What would you say is the most accurate portrayal of a real life event in a movie?

Monster is pretty good, as far as movies go. Though, I don’t think it shows enough “badness” on the part of Aileen Wuornos’ girlfriend, who only got immunity from prosecution because she helped bring Aileen in. The evidence suggests she was just as guilty as Aileen herself (and she wasn’t nearly as hot as Christina Ricci).

Hmm. If you think about it, not alot of movies are really LIKE real life. Maybe because people think real life is boring, so they add some UN-realism into it.

“Two of Us” is a purely fictional story about Paul McCartney dropping by The Dakota to visit John Lennon in 1976. Paul is still on top of the music world, reaching #1 with his new band, Wings, while John has temporarily retired from public life, choosing to raise his son, Sean. Rumors are rampant that The Beatles are going to reunite to play a concert. Paul, the consummate entertainer, is intrigued by the possibilities. But John, still fighting his inner demons, is content keeping Beatlemania a thing of the past. But even though the two men are still at odds over the band, they rediscover that they still have bonds from the past that will never go away.”

Yes, “Two of Us” is purely fictional (although rumors of such a meeting still circulate), but I think its script and acting accurately (and beautifully) capture the spirit of the meeting if it had occurred. In my opinion, capturing the spirit of an actual or fictional event is about the best a movie can achieve.

Schindler’s List seemed awfully real to me.

Black Hawk Down felt like a documentary at times, fine movie.
I was going to say The Wizard of Oz, but you rarely get tornadoes of that magnitude in Kansas…I mean, come on!

I’d have to say, a movie called The Savage Messiah, centering around Roch Thériault, who was a French Canadian cultist, and for years, abused his followers. This happened in the eighties in Québec, and later Ontario. He lived in the woods with his followers, manipulating and mistreating them. He said he was the reincarnation of Moses, and was readying his people, an odd 20 or so, mostly women and children, for the Apocalypse. He aimed to build a new world and was preparing his people for it by teaching them how to survive, and how to properly love one another, as according to God. But, mostly what he did was get drunk and unleash unspeakable horrors on his followers. He beat and raped them, both the women and the children, didn’t give them enough to eat, and two people died, although those were the ones who’s deaths were confirmed.
(later in prison, ’‘Mosses’’ admitted to not believing in God, and was saying that to more easily control his people, who were all fairly religious)

Now the movie is kind of cheesy, but I’ve read a whole lot about this guy and what went on in his cult, and it seems to have been quite faithful to the actual events. The took all the important elements and tried to make them follow one another, they mentioned every nasty detail and showed as much as humanly possible for a TV movie. (this was never in theaters, as far as I know)
The movie really isn’t graphic at all, and they added their own story so that it wouldn’t just be a tasteless chain of nasty scenes, but even that is supposed to reflect, more or less, how this guy was finally brought to justice. A lot of what I read was not included in the movie, (like sawing off the top of a woman’s skull and masturbating in the cavity) but with what I have read, they really got as close as legally possible lol, and the timeline and events seem to have all been well respected. Makes for a ghastly movie.

Some of the inaccuracies involve a lot of the decor. In the movie, the small community’s wooden buildings out in the woods are a lot nicer and homey looking that what it looked like in real life.

I just watched Frost/Nixon again. I imagine it’s pretty realistic.
Also Zodiac.

“Hurt Locker” and “Dead Man Walking”

Patch Adams, in spite of the bad press, showed a very realistic portion of his life.

@zenzen, you’re right, Frost/Nixon was pretty close, although for time limitations and heightened dramatic effect, events were somewhat jumbled and highly compressed. In addition, there were behind-the-scene conversation with “imagined” dialogue.” I think you can see the actual interviews online.

The Pianist.
No other movie comes Close.

Titanic….with the exception of the love story part of it…