The 25 best Netflix movies based on true stories streaming now

Time to settle in with a movie inspired by real events.

Since the dawn of the medium, fact-based films have given audiences insight into real events in a personal, visceral fashion. While there are dramatizations, such as 2023’s Society of the Snow, there are also inventive docu-thrillers, like the work of Paul Greengrass, and tongue-in-cheek fare like the Pop-Tart origin story Unfrosted.

Unsurprisingly, Netflix has a treasure trove of movies based on true stories. In addition to original programming, the streamer offers endless options for outside projects that draw inspiration from real events far and wide.

Join Entertainment Weekly as we count down the 25 best Netflix movies based on true stories streaming now.

22 July (2018)

Paul Greengrass, an expert at making fact-based docu-thrillers like Bloody Sunday (2002) and United 93 (2006), helmed this gruesome but riveting account of the deadliest terror attack in Norway’s history since WWII, when Anders Behring Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie, of The Worst Person in the World) murdered 77 people at a children’s summer camp in 2011.

Greengrass’ harrowing epic, divided into three chapters and chronicling everything from Breivik’s massacre to his sentencing, is not an easy watch. It is, however, timely and necessary, and by the end, it is somehow rather hopeful.

Where to watch 22 July: Netflix

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)

Chiwetel Ejiofor directed this lovely adaptation of William Kamkwamba’s memoir, chronicling his upbringing as a young African boy who, after being forced to leave his beloved school due to his family’s impoverished condition, sets about constructing a windmill that he hopes will save his community from famine.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is reminiscent of those wonderful Disney movies from the ‘60s and ‘70s which told stories for younger audiences yet still delighted older viewers. Ejiofor’s adaptation spins a heartwarming story that doesn’t shave off its harder edges but is always entertaining and consistently feel-good.

Where to watch The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Netflix

Captain Phillips (2013)

Another wonderful, impossibly taut Paul Greengrass thriller, this one charts the 2008 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama shipping vessel by Somali pirates. As Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) works to protect his crew and alert rescuers to their plight, he comes head-to-head with the antagonizer’s de facto leader (the astonishing, Oscar-nominated Barkhad Abdi).

One of Greengrass’ most assured and textured works, Captain Phillips tells a well-known true story with little concession to Hollywood storytelling or dramatic grandstanding. Greengrass is unrivaled at combining professional actors with inexperienced performers and semi-improvised scenarios to create the feeling of actually being present for an unprecedented event.

Where to watch Captain Phillips: Netflix

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Craig Brewer’s excellent biopic profiles Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy), who directed a grindhouse passion project based around a character he created named Dolemite, inadvertently crafting one of the most iconic bad movies of all time in the process.

Brewer’s film is a fine-tuned combination of period drama and behind-the-scenes comedy. It’s also notable for giving Oscar-winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph her earliest scene-stealing performance; her penultimate scene with Murphy is the film’s most radical and moving. In its story of outsiders banding together to fulfill their dreams, the movie is quietly but effectively heartwarming.

Where to watch Dolemite Is My Name: Netflix

First They Killed My Father (2017)

Angelina Jolie directed and co-wrote this adaptation with Loung Ung, based on the latter's memoir about her experiences throughout the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia during the 1970s.

Jolie is a director for whom overstatement is as essential in her craft as camera movement, but here, she tempers her more outrageous instincts and delivers a film that’s more powerful for its subdued nature, comfortable in its quietness and content to let audiences fill in some of the more horrific details for themselves.

Where to watch First They Killed My Father: Netflix

Harriet (2019)

Cynthia Erivo earned her first (though certainly not her last) Oscar nomination for playing Harriet Tubman, who escorted numerous enslaved people to freedom via the Underground Railroad, in Kasi Lemmons’ rousing, deeply felt biopic.

Lemmons finds a perfect balance between a respectful dramatization of Tubman’s life and a rather breathless chase picture that could very well make Harriet essential viewing in middle school classrooms for decades to come. Harriet gives a potent history lesson with the same Hollywood gravitas as similarly accomplished films like Glory, anchored by Erivo’s magnetic pull and overwhelming pathos.

Where to watch Harriet: Netflix

The Highwaymen (2019)

Retired Texas Rangers — the upright Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) and hard-drinking Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson) — are called back to duty by former governor Miriam “Ma” Ferguson (Kathy Bates) to hunt down the notorious Bonnie Parker (Emily Probst) and Clyde Barrow (Edward Bossert).

John Lee Hancock’s forceful procedural does a terrific job of complimenting Arthur Penn’s 1967 classic Bonnie and Clyde without spoiling any of that film’s pleasures, wisely keeping Parker and Barrow in the background and telling a different side of the true-crime saga altogether.

Where to watch The Highwaymen: Netflix

Hit Man (2024)

Glen Powell cemented his A-list status with this jovial, fact-based comedy-thriller from director Richard Linklater based on an infamous Texas Monthly article about Gary Johnson, a mild-mannered professor who contributed to nearly 70 arrests by posing as a hit man.

Hit Man is a terrific showcase for Powell’s comedic and leading man talents and one of the most unabashedly fun films Linklater has made in decades. Paired here with Adria Arjona, Powell is graced with a costar more than capable of curating a fizzy, classic romance, reminding one of the halcyon days of Hepburn and Tracy or Bogart and Bacall.

Where to watch Hit Man: Netflix

The Irishman (2019)

As much as we love a Martin Scorsese gangster epic, part of us hopes he’ll never make another after this rigorous epic charting the rise and fall of real-life gangster Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), who claims to have had a hand in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino).

Scorsese’s picture sidesteps any hint of conspiracy that Hoffa’s story typically carries, delivering a somber, lived-in portrait of organized crime members as mid-level businessmen. The film is nearly three and half hours long but is so packed with history and incident that you’ll hardly notice the length.

Where to watch The Irishman: Netflix

The King (2019)

David Michôd helmed this highly entertaining historical epic starring Timothée Chalamet as Henry V, Prince of Wales, who is thrown into a dark world of betrayal and violence after inheriting the throne from his assassinated brother.

Michôd’s picture is a refreshing entry in the genre, functioning just as well as an action picture as a moody, thoughtful coming-of-age drama with impossibly high stakes. An all-star cast including Robert Pattinson, Thomasin McKenzie, Lily-Rose Depp, and ​​Ben Mendelsohn help the director bring a suitably muddy and brutal image of the 15th century to life.

Where to watch The King: Netflix

Maestro (2023)

Bradley Cooper stars as Leonard Bernstein in this warts-and-all exploration of the famed composer, which he wrote, directed, and stars in alongside Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s long-suffering wife, Felicia Montealegre.

Cooper’s film is much more an examination of Berstein’s marriage than his career, and all the better for it. Rather than run through Bernstein’s accomplishments as many biopics would, it isolates incidents from his and Montealegre’s life, which inevitably paints a well-rounded portrait of euphoria and sorrow. If there was any doubt after he took A Star Is Born to new heights, Maestro proves Cooper one of the most finely tuned filmmakers of his generation.

Where to watch Maestro: Netflix

Mank (2020)

David Fincher’s black-and-white dissection of Citizen Kane’s inception stars Gary Oldman as the titular Herman “Mank” Mankiewicz in one of the actor’s best (and quietest) later-era roles. Approached by Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to write a script for the young director’s magnum opus, Mank returns to memories of his aborted friendship with William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and his beloved Marion Davies (a brilliant, Oscar-nominated Amanda Seyfried).

Mank, from a long-gestating script by the director’s late father, Jack Fincher, is a celebratory exploration of filmmaking. There are moments at which he indulges a satirical cynicism that will be familiar to his fans, but overall he seems to be in unironic awe of the art form to which he’s devoted his life.

Where to watch Mank: Netflix

Marriage Story (2019)

Noah Baumbach’s superb portrait of a once-loving marriage in decline, inspired in no small part by his own divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh, stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver as warring spouses who suffer myriad indignities throughout 137 minutes, most notably being forced to relocate to Los Angeles.

Baumbach is a master at crafting highly watchable films around fairly repugnant characters, so it’s something of a surprise that Marriage Story contains the highest volume of empathetic people in any of his works to date. This is probably Baumbach’s least caustic and most heartfelt work, a movie that paints realistic subjects in situations that are authentic and at times harrowing.

Where to watch Marriage Story: Netflix

Molly's Game (2017)

Aaron Sorkin made his directorial debut with this flashy adaptation of Molly Bloom’s book of the same name, which documents her lucrative career running a poker game for Hollywood’s elite.

Jessica Chastain gives a commanding performance as Bloom, and though Sorkin’s visual direction is fairly straightforward, he surrounds himself with an unbelievably talented cast who know exactly how to deliver his wry, rapid-fire dialogue and focus our attention so that we need not look anywhere else.

Where to watch Molly's Game: Netflix

Roma (2018)

Inspired by his own childhood, Alfonso Cuarón’s gorgeously designed, emotional portrait of a Mexico City family and their live-in is remarkably intimate and astoundingly relatable, regardless of the audience’s ages or where they grew up.

Much like Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird, Roma tells a focused story about a specific time and place which somehow paints a broad portrait of the entire world at this moment. It’s a bold and invigorating piece of cinema that conjures and sustains a mysterious, warm yet dangerous mood for its duration.

Where to watch Roma: Netflix

Rustin (2023)

Colman Domingo received a much-deserved Oscar nomination for his turn here as Bayard Rustin, a key adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. (Aml Ameen) who dedicated his life to the Civil Rights movement but was largely erased from history due to his homosexuality.

Domingo and director George C. Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) take a rousing and rather imaginative approach to the material, which has been covered in many other projects but never quite from this perspective. Framed around King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington, Wolfe’s film is both an all-encompassing portrait of Rustin and that of the cause to which he dedicated his life.

Where to watch Rustin: Netflix

Scoop (2024)

One of the newest titles on this list, Scoop dissects how the BBC program Newsnight landed its earth-shattering interview between Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell) and Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) over the now disgraced royal’s long-standing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Scoop is a compelling dramatization of an unbelievable true story that’s still fairly recent history. It’s a breathless newsroom thriller that clocks in at a perfectly modulated 102 minutes. Anderson steals scenes, but Billie Piper carries the film as Newsnight booker Sam McAlister, who works her bum off to secure Andrew’s public self-immolation.

Where to watch Scoop: Netflix

Shirley (2024)

John Ridley’s galvanizing biopic stars Regina King as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman in the United States who launched a 1972 bid for president.

King’s powerhouse performance, Ridley’s keen visual direction, and the subject’s exceptional mettle set Shirley apart from other biopics that struggle to find life. This is a vibrant and exceptionally lively film that celebrates Chisholm’s singular accomplishments as it explains them to a new generation of viewers perhaps unfamiliar with her historical career.

Where to watch Shirley: Netflix

Society of the Snow (2023)

J.A. Bayona’s harrowing film — about the infamous 1972 plane crash that stranded a Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes mountains — is a chilling account of the lengths one will go to live another day and a hopeful tribute to the resilience of the human spirit.

Bayona also directed The Impossible, which chronicled a family’s attempts at reunion after being separated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Much like that film, Society of the Snow finds tremendous compassion in the most extreme circumstances. He grounds this picture with genuine heart, rewarding his viewers for what can at times be a gruesome watch that’s among the most visceral and authentic survival pictures in recent memory.

Where to watch Society of the Snow: Netflix

Tick, Tick… Boom! (2021)

This Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed bio-drama profiles Rent scribe Jonathan Larson in an all-singing, all-dancing celebration of art and life itself which ranks among the finest works much of its cast has participated in.

Larson penned the musical of the same name in 1990, six years before he died of an aortic dissection on the eve of Rent’s Off-Broadway debut. Played here by Andrew Garfield, Larson is given something of a second life through Miranda’s film, in which he’s able to live out the success and adulation that eluded him during his lifetime.

Where to watch Tick, Tick… Boom!: Netflix

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

Aaron Sorkin’s second directorial project (which, of course, he also wrote) details the infamous 1969 trial in which seven defendants were charged with conspiracy by the United States after participating in protests at the Chicago Democratic National Convention.

More visually dynamic and emotionally nuanced than Molly’s Game but equally thrilling, Chicago 7 is an ambitious work that straddles satire and genuine sentiment. But this Sorkin project has a superior relevance and heft as, more than 50 years after the events depicted, the country continues to find itself in flux.

Where to watch The Trial of the Chicago 7: Netflix

The Two Popes (2019)

Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce each earned Oscar nominations for their turns as Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis). Following the Vatican leaks and Benedict’s tainted legacy, Bergoglio aims to deliver his resignation but is met with resistance by the acting Pope, who has other plans for the Cardinal.

With heavy dialogue and closed settings, Frank Meirelles’ film is clearly adapted from a play (Anthony McCarten’s The Pope, to be exact), but it never feels unduly contained or claustrophobic. The Two Popes is a masterclass in performance from two veterans of the form, one wise enough to clear the aisles so they may do what they do best without any distraction.

Where to watch The Two Popes: Netflix

Unfrosted (2024)

Jerry Seinfeld made his feature directorial debut with this silly romp chronicling the birth of America’s favorite breakfast treat: the Pop-Tart. Melissa McCarthy plays a NASA scientist who puts moon exploration on hold to assist a General Mills exec (Seinfeld) in creating the most iconic morning pastry of all time.

Unfrosted may not be the most accurate tale of the Pop-Tarts creation, but it is one of the most enjoyable and buoyant comedies released this year, one in the Airplane! tradition of rat-a-tat dialogue and well-calibrated sight gags.

Where to watch Unfrosted: Netflix

Wicked Little Letters (2023)

Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley star as former friends who find themselves embroiled in a legal case regarding some creatively profane letters terrorizing a sleepy English village.

In addition to being a properly funny, pleasingly irreverent comedy featuring stupendous turns from two of the best actors working today, Wicked Little Letters is also a tense mystery. Director Thea Sharrock wields a confident hand, never letting the humor get too broad or allowing the suspense (and some unexpected tragedy) to overtake the tone.

Where to watch Wicked Little Letters: Netflix

The Young Victoria (2009)

This sumptuous biopic — about Queen Victoria’s (Emily Blunt) swift ascendency to the throne while still a teenager following the death of King William (Jim Broadbent) — was director Jean-Marc Vallée’s first American film, giving Blunt a proper leading role after years of scene-stealing supporting work.

The Young Victoria is a lively and sharp costume drama that eschews some of the more dower trappings of the genre to deliver a dynamic portrait of Queen Victoria, one that doesn’t pull punches as it pertains to her mistreatment in the name of servitude.

Where to watch The Young Victoria: Netflix

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.