8 True Stories that could be Oscar-Winning Films
Updated: Mar 16, 2021
There is nothing that Hollywood loves more than the words "based on a true story". A sure-fire way to get that sought after Oscar is to make an inspiring biopic or an epic war film, to the point that the awards season may often feel like it's being sponsored by the History Channel. Here are eight films about true events in history that one day might end up on the Academy Award winners list.
ONA JUDGE: THE SLAVE WHO ESCAPED GEORGE WASHINGTON
It's 1796. A young slave girl named Ona Judge has just escaped from the shackles of her masters and fled into the night. With the help of an underground network, she hopes to reach freedom, but if she is caught, she will be returned to her owner. Ona would rather die than become a slave again. She would rather die than ever go back to Mount Vernon. But how far can she run from her owner… the president of the United States of America, George Washington!
Has this piqued your interest? It is well known that George Washington was a slave owner, but the majority of Americans like to claim that he might not have been as horrible as the majority of slave owners were. The story of Ona Judge says otherwise. Reported in 2017 in Erica Armstrong Dunbar's biography Never Caught, the story of Ona Judge’s escape, exposed that Washington was as cruel as any other slave owner. He would chase Judge to the ends of the world to get his so-called property back.
From a Hollywood perspective, this story has everything. Not only does it show everyone Washington's often ignored dark side, but it also ties in with the current state of making the oppressed share their own stories of history. The book has already been optioned, but no movie yet, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Whom I would hire to Write, Director and Star in the film:
Genre
Drama / Thriller
Screenplay
Robin Swicord (When They See Us, Little Women [1994], The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Director
Ava DuVernay (Selma, When They See Us)
Ona Judge
Zendaya (Euphoria [Emmy Win], Dune [Yet to be released], Malcolm & Marie)
THE LIFE OF TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE
The most important leader you've never heard of is Toussaint L'Ouverture. A former slave turned general, he liberated Haiti from France in history's only successful slave rebellion. For years, his life story has been crying out for a Hollywood movie. A two-part TV movie aired in France in 2012, even though Danny Glover spent the majority of the 2000s attempting to get an English version made, L'Ouverture's story is still yet to be seen in Hollywood.
L'Ouverture's story reads like a cross between 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). A slave born in the French colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti), he spent his first 50 years of his life in shackles, before entering the Haitian revolution as a doctor. He climbed through the ranks until he led the largest army of ex-slaves in Haiti. After overcoming the French in a bloody war, he sought to create a nation in which freed slaves, white people, and mixed-race citizens could all exist side by side, but sadly, before he could fulfil his dream, he was betrayed by his generals. The life story of this slave turned army general has the potential to be an Oscar winner.
Whom I would hire to Write, Director and Star in the film:
Genre
Drama
Screenplay / Director
Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Creed, Fruitvale Station)
Toussaint L'Ouverture
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight [Oscar Win], Green Book [Oscar Win], True Detective)
HITLER'S TITANIC MOVIE
Over 50 years before James Cameron made one of the most successful films in history in terms of box office and awards in the now-iconic Titanic (1997), Nazi Germany tried to make a film about the same event. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany, was concerned about their ability to produce propaganda films. His many different versions of All Jews Are Evil failed to achieve any momentum. So, the Nazi Minister opted to gamble it all on the greatest blockbuster in the history of Germany and world cinema. A depiction of the Titanic disaster, however, became a real-life disaster movie instead.
A drunken egomaniac named Herbert Selpin was hired as the film's director by Goebbels. Selpin proceeded, almost instantly, to make demands beyond the ridiculous. He demanded a scale-sized model of the Titanic constructed for his crew to sink. With Adolf Hitler backing him, he could get everything he wanted. He even began seizing Nazi naval units to serve as extras, despite being two years into World War II. The writer, Walter Zerlett-Olfenius, hired to pen the script, was such a fanatical Nazi war hero that his script was so extreme that it could be read like a parody. The film turned out to be so ludicrous and crazy that Goebbels (a Nazi) refused to release it.
It's easy to imagine a brilliant, quirky Hollywood comedy, like Hail Caesar (2016), The Death of Stalin (2017) and The Producers (1967 & 2005), being made from this bizarre story! But with deeper undertones. The third act of the film would have to be much more somber than the earlier parts of the film. Selpin was eventually murdered by the SS, while the set of the Titanic was made into a concentration camp. There's no escaping darkness in any story about the Nazis.
Whom I would hire to Write, Director and Star in the film:
Genre
Comedy / Drama
Screenplay / Director
Adam McKay (The Big Short [Oscar Win], Vice, The Other Guys)
Joseph Goebbels
Jeremy Strong (The Big Short, Succession [Emmy Win], The Gentlemen)
Herbert Selpin
Bill Murray (Lost in Translation, Ghostbusters, Rushmore)
Walter Zerlett-Olfenius
Christian Bale (The Fighter [Oscar Win], Vice, American Hustle)
Hollywood's First Scandal
For modern cinemagoers, true crime films are all the rage. Imagine a true-crime movie in which the audience slowly finds out that there was no crime or was there? This is the story of the demise of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, the biggest silent movie star at the time. A comic that was the mentor of Charlie Chaplin and the one who discovered Buster Keaton. While at a party in 1921, Arbuckle was accused of sexually assaulting a young up and coming model and actress, Virginia Rappe. The actress would die days after the party due to peritonitis, caused by a ruptured bladder. At the party, guests ran into one of the hotel rooms after hearing the screams of a woman. Once they got into the room, they found Arbuckle and Rappe in the room with Rappe on the bed. Arbuckle would always recount that he went into the room to use the bathroom, but he found Rappe on the floor, too drunk to move, so he helped her onto the bed. When the guests ran into the room to aid the woman screaming, Rappe would utter the words that would damn Arbuckle in the eyes of the media, "He did this to me". While her death was most likely an accident, it did not stop the media and public from blaming Arbuckle. Many theorized that the ruptured bladder was caused by Arbuckle when he sexually assaulted her.
The media at the time created a lynch mob around Arbuckle that had the whole of America thinking he was guilty. Wild speculation swirled about the death. All the rumours the newspapers published were never fact-checked, they published what they wanted and what they thought would sell paper. The fact that alcohol was drunk at the party was used to make sweeping assumptions regarding the character of Arbuckle, and the name of Arbuckle was dragged through the mud. The actor was tried three times. The first two cases ended in hung juries and the last ended in a not guilty verdict, but his career never recovered. However, he almost had a career comeback in 1933 when Warner Bros offered him a feature-film contract. The night he signed the contract, he died from a heart attack. Since we live in a social media trial era, the story of Fatty Arbuckle may be seen as the original cancel culture scenario.
Whom I would hire to Write, Director and Star in the film:
Genre
Drama / Crime / Mystery
Screenplay
Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List [Oscar Win], Moneyball, The Irishman)
Director
David Fincher (The Social Network, Seven, Mindhunter)
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
Jonah Hill (Moneyball, The Wolf of Wall Street, Superbad)
Civil Rights and Comedy
Imagine a film based on one of the most historic TV shows, Amos 'n' Andy and the black community's battle within itself over the programme. It is 1951. CBS agrees to bring Amos 'n' Andy from being a radio show to a TV show. The four lead roles are all given to four veterans of the Chitlin Circuit (Alvin Childress, Spencer Williams, Tim Moore, Ernestine Wade). The four of them have spent their whole lives on the side-lines; they now have a chance for a golden ticket to fame and fortune. The comedy based on the taxicab company of four black men was wildly popular with its comedy situations and characters for both white and black Americans, but the successful comedy would convey black stereotypes, causing some of the black community to fight against the show. They became entangled in the riptides of history at the very moment of the four men's greatest triumph.
Officials at major civil rights groups, especially the NAACP, agreed that Amos 'n' Andy must be stopped no matter how funny they might think it is in private. The executive at CBS, the genuine Sig Mickelson, attempted to bargain with the likes of the NAACP Executive Secretary, Walter Francis White. Many absurd ideas were suggested to "fix" the show for all parties. Ideas included: What if the actors gathered around a table, at the end, and bantered with each other in proper English? What if a clever one-minute jingle promoting "good intergroup relations" accompanied the broadcast? In the wake of the controversy, the programme was cancelled after two seasons. After its cancellation, reruns remained being broadcast for many years, but sadly, most of the lead cast after the shows ended never saw their careers take off. Instead of the customary civil rights story of good versus evil, it would be a clash of two goods. In this situation, a victory also means a defeat. It's a story about the birth of black modern comedy.
Picture it: the film takes place in the office of Sig Mickelson at CBS, where he is having a meeting with Walter Francis White and the four leads of the show. The meeting is taking place to try to sort out a way to "fix" the show, why it needs to be fixed and what will happen if it is not fixed. The story can include flashbacks, but the majority of the film will take place in a single room and a single conversation between these six people in the room looking to come to a solution.
Whom I would hire to Write, Director and Star in the film:
Genre
Comedy / Drama
Screenplay / Director
Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, BlacKkKlansman [Oscar Win], Malcolm X)
Alvin Childress
Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls, Dolemite Is My Name, The Nutty Professor)
Spencer Williams
Delroy Lindo (Get Shorty, Da 5 Bloods, Malcolm X)
Tim Moore
Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, The Hateful Eight)
Ernestine Wade
Viola Davis (Fences [Oscar Win], The Help, Doubt)
Walter Francis White
Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour [Oscar Win], Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Dark Knight)
Sig Mickelson
Michael Keaton (Birdman, Spotlight, Beetlejuice)
The Uranium Thief
David Dale was an easily agitated man with a money-loving wife who liked the high life, a luxury Dale could not afford. Dale was working as a subcontractor at the General Electric plant in Wilmington, North Carolina and, in January of 1979, he decided to take advantage of his job to help him and his wife reach the high life they both wanted. He would steal 150 pounds of uranium. Three days after the theft, the plant manager received a letter. A small vial of uranium was enclosed in the letter and a threat stating that they would give bits of uranium to every anti-nuclear activist organisation around the world, to reignite the no-nukes campaign, and to shut down the facility. The only way to stop them from doing this was to pay them £100,000. Dale was caught a few days after sending this letter, convicted, and sentenced to serve fifteen years in prison. This story could very easily be made in the same vein as Fargo (1996) and In Bruges (2008), a witless nitwit first-time criminal attempts to pull off the perfect crime.
Whom I would hire to Write, Director and Star in the film:
Genre
Crime / Comedy / Drama
Screenplay / Director
Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Seven Psychopaths)
David Dale
Pete Davidson (The King of Staten Island, Big Time Adolescence, Saturday Night Live)
Melinda Dale
Florence Pugh (Little Women, Lady Macbeth, Midsommar)
FBI Agent
Ryan Gosling (The Nice Guys, La La Land, Blade Runner 2049)
ATTACK ON ITTER
There are remarkable war stories in every war, and then there's what happened in 1945 at Itter Castle, Austria. Itter had been a Nazi prison for French VIPs during the final days of World War II. The prison even held two former prime ministers. Itter's guards fled when Berlin fell, leaving the prisoners at the hands of the fanatical SS soldiers, who were making their way to the prison as they crossed Austria desperate to murder as many non-Nazis as possible before the end of the war. The inmates of Itter, frightened for their lives, managed to send out two letters for help… One letter reached a group of American soldiers getting ready to leave Austria and the other letter managed to get to a bunch of tired Nazi German soldiers, who decided to surrender instead of trying to fight under a dying Nazi empire. The ragtag group joined together to defend Itter from the incoming SS soldiers.
Not surprisingly, this is the only documented case in World War II of German and American troops fighting side by side. The group of American and German troops were led by 1st Lt. John C. "Jack" Lee Jr.. Both groups were desperate to make sure their men would not become the last casualties of the war. The American and German soldiers, with the help of the French who were imprisoned, managed to defend the prison against the SS assault that lasted 24 hours. This certainly has the story to become an instant war classic if done right.
Whom I would hire to Write, Director and Star in the film:
Genre
Drama / War
Screenplay
Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water, Sicario, Wind River)
Director
Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, Sicario)
John C. "Jack" Lee Jr
Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler, Prisoners, End of Watch)
The Woman Who Lived in The Closet
Imagine for a second that you live alone, but one day you start to notice food is disappearing and items are moving from where you left them, seemingly on their own. That's what happened to one Japanese man. He installed motion-sensing safety cameras in his home to investigate, and an alarm would notify his phone when the motion sensing was set off. One day, whilst at work, he got an alert and he then processed to watch the footage from his home where he saw a gaunt-looking woman strolling around his house. He believed it was a burglar, so he called the police and once the police got there, they could not find anyone in the house and were especially confused when they found all the doors and windows locked. They then heard a noise come from a tiny space at the top of his closet. They opened it to find a woman hiding in it. The woman had been living there for over a year without the man noticing. Surely this story has the potential to be one of the best modern-day horrors. Changing the story for dramatic purposes could be useful here. Instead of a house in a suburban neighbourhood, changing the location to a more secluded area could add to the horror.
Picture it: A man is enjoying his holiday on his yacht, but after a storm, his yacht's electricity and power is out, leaving him stranded on his yacht in the middle of the ocean. He slowly begins to notice food is going missing and certain items are being moved, but surely there is no chance anyone could be on the yacht with him as he left the port alone, and he is stuck in the sea. He has to investigate to find if someone is really on the boat or if he is slowly losing his mind.
Whom I would hire to Write, Director and Star in the film:
Genre
Horror / Thriller / Drama
Screenplay
Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse, The Witch) / Max Eggers (The Lighthouse)
Director
Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse, The Witch)
Man
John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman, Tenet, Malcolm & Marie)
Hiding Woman:
Karen Fukuhara (The Boys, Sucide Squad)
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