The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Biopics and True Stories are films that are based on real-life person or incidents. These are usually almost entirely fantastic, however we do make some exceptions on this site.
Films based on real-life crimes and killers are so numerous that have been moved to their own topic – see True Crime Films.
Probably the best among Ron Howard’s mostly undistinguished films, a dramatisation of the real-life Apollo 13 space mission disaster. Once the film gets the capsule up into orbit, the drama is gripping
Lushly made retelling of the Countess Bathory story, one that tries to make an interesting if historically questionable case that she was kind to servants and a misunderstood victim
From the director of the Wyrmwood films, an Australian-made film about a group of soldiers during World War II who become stranded in a sea of sharks following a shipwreck
This comes with a head-scratching premise – a biopic of pop star Robbie Williams but where Robbie is portrayed as a CGI ape. Essentially, the rock star biopic by way of one of the Planet of the Apes reboot films
Rather muddled film that seems to want to be a biopic of Ada Byron but ends up with her (as played by Tilda Swinton) recreated in cyberspace
Actress Julie Delpy directs/stars in an adaptation of the Countess Bathory story. In trying to pitch itself as a work of historical feminism and having sympathy for Bathory, this downplays the considerable horror element of the story
In the same vein as Ed Wood, a biopic of Art Nelson, director of the bad movie classic The Creeping Terror. Where Wood was an inept innocent, Nelson was a conman and pathological liar, which makes his story wilder
TV movie about the historical discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter that inflates the tabloid notion there was a curse and so distorts the historical record that it more properly enters the realm of fantasy
A Marquis de Sade biopic that was problem ridden behind the scenes. The result is an incoherent mess on screen that feels as though it is being handled by several different directors, each with a different idea about what is happening
Tony Scott directs a biopic of true-life bounty hunter Domino Harvey that becomes a totally madcap film (including fantasy elements) thanks to a lunatically out of control script from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly
In one of his finest films, Tim Burton makes a ennobling tribute to the so-called world’s worst director Edward D. Wood Jr who, in Johnny Depp’s performance, becomes Burton’s ultimate outsider hero
A nicely produced film based on the true-life Cottingley Fairies hoax in the 1920s where two girls produced photos supposedly of fairies that convinced some people. Despite the original being a hoax, the film wants to convince us that the fairies were real
In attempting to capture the surreal, paranoiac drug haze of Hunter S. Thompson’s counter-culture classic, Terry Gilliam’s adaptation becomes a rambling, self-indulgent mess of tripped-out visions that go on and on
Federico Fellini conducts his version of the life of the great lover but turns it into a fantastical film of gorgeously surreal excess, filled with extravagant sets and costuming
A biopic about J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan. The film received much acclaim at awards season but in reality is a simplistic work that rewrites J.M. Barrie’s biography in favour of a fictional story about what happened
TV mini-series biopic of James Bond creator Ian Fleming that substantially embellishes details of Fleming’s biography to create its own story. Dominic Cooper is absurdly miscast as Fleming, playing the part with a boyish smirk
Biopic of James Whale, director of the Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein. Whale’s movies are used to echo a tale of friendship between the aging gay Whale (Ian McKellan) and his straight gardener (Brendan Fraser)
Biopic of A.A. Milne that tells the story of how he came up with his most famous creation Winnie the Pooh. The film takes some time to warm to, but eventually opens up with some heartwarming charms
There is a good idea here, exploring what happened in the meeting between Lord Byron, Mary Shelley et al at the Villa Diodati in 1816. However this is hijacked by Ken Russell in lunatically over-the-top-mode
Excellent film based on the real-life figure of Erik Jan Hanussen, a clairvoyant and hypnotist who found fame in Nazi Germany. Featuring a magnetic performance from Klaus Maria Brandauer
Another version of the events at the Villa Diodati in 1816 with Lord Byron, Mary Shelley et al. With the material in the script, this should have been a far more interesting film than the dull affair it is
A non-fiction film about Alfred Hitchcock and the making of Psycho. The script does a great job nailing the psychological undertows and the parts are brought to life with several tour-de-force performances
A film based around the suicide of tv’s Superman George Reeves, questioning whether it was a murder. The details are discussed in depth without ever arriving at a solution, while the casting adds up to an absorbing mystery
Martin Scorsese’s venture into making a children’s film is a beautiful production but must have been a studio nightmare – while they try to sell it as a magical fantasy film, Scorsese wants to pay tribute to silent filmmaker Georges Melies
The death of Graham Chapman put paid to a Monty Python reunion. Undeterred, Chapman’s autobiography is bought to life as an animated film in the gonzo Python style with the remaining Pythons providing voice work
Among the fad for biopics about writers and the origins of famous stories, this, about Charles Dickens and the creation of A Christmas Carol, is the most lunatic – and that’s not counting the blatant lie of the title
Before the spate of superheroes with no powers films with Kick-Ass and Super, there was this South Korean based-on-a-true-story film about a delusional man who believes he is Superman
A biopic of the Marquis de Sade that is not uninteresting but suffers from being produced by Roger Corman on one of his usual B-budgets
Biopic of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. This is a women-written and directed work so the film places an interesting feminist slant on her story meaning that she wrote the book less to address themes about science and hubris than because she was in an unhappy marriage
Paul Thomas Anderson’s loose biopic of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is a film composed of great acting and great individual scenes more so than it ever coheses as a story or delves in to interrogate its characters. Far too elusive as a story to quite be the masterpiece it is readily being hailed as
Stark and effective film based on a true-life historical figure, this sets out to depict the barbarism of the 17th century witch hunts. Vincent Price plays seriously and the film is all the more effective as a result
Luc Besson takes on the Joan of Arc story with then wife Milla Jovovich in the title role but in Besson’s hands it becomes a crazed historical action film that unquestioningly accepts Joan’s visions as real
Ken Russell’s worst film, a ridiculously bad biopic of the psychic Uri Geller
Renee Zellweger stars in a biopic of children’s author Beatrix Potter from Babe director Chris Noonan
A biopic of Paula Maxa, the real-life star of Paris’s Grand Guignol Theatre. The Grand Guignol specialised in plays depicting gory on-stage deaths and she was killed on stage an estimated 10,000 times during her career. Here the biopic elements are blended with a mystery in which she is targeted by a serial killer
A film based on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer that focuses not on his crimes but his last year of high school before he began his killing spree. Based on a graphic novel written by Dahmer’s best friend, this is a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the extremes of social isolation
TV mini-series that purports to tell a biography of fairytale author Hans Christian Andersen only to freely rearrange or outrighly invents aspects of Andersen’s life
One of several films based on the famous writer’s workshop at Villa Diodati in 1816 and the meeting with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Dr Polidori that led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein
Biopic of the so-called prophet Nostradamus, although this seems more interested in depicting him as a progressive thinker of his era than as a prophet. Directed by Roger Christian who next went on to make Battlefield Earth
A true story about a couple on a diving expedition who are accidentally stranded in a sea of sharks. A minimalist film, shot almost completely at sea, that works up incredibly raw tension
Biopic about controversial philosopher/SF writer Ayn Rand or at least one that focuses on the extra-marital affair she had throughout her life. Given that the film is based on a book by other man’s wife, it does come with the odd axe to grind
One of two films that came out in 1997 about the Cottingley Fairies Hoax. In comparison to the other, FairyTale: A true Story, this expands the premise out into a remarkable study of altered perception
Disney bases an animated film on the historical character but warps the story considerably. It feels that this is a Disney animated film made more to adhere to Political Correctness than it is a good one
One of the better among the cheap video-released sequels to their animated films Disney released during the 1990s/2000s, this actually works better than the original
Biopic about William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman This covers the key aspects of Marston’s life and how it influenced the comic-book and delves into the highly unconventional lifestyle he led in a polyamorous relationship and exploring BDSM
Philip Kaufman conducts a biopic of the Marquis de Sade (played by a manic Geoffrey Rush) and how he continued to publish despite being confined to an asylum. This then becomes a debate about modern censorship
Hammer Films turn the historical story of Rasputin and his influence over the Russian throne into a horror film. Although they treat history liberally, this is a vivid film with an intense performance from Christopher Lee
Silent movie based on the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Today we’d call it a biopic, although it readily departs into fantasy with Poe having drunken visions of the raven, ghosts and the afterlife
On the face of it, this is not the most likely of films to be included – a depiction of the ill-fated true-life expedition to cross the North Pole in a dirigible in 1928 – but is for a wraparound wherein the survivor is judged by a tribunal of ghosts. A beautifully made and epical film
Gripping Australian survival horror film about a shipwrecked party who have to make a twelve mile swim through shark-infested waters
This should be mandatory viewing after watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose. While that film rewrote the tragedy of Anneliese Michel as a film about possession, this German-made production sets things straight and tells a story about a girl with mental health issues
Philip Kaufman’s adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book about the astronauts of the Mercury Space Program comes out halfway between admiration of the sheer ballsiness of the astronauts and buying into the flag-waving nationalism the Space Race represented.
One of the better of several films depicting the famous meeting between Mary Shelley and Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati that led to her writing Frankenstein. Starring a then unknown Hugh Grant as Byron
Dramatisation of the prickly relationship between P.L. Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins, and Walt Disney during the making of the 1964 film. While the true story may have been cleaned up somewhat, this is a film of enormous charms that is largely made through a triumphant performance from Emma Thompson
A biopic based on the life of horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson, best known as the author of the novel that became The Haunting/The Haunting of Hill House. Elisabeth Moss goes mad with entertaining regard
Bob Fosse’s riveting biopic of murdered Playmate Dorothy Stratten with Eric Roberts giving his best performance ever
BBC production that seems to be a straightforward biopic of Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle only for it to take a very strange dogleg into meta-fiction
A Hallmark tv mini-series based on the life of the supposed true-life medium James Van Praagh
Biopic of J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings. This covers many of the key areas of Tolkien’s early life but you also cannot help but notice what it leaves out
Romanian-made film about the real-life historical tyrant Vlad Tepes who loaned his name to Bram Stoker’s Dracula
A film based on the historic tyrant that gave the world the name Dracula. This ends up being too sympathetic and loses all credibility when it tries to tie in vampire mythology
Robert Zemeckis of Back to the Future and Forrest Gump fame makes a film of the true-life story of Mark Hogancamp who recovered from a brutal assault by building a fantasy village of dolls. The results are bizarre where Zemeckis seems more interested in making a Sucker Punch-like fantasy where the dolls come to life
Biopic of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja and others. Contains some fine acting from Vincent D/Onofrio and Renee Zellwegeras the teacher he becomes involved with
Flop and muchly hated biopic of John Belushi that turns his life into a bad farce. Included here for the presence of an angel that guides Belushi through his life