I see these, but are they true?

when a movie is "based on a true story" it can mean a wide range of things...For example Amityville Horror both the book and the first film, were "based on true events" and actually werent. Which ppl didnt find out until yrs later..Blair Witch Project (again the first one) was supposed to be "true" but it was actually a brilliant marketing plan and had no truth to it at all. The movie Monster is "based on a true story", about serial killer Ailean Wornos...and actually IS true..Same with Hotel Rwanda, Pursuit of Happyness, Gia, Soldier's Girl, Freedom Writers, Boys Dont Cry, Martian Child and the list goes on. THEN you have movies that are loosely based on or better yet "inspired by" true stories or ppl but they dont tell you that. Instead they market them as true..Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on the real life person Ed Gein and some of the things he did

I think that when it says that it is based on true facts although the writer may put some artistic justice into it. They could go away from a lot of the truth but, the truth will be in there somewhere.

It depends on the wording. Sometimes they'll fess up and say, "Inspired by a True Story", which means they initially thought of the idea because of a true story, but it's based on nothing. Personally, I don't watch a whole lot of true story/true events films and I'm not particularly interested unless it's a subject that I'm already interested in. (For instance... there's a movie coming out in one week called "Soul Surfer" based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a young girl who loved surfing and lost her arm in a shark attack but managed to get back on the board and start surfing again. I read Bethany Hamilton's book about her story and I'm actually really excited about the movie... so I'll probably go see it opening weekend.) But I would prefer that if they say they're based on a true story, then they just plain be based on a true story. They'll probably do a few things to make it more dramatic, but they always do that kind of stuff. What movie are you saying you went somewhere and found out it wasn't true?

The word "based" says all of it. It doesn´t say it IS a real story. The director, or whoever makes the script, can twist a story or change it in any way he likes to pursue his ends. Most murder stories based on true events have to be changed because movie makers have to turn a sordid story into something worth seeing. The same thing happens with other kinds of movies.

Well, movies are gonna be movies. Any director can slap on a "based on a true story" on it. I mean I remember watching paranormal activity and thinking it was real, because it was a documentary. Little did I know this movies were something called "Mockumentaries." Not real. So, you could be right.