends a sort of musical quality to the exploration of the unknown. We don’t envy those tasked with recreating one of history’s most iconic moments, the moon landing, but Chazelle makes us feel like we’re seeing it for the first time.
LOOK First person – first person on the BFI website.
Article originally published in GQ UK.