With movies such as Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and The Fabelmans generating high-spirited buzz among audiences and critics, it's valid to point out how movies are getting better and better at blurring the line that separates art from reality.
By giving character-driven stories the merit they deserve, biopics learn with fictional stories and vice-versa, making it hard for viewers to distinguish what's so different about them. This is especially true when taking into account how characters who never existed often seem more real than a real-life person does. Movie buffs on Reddit shared their favorite picks of movies that feel like biopics but are, in fact, fictitious.
The Wrestler (2008)
Darren Aronofsky has a history of delving deep into characters' dramas that feel real regardless of the absurd extremes to which they are swept, such as in Black Swan and Pi. However, The Wrestler is his most intimate and slow project, following a faded professional wrestler trying to come to terms with his estranged daughter and the downfall of his career.
Reddit user DovahSheep1 said the movie is "one of the best character studies I've ever seen bar none." For a movie set mostly in a brutal environment, The Wrestler is surprisingly sweet, until it becomes a movie about self-destruction from the perspective of a man who doesn't believe in his own redemption.
Blonde (2022)
One can only imagine the shock of anyone who took Blonde as an accurate portrayal of Marilyn Monroe's life. The film is based on a fictional novel and reimagines the life of the legendary actress through a succession of traumas and abuses.
One Redditor said, "It's based on a fictional biography of Marilyn Monroe. I thought it was real, cried my eyes out, did research, and have been mad ever since." Perhaps what made people dislike Blonde is the nonstop cruelty and how some characters recall real-life counterparts, including President Kennedy. It's more concerned with delivering social commentary about patriarchal oppression and Hollywood exploration than actually retelling Marilyn's life.
Almost Famous (2000)
Almost Famous can be considered a "plotless" movie about people hanging out, capturing everyday mundanity through the eyes of a teenager experiencing the growing 1970s music scene and embarking on a road trip with a band on the rise.
Although writer/director Cameron Crowe really was, like the film's protagonist, a teenage writer for Rolling Stone magazine, the semi-autobiographical story gives much more emphasis to fantasies about what could've been, mixing fiction and reality in an indiscernible fashion. Redditor aaaaaaaah- said, "To this day my mom still thinks this is a biopic and I don’t have the heart to tell her."
The Godfather (1972)
Redditor bobpetersen named "The Godfather movies telling the story of Michael and Vito Corleone" as being as convincing as any biopic. The trilogy offers an in-depth character study and a family chronicle, still considered by many the best movies of all time. The first film explores a gripping father-and-son relationship as Vito, the intimidating patriarch, transfers his power and control to his resisting young son, Michael.
Just like a good family biopic, characters come and go, and different generations take over the power as entire eras pass. The characters in The Godfather are ruthless, cold, and methodical, yet viewers feel for them almost as if they're part of the family.
Zelig (1983)
Xenux66 claims, "I legit thought Zelig was a documentary when I first saw it." Woody Allen pioneered the mockumentary genre with Take The Money And Run in 1969 and sharpened his storytelling skills in the ambitious Zelig, a hilarious film about a human chameleon able to look and act like whoever is around him.
Allen's dark humor is top-notch and Zelig's unique skills escalate to unbelievable extremes, including scenes in which he joins Hitler's Nazi army and flies over the Atlantic by imitating a pilot's skills. It's easy for viewers to believe Zelig is real with all his innocent quirkiness; truly one of the most nuanced characters of the 1980s, inserted in a documentary format conducted by one of the most talented American directors.
Inside Llewyin Davis (2013)
Reddit user okhan3 commented that Inside Llewyn Davis is "one of my new favorites." Though loosely based on folk singer Dave Van Ronk, Llewyn Davis is a fictitious character who is part of the real New York folk scene in the early 1960s. Oscar Isaac's performance makes Llewyn one of the best and most tragic Coen brothers' characters.
Inside Llewyn Davis does a great job of capturing the changing musical scene from the '60s as a reflection of Llewyin's troubled past, which includes struggles with money, broken hearts, and the harrowing loss of his singing partner. The character's intimate drama permeates every aspect of the film and although it's hard to believe Llewyin isn't real, it's also sad to think of the many musicians that, just like him, fell to grace in those challenging times.
Phantom Thread (2017)
The film that brought Daniel Day-Lewis out of retirement for the perfect role, Phantom Thread, is another Paul Thomas Anderson effort to find beauty in vicious people, this time with the romance that sparks between an arrogant, yet extremely talented British dressmaker and a young muse he met by chance. Attentive to detail and character psychology, PTA delivers a film in which every character looks too real to be true.
Redditor 1_yard_dash named Phantom Thread as their choice of a fictitious film that feels like a biopic. The film accomplishes the impossible task of portraying a toxic relationship as a charming love story, leaving plenty of room for interpretation, and of course, misinterpretation. The movie argument relies on the concept of how each person loves in their own way, which enables intricate romances that might as well cross moral barriers.
Rocky (1976)
CanadianCultureKings wrote, "Rocky 1976 really felt like a biopic to an extent." The first movie of a successful franchise follows a minor-league boxer chosen by chance to face the world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed.
Rocky is the kind of movie that isn't scared of hiding its traditional American values, resulting in a brutal depiction of a legend embracing his fate and rising to the top from the zero. Rocky looks like a biopic because it reflects all the ambitions of a true dreamer, offering a message of hope to those who still don't know that a sweaty, focused journey of self-discovery is much more rewarding than a single end result.
Tár (2022)
Tár tells the story of the world's greatest living conductor, a strong-willed (and fictitious) woman named Lydia Tár, and how the praise around her talent isn't enough to keep her away from scandal. Clueless_Reddit_User claims, "All the media I had read lead me to believe this was a true story."
Beyond offering the performance of Cate Blanchett's career, Tár is also one of the few accurate portrayals of "cancel culture" so far, truly committing to the popular "art vs. artist" debate without leaning to either side.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)
Maybe, just maybe, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story feels like a biopic because the creators, as well as Al himself, were fully committed to making fun of every biopic ever made. The film is an over-the-top portrayal of famous parody artist "Weird" Al Yankovic, exaggerating pretty much every aspect of his life.
As FreederedPower points out, "It’s not really 100% fictional," and Yankovic does exist, but it takes the "Wait, is this really real?" question to hilarious extremes, challenging viewers to discern what's real and what's not while making fun of every single overused trope in biopic movies.