If you are a movie buff, you don't really need an excuse to watch movies. Then again, if you are a movie buff, you love it when there is a story behind those masterpieces. You are absolutely thrilled at how a filmmaker manages to portray the intricate workings of a person's life or an event in a few hours!
Here are such amazing gems :
Stars- Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Mathew Goode
The man who was prosecuted for homosexuality by his country was the cryptanalyst who helped solve the Enigma code during the second World War. Benedict Cumberbatch has essayed the role with ease and grace.
Stars: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes
The Holocaust was one of the darkest periods in the history of mankind. Amidst the horrors of concentration camps and ghettos, lived a person like Oskar Schindler who saved several lives by employing them in his factories. The movie is his story.
Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden
To call All the President's Men a movie about the Watergate scandal would be to miss its point entirely. Because while the downfall of a president is certainly part of the film's resolution, the 137 minutes preceding that are about the nitty-gritty of the newspaper business. And viewers have Ben Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post (played by Jason Robards in the film) during the time of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's investigation into Richard Nixon's clandestine dealings, to thank for that as much as they do star/producer Robert Redford.
Concerned about the light in which the film might paint his profession and the reporters and editors who inhabit it, Bradlee realized that the mere act of cooperation could help shape the film's direction. "We're all in the position that we didn't have any choice about this movieit would be made regardlessand I could see that," Bradlee stated in a 1975 interview with his own paper. "Lacking that choice, it seemed to make more sense to try to influence it factually than to just stick our heads in the sand." As a result, the filmmakers made sure every detailfrom the mounds of research, articles and documents collected by Woodward and Bernstein to the desks their big-screen counterparts sat atwere perfectly replicated. The result is a painstakingly accurate recounting of two reporters' bumpy path to uncovering an ugly truth.
Stars: Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava
There are two things any moviegoer should know about Oliver Stone: 1) He loves to tell stories based on true events, and 2) He has a tendency to rewrite history, sometimes egregiously (see JFK). The one subject where he leans more toward the realistic side is the Vietnam War. Stone's own tour of duty is explored in the semi-autobiographical Platoon, with Charlie Sheen assuming the director's identity (a privileged white kid who volunteers to go to war).
In Born on the Fourth of July, Stone tells the story of Ron Kovic, who joined the Marines as an enthusiastic young patriot and came home a paralyzed anti-war activist. Tom Cruise earned his first Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Kovic, which required him to play against Movie Star type for much of the movie, in which the wheelchair-bound and newly politicized Kovic leads a series of anti-Vietnam War protests to bring attention to the young men who were ripped from the comforts of homevoluntarily or otherwiseand literally dropped into a jungle to defend their country. So moved was even Kovic by Cruise's portrayal of him that he gifted the actor with his Bronze Star on the final day of filming.
Stars: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon
It takes a talented director to keep an audience on the edge of its seat while watching a film in which they already know the ending. Which is exactly what Ron Howard was able to do in Apollo 13, the story of NASA's 1970 moon landing-turned-rescue mission when an on-board explosion threatened the safety of its astronauts, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton). Howard's secret? Create a film that is as educational as it is entertaining.
Stars: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer
Some films based on real-life events require a full-scale investigation in order for a filmmaker to separate fact from fiction. The Insider is one such case. Directed by Michael Mann from an article in Vanity Fair, the film tells the story of tobacco industry big shot Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) who decided to blow the whistle on his own company when he realized that they were increasing the amount of nicotine in each cigarette.
Stars: Julia Roberts, David Brisbin, Dawn Didawick
Erin Brockovich is not a lawyer. She just plays (close to one) in the movies. In 2000, the woman who calls herself a "consumer advocate" gained worldwide recognition when Julia Roberts decided to throw on a tank top and assume the role of the tough-talking legal clerk who helped bring justice ($333 million worth) to a tiny town in California whose residents were being poisoned by their own drinking water. For her work on the case, Brockovich received a $2 million bonus; for her role as Brockovich, Roberts received an Oscar.
Stars: Adrien Brody, Emilia Fox, Frank Finlay
Nearly a decade after turning down the chance to direct Schindler's List, director Roman Polanski released his own Holocaust story. And while it wasn't exactly an autobiographythe movie is about pianist WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw Szpilman (played by Adrien Brody), who is forced to live in the Warsaw Ghetto during Nazi Germany's invasion of PolandPolanski, who managed to escape from the Kraków Ghetto following the death of his mother as a child, inserted enough personal experience to make it feel that way.
Keeping with his reputation as a director who does not shy away from truthregardless of how disturbing it mayThe Pianist holds nothing back in its depiction of the Holocaust's extreme atrocities. The camera doesn't flinch when young children are beaten to death, innocent men and women are gunned down and executed in the streets, piles of dead bodies are set afire and a man in a wheelchair is hurled off a balcony, fatally crashing into the ground below. It's not an easy watch, but it's a powerful one.
Stars: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Xolani Mali
"Hero" is not a designation that comes to Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), the general manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda, easily. But when his fellow citizens came under attack in the midst of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, he took the one action that came naturally to him: he helped. For four months, as more than 800,000 people were murdered outside his gates, Rusesabagina saved the lives of more than 1,200 refugees, whom he provided with food and shelter.
Stars: J.J. Johnson, David Alan Basche, Liza Colón-Zayas
"How soon is too soon?" is a commonly asked question when it comes to applying the big-screen treatment to tragic moments in American history. Few events better exemplify this than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In 2006, we learned that Hollywood believed that five years was enough time for people to want to replay these events on the big screen, with both Oliver Stone's World Trade Center and Paul Greengrass' United 93 hitting theaters less than four months apart.
Stars: James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn
The ability to hold an audience's interest for 94 minutes, despite a film's single character being immobile for much of the film, is a testament to the filmmaking skill of Danny Boyle and his star, James Franco, who received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Aron Ralston, the canyoneering daredevil at the center of 127 Hours. Based on Ralston's memoir, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, the movie tells the story of his life-or-death ordeal after becoming trapped by a boulder in Utah's Canyonlands National Park (the film was shot at the exact spot where it happened).
Ralston spent more than five days trapped with only a small amount of food and water plus a pocketknife and a camcorder, which he utilized first as a journal and later as a last will and testament. Realizing that he was going to die, Ralston knew he had just one option to break free: he must amputate his own arm. With a story like that, it's hard to not go full throttle. Particularly when you're as daring a director as Boyle (he of Trainspotting fame). But Boyle's faithful interpretation of the story is completely character-driven unless you count the amputation scene, which caused dozens of reported faintings in theaters. For his part, Ralston told The Guardian that, "The movie is so factually accurate it is as close to a documentary as you can get and still be a drama."
Stars-Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor, Pavan Malhotra, Art Malik.
The Olympian made Indians proud more than once. His exemplary performance as an athlete made him a household name. His life inspired Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra to make this equally exemplary movie.
Stars - Richard Gere, Joan Allen
HachikÅÂ was a faithful dog who waited for his owner at the train station, to walk back home with him. He continued to do so even after his master's death, everyday for nine years. He is the subject of this touching movie
Stars- Ben Kingsley, Daniel Lewis
Documenting the life of one of the most influential leaders of the past century was no easy task. Yet this movie does a brilliant job of depicting Gandhi's life. Ben Kingsley won an Academy Award for his brilliant portrayal of Gandhi in the movie.
Stars- Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken
An impersonator, a trickster, Frank Abagnale who performed cons worth millions of dollars. He was an expert in cheque frauds, forcing FBI to take his help to crack such cases later. Steven Spielberg and DiCaprio have done a fantastic job.
