12 Movies Based on True Stories Crazier Than Fiction

Movies based on true stories often embellish the facts—heightening drama, inventing characters, or downplaying feats—but some of cinema’s strangest films are stranger because the real events behind them are bizarre. These selections cover drama, sci‑fi and horror, and each one interprets a real-life ordeal that sounds like fiction.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever follows John “Chickie” Donohue, who in 1967 sailed to Vietnam using his merchant marine credentials to deliver beers to neighborhood friends, at times convincing others he was CIA; some of the wildest moments are verified by photos. Lion tells how Saroo Brierley, separated from his family at five and adopted in Australia, used scattered memories and Google Earth 25 years later to find his hometown and reunite with his birth family.

The Conjuring dramatizes the Perron family’s 1971 haunting and the involvement of Ed and Lorraine Warren, presenting an interpretation of a documented paranormal investigation.

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