5 Movies That Are Historically Inaccurate

credit: The Woman King

Hollywood does a lot of things when it comes to one movie or another, and it doesn’t matter what type of movie it is. When it comes to historical movies one can almost count on the fact that something will be changed just to look good or give a different feel to the movie that might be desired. It’s either a desire to change things around to make them appear more cinematic or the desire to show history in a light that some folks feel is more accurate than what the history books show. It’s tough to argue with this since the truth is that Braveheart said it best when it was stated that history is written by those who have hanged heroes. But then again, there are usually heroes on any side of a conflict when discussing the beliefs of one army, one individual, or another. The fact is that history in the movies is often bound to be flawed since it has more to do with opinion and what a filmmaker wants to show the audience than the actual truth that was experienced so long ago. 

5. The Woman King

credit: The Woman King

The slave trade is a touchy subject with a lot of people since it was a horrible time in history that a lot of people want to forget. But one very troubling trend when it deals with slavery or the many different issues that racism stemmed from is that the audience never gets the whole picture or even the right picture. The history books do tell of how African tribes sold their own people to Europeans and how slavery was an all-around issue that the world has had to deal with for much longer than people often want to think about. But when it comes to relations between Africans and Europeans, and those ancestors who started this mess, the truth is that things often sway toward one direction more often than not. 

4. Gladiator

credit: Gladiator

The depiction of Commodus is one of the most glaring errors since he was a far better leader than a lot of people would want to give him credit for, and his father wasn’t murdered according to the texts that exist about this subject. The gladiator games did indeed exist, but how they were conducted is still a point of contention among historians. One thing that a lot of people would likely point out is that Maximus was likely not a real character at any point in time and that the events leading up to the fall of Rome and the discontinuation of the gladiatorial games likely had a very different origin. 

3. The Patriot

Credit The Patriot

Much like the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and how it went down is likely to be told very differently by either side that took part in it. The propaganda that went into this story is enough to make a lot of historians cringe since Benjamin Martin was based on a character that was not a nice guy and didn’t really know what justice was. It’s also fair to say that the battles weren’t nearly as accurate as they could have been, which is largely because showing this movie to Americans meant that it was going to show those who helped to build the nation in the greatest light. The truth is a lot less glamorous most times. 

2. 300

credit: 300

There should be one thing that stands out above all other elements in this movie, and that’s the minimal armor that the Spartans are wearing, thanks to Zack Snyder’s vision of how this movie should go. To be fair, the Battle of Thermopylae was a vicious engagement that took the lives of many brave soldiers on both sides. The thing is, there were a lot more than just the 300 Spartans, as their ranks were bolstered by thousands of other Greeks that joined the battle and were still overwhelmed by a much greater force. The reason for this story going down in history has more to do with the fact that an underdog stood up to a greater force and made them pay for their invasion far more than they would have otherwise. But hey, it’s an impressive story. 

1. Braveheart

credit: Braveheart

I promise I’m not picking on Mel Gibson’s movies, but the man does have a talent for showing historical figures with glaring inaccuracies in their stories. The truth, as it’s written, is that William Wallace was a Scottish noble that did stand against England, but he didn’t dress in a kilt, and he didn’t wear face paint. Whether people want to believe everything that’s written down or not, Wallace was renowned as a great warrior, but this movie kind of veered wide of the mark in a lot of ways that people might not want to believe. 

Hey, sometimes history is boring. But seriously, Hollywood, sometimes things get a little nuts.