Do you care about historical accuracy when watching a movie? (2024)

Little_Sheepling

And don't even get me started on 10,000 BC. I didn't know wether to laugh or cry at that one.

Fate_Saber88

It depends what is the target audience and what is the genre, I won't care about historical accuracy when watching something like Tropic Thunder or any comedy, but historical accuracy is important for me in war and mobster movies.

Some war and mobster movies that I praise for the historical accuracy, although it's impossible to be 100% perfect in any movie:

- Stalingrad (1993) — Perfect
- A Bridge Too Far — Some inaccuracies regarding the German command decisions and quotes but it's passable.
- Once Upon a Time in America — Depicts mobsters as what they are, despicable horrendous criminals.
- Patton — Some historical innacuracies but passable.
- Zulu — Perfect
- Das Boot — Perfect
- Tombstone 1993 — Perhaps one of the only cowboy movies that is accurate despite some inaccuracies regarding Jhonny Ringo's fate.

Some movies that I despise for historical accuracy:

- Saving Private Ryan — I know it's fiction but holy sh* they couldn't make anything accurate besides the uniforms and guns which is the basic stuff, anything from the timber posts at the beach being placed in the wrong direction to the high command ordering a group of 7 soldiers into enemy territory in order to find one man, then we got the MG42 holding fire for 10 seconds and no barrel meltdowns/changes, the action is good and I praise it for that but anything else is just garbage. ''Upham! Upham!''.

-Stalingra 2013 — Throw in the dumpster fire.

-Enemy at the Gates — I don't know where even to begin just throw in the dumpster fire.

- Donnie Brasco — A good movie but very inaccurate, firstly is that Lefty never got killed because he vouched for Donnie, I know that the movie never shows him getting killed but implies it as he removed all of his jewelry which is a sign that a mobster knows that he would get killed, also the entire Donnie Brasco thing was never all about lefty, the movie failed to explore Donnie's and Sonny Black relationship which was the focal point on his infiltration, Sonny Black had Donnie almost as a son and was the only person who got whacked because of him.

-Every Western movie ever has many inaccuracies.

Mirania

Zettaiken

If it's a movie inspired by a history than I make 2 separate opinions/ratings, first one is just the movie and putting aside history. Second is historical accuracy. As you've mentioned Gladiator II, for me it was a decent movie. Horrible historical depiction, the first movie wasn't even that close with mistakes.
If it's a doccumentary than I am full on focused on historical accuracy after all it should be a doccumentary, such as this bs netflix cleopatra... [Haven't seen cause I knew already that it is not worth the time]

I usually appreciate if the movie staff pays more attention into details, as there will be always some mistakes but it is good to see some homework been done, a good example of that is All Quiet on the Western Front, even with it's mistakes it has tried a lot to show how it was. Aswell as with Alexander from 2004 showing the battle of Gaugamela based on historical resources [even tho it still had other mistakes]. Or also I did like a lot the approach for Barbarians season 1 [Haven't seen 2nd], to make Romans speak in Latin and German tribes speaking in German.
Still waiting for a movie with more realistic approach to melee combat and how it should look like or battles as that's the most lacking. As so far outside of one Polish movie with sabre duel [forgot the name but you'll find it quickly] there are usually fanmade clips and the one anime.

Cielord

🍅 Tomato 🍅

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Feb 2020

99034

Very rarely.

PeripheralVision

There's a difference for me between Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Birth of a Nation. There is merely taking place in a time period in a given place, and then there is failing to reckon with that time period in a movie that sells itself as history while obfuscating the tragedies and omitting the atrocities.

Auroraloose's Aurorasimp

Zarutaku

Offline

Sep 2024

213

Commit_Crime

SmugSatoko

justmaya

Kwanthemaster

Vampire_Lord

GinInYourJuice

- If the director says the movie is a work of nonfiction and is historically accurate, and the movie is being promoted that way as well.

- If the director never claimed that the movie is nonfiction and/or historically accurate, but I can still tell that the movie is trying pretty hard to come across as being nonfiction and historically accurate. Depending on the content of the movie and how it comes across to me, I could care about the historical accuracy either a lot or just to some degree in this case.

Zayvex

Theo1899

philtecturophy said:
The movie really feels like torturing Wikipedia historical pages but with sound.

MEA·MENTVLA·INGENS·EST

149597871

What usually annoys me are things like dumb action sequences, continuity errors, or weird physics. Like characters surviving falls or impacts that would be 100% deadly in the real world, only to then get killed after an arrow struck their plate armor or something.