Hollywood is known for taking liberties with its films. It’s no secret that film adaptations from books are often weaker than their original sources. 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 or the lives of prominent figures. Many times, Hollywood 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 (like the American Revisionist movies of Quentin Tarantino), but it’s sad when that fiction becomes reality and many moviegoers believe it to be fact. Today, we’re counting down some of the most historically inaccurate movies to grace the silver screen.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

8 Newsies

     Disney

“Look at me. I’m the king of New York.” What’s not historically accurate about over a dozen boys singing and dancing in the streets of New York City 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. Newsies follows 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, Newsies is also a Tony award-winning Broadway musical. “And the world will know!” They might not know that the film creates characters by combining different real people, changes the ending of the strike, and represents Pulitzer in a totally different way.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

7 The Sound of Music

     20th Century Fox

“The hills are alive with the sound of music.” Once again, musicals are not often the most accurate portrayal of real-life events. The Sound of Music tells the tale of the Von Trapp Family singers, one of the world’s best-known groups preceding World War II. Many people are familiar with the musical chronicling 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 invade. However, the family only had to cross the railroad tracks and board a train to Italy. Other inconsistencies include changing 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 Austrian invasion.

6 Marie Antoinette

     Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group

This 2006 historical drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola tells the story of Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst), the last queen of France before the French Revolution. While the film is a stunning masterpiece, beautifully blending colorful costumes and sets, many of the colors the characters wore were unavailable at the time. In addition, the film’s lack of politics makes it difficult to understand why people dislike (and wanted to behead) Antoinette. Too much time is spent on shopping, eating, and her sexual liaison with Count Axel Fersen, which took mere months on-screen but years in real life. Overall, the film lacks substance and fails to portray Marie Antoinette as anything other than a spoiled and overwhelmed teenager, which is admittedly intentional.

5 Pocahontas

     Buena Vista Pictures

It’s a Disney film, so it’s bound to be 100% accurate, right? Pocahontas is just one among many of Disney’s over-romanticized animated classics which relies too heavily on romance to tell the story. In the Disney version, Pocahontas meets and falls in love with English Captain John Smith, a settler hoping to conquer the new world. She stops at nothing to save his life and keep the peace between her Algonquin tribe and the English. In reality, Pocahontas was just a child when Smith arrived, and she eventually married another man before dying at the young age of 22. Even more shocking was that her real name was actually Amonute and that Pocahontas was her nickname, meaning “playful one,” or even “ill-behaved child.”

4 Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, is one of those dates in history that most people recognize (it’s “a day that shall live in infamy,” after all). In 2001, Michael Bay released his silver screen version starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and Alec Baldwin. However, the movie was largely inaccurate and didn’t have much in common with reality, except for the fact of the attack itself. In the film, after surviving the attack, fictional heroes Danny and Rafe are sent to Tokyo to bomb the city, when in actuality, no one was sent. However, perhaps the biggest (and most insensitive) historical failure in Pearl Harbor is when President Roosevelt stands up from his wheelchair to make a dramatic speech, much to the crowd’s shock.

3 Braveheart

     Paramount Pictures

Braveheart tells the story of Scottish warrior William Wallace (Mel Gibson) and his quest to lead his country to freedom from the oppressing English. While labeled as a historical war drama, Braveheart contains a few inaccuracies. In the movie, Wallace comes from humble beginnings and is just a poor highlander. However, in reality, historians say that Wallace was actually a nobleman. Another inaccuracy is Wallace’s romantic relations with Isabella of France, the wife of Edward II. It’s later implied in the film that Isabella is pregnant with the child of Wallace. However, it’s very unlikely that the pair ever even met. The film’s ending was also changed as Wallace was drawn and quartered, (an ending fit for traitors) not beheaded.

2 Shakespeare in Love

     Miramax

Nearly everyone knows the name of William Shakespeare. However, many don’t know the road that led the English playwright to success, and it seems neither did the team behind Shakespeare in Love. To begin with, the characters in the film drink out of modern beer glasses, and the Queen attends a public play. In those days, the Queen would have attended a private performance in the comfort of her own court, never mind the fact that the bubonic plague was running amok and theaters would have been closed anyway. Lastly, in the film, Shakespeare draws inspiration for Romeo and Juliet from his own experiences in forbidden romance and his love interest, Viola, plays Juliet onstage opposite Shakespeare’s Romeo, even though women were not allowed on stage in those days.

1 Alexander

     Warner Bros

Alexander is number one on this list due to the fact that Warner Bros. and director Oliver Stone were almost sued by Greek lawyers for portraying Alexander the Great as bisexual. Ultimately, the 25 lawyers dropped the lawsuit after previewing the film and deciding that the depiction was not as bad as they had first feared. Other inconsistencies include the combining of three major battles into one: the Battle of the Granicus, the Battle of Issus, and the Battle of Gaugamela. Plus, throughout the film, there are a number of events that may have historically happened, but happened in different ways, to different people, or in different locations. Since the film’s release in 2004, there have been a whopping four Director’s Cuts released to try to clear up some historical inaccuracies.