Credit: Netflix

True-story-based movies have a bit of a cheat code, really, because the crazy part has already happened, and all filmmakers have to do is get it onto the screen without faffing about so much that they sand all the life out of it. Netflix, especially have a knack for them.

Let’s take The Six Triple Eight for example, which goes back to the 855 Black women who cleared a 17-million-piece wartime mail backlog in just 90 days, while The Good Nurse had Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne train in nursing before filming, so that little “based on a true story” card lands with a lot more oomph.

Of course, films still squash timelines and fiddle with events, and it only makes sense because poor filmmakers have only two hours to work with, but when the bones of the story are real, you feel it.

So go ahead, we’ve done half the work for you, and watch these five true-story-based movies on Netflix. You’ll probably be on Google five minutes later, looking for the real people behind the madness.

Five gripping Netflix movies based on incredible true stories

Society of the Snow (J. A. Bayona, 2023)

Remember that “cheat code” we mentioned earlier? Yeah, Society of the Snow does not need one, because the real story is already bonkers. In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed high in the Andes, leaving a rugby team and other passengers stranded in savage cold with barely any food and no obvious way out, and just when you think things cannot get worse, the official search is called off. Imagine hearing that while you are still up there.

Bayona had Pablo Vierci’s book and survivor testimony to work from, but he did not stop at reading about the Andes from someplace warm. Instead, he went to the crash site at the same time of year to understand what those conditions actually felt like. And then comes the number that stops you in your tracks: 72 days. Seventy-two days in the Andes, with only 16 people making it home. “Survival story” barely scratches the surface.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, 2020)

Have you ever wondered what happens when courtroom drama has gone off the deep end when the courtroom itself starts looking like part of the problem? The answer to that wondering is The Trial of the Chicago 7. Sorkin takes you into the fallout from the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, and, before you’ve found your footing, Tom Hayden and Abbie Hoffman are facing conspiracy charges while Bobby Seale is being bound and gagged by order of the judge.

For those who like to catch on to little details in the film, you will be delighted to know that the title has a catch: there were eight defendants. Yup. Seale’s case was severed, so, snip, the Chicago Eight became the Chicago Seven. Sorkin plays fast and loose with the timeline, so keep the salt shaker nearby, but the case is very, very real: five men were convicted of incitement before those convictions were overturned on appeal. Bit of a legal car crash, innit.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Chiwetel Ejiofor, 2019)

Think back to when you were 13. Your biggest headache was probably homework you had not done or wondering whether your crush had seen your message. Well, William Kamkwamba had slightly bigger problems. In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, drought has wrecked his family’s crops, and school is out of reach because the fees cannot be paid, so while most kids that age are trying to survive algebra, William is trying to work out how his village is going to survive at all. Heavy, right?

Then a science book gives him one mad little opening: wind power. The real William was only 14 when he built a windmill from scrap, using diagrams from Using Energy instead of some handy instruction manual. Then the windmill starts turning, and, just like that, an idea everyone could have laughed off becomes the thing that keeps hope alive.

The Swimmers (Sally El Hosaini, 2022)

Right, park the Olympics for a minute, because Yusra Mardini’s story starts miles away from that. Come on, who doesn’t love a good backstory behind the medal winners, and that’s where The Swimmers take you: beside Yusra and her sister Sara as war forces them out of Damascus and onto the long route towards Europe, and just when you reckon the journey has dealt them enough grief, their overcrowded dinghy starts giving up in the Aegean. Just imagine, in the middle of the sea, a boat in trouble, with nowhere else to go. So over the side they go.

Now keep that image in your head, because Hollywood did not cook it up. The sisters spent hours swimming beside the dinghy, helping keep 18 other people aboard moving towards safety. Eventually, Yusra reaches Germany as she keeps swimming and ends up at Rio 2016 with the Refugee Olympic Team. One hell of a journey it was!

Maestro (Bradley Cooper, 2023)

Biopics can make you sit through every birthday cake and deathbed before getting to the good stuff, but Maestro looks at that whole routine and goes… nah, not today. Bradley Cooper takes you straight inside Leonard Bernstein’s marriage to Felicia Montealegre instead, and at first, go on, enjoy the rose-tinted glow while it lasts, because once the cracks appear, they do not stay hairline for long. Bernstein’s affairs with men put the marriage under strain, while life as one of America’s most famous conductors leaves very little room to hide.

Then comes the music, and you better keep your ears open. Cooper spent months learning to conduct like Bernstein, and when that Mahler sequence kicks in, yep, that is actually him in front of the London Symphony Orchestra. Carey Mulligan gets plenty to sink her teeth into as Felicia too, so she never ends up as the wife hovering at the edge of someone else’s biopic. By the end, the applause is deafening, but home is another story.