50 Best Movies Based on True Events

Before directing the Netflix original “Okja,” South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho made “Memories of Murder,” based on the unsolved murders of 10 women in Hwaseong, South Korea. These are considered to be the work of the first serial killer in South Korean history.

Daniel Day-Lewis gave an Oscar-winning performance as Dublin-born Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy but became a celebrated painter and author using the only part of his body he could control, his left foot. Day-Lewis’s co-star, Brenda Fricker, took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Director Kathryn Bigelow’s dramatization of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden was a financial as well as critical hit, grossing more than $95 million at the domestic box office against its $40 million budget.

“The Big Sick” is based loosely on the true-life story of standup comic Kumail Nanjiani and his wife writer Emily V. Gordon, who collaborated on the screenplay. This romantic comedy shot up to a 98% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rating.

David Lynch — best known for directing offbeat, often dark films such as “Eraserhead” — crafted a different, more gentle movie with 1999’s “The Straight Story.” The film tells the true story of Alvin Straight, an elderly man who drove a riding lawn mower 300 miles across the Midwest to visit his sick brother.