True Stories
True Stories are those based (sometimes loosely!) on fact. They cover topics as diverse as drug addiction, poverty, political unrest, the corruption of power, alcoholism, class divisions, sexual inequality, mental illness and other human struggles. Meet some of history's most intriguing characters, find out what it's really like to climb a mountain or paint a masterpiece. Truly, the True Story is one of cinema's most engaging and enthralling genres.
Bio-pics feature in this section and are also gathered together separately under the 'Biography' sublink left.
Pictured: Inside the Las Vegas mob, Scorsese's unromantic 'Goodfellas'
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot (2004)
Director: Gillies MacKinnon
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Richard Coyle, Tim McInnerny, Michael Fassbender, Kevin McKidd,...
Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting) leads a prestigious cast in this lavish BBC production from Award-winning writer Jimmy McGovern. Set against the brutal... Read more
Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)
8.1/10
Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Starring: Jason Alexander, Joan Allen, Richard Gere, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Erick Avari, Sa...
Richard Gere stars as Professor Parker Wilson, a distinguished scholar who discovers a lost Akita puppy on his way home from work. Despite initial obj... Read more
Haemoo ( Sea Fog ) (2014)
6.9/10
Director: Sung-bo Shim
Starring: Yun-seok Kim, Yoo-chun Park, Ye-rin Han
Down on their luck, a commercial fishing vessel takes on a cargo of thirty illegal immigrants and attempts to smuggle them from China to Korea. Howeve... Read more
Hannah Arendt (2012)
7.1/10
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Starring: Barbara Sukowa, Janet McTeer, Ulrich Noethen, Julia Jentsch, Axel Milberg, Micha...
The sublime Barbara Sukowa stars in this biopic of the influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist. Hannah Arendt's reporting on the... Read more
Harlan County War (2000)
6.5/10
Director: Tony Bill
Starring: Holly Hunter, Stellan Skarsgard, Ted Levine, Wayne Robson
Based around the 1974 Kentucky miners strike, Holly Hunter stars as the wife and daughter of coal miners who became victims of the poor conditions at... Read more
Hatfields and McCoys (2012)
4/10
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Starring: Bill Paxton, Jena Malone, Kevin Costner, Mare Winningham, Powers Boothe, Tom Ber...
Bonded by their oath to the same flag, two confederate soldiers, "Devil" Anse Hatfield (Kevin Costner) and Randall McCoy (Bill Paxton), return home se... Read more
Haute Cuisine (2012)
6.4/10
Director: Christian Vincent
Starring: Hippolyte Girardot, Catherine Frot, Jean d'Ormesson
French comedy drama based on the extraordinary true story of President Francois Mitterand's private cook. Hortense Laborie, a renowned chef from the... Read more
Haven (2001)
6.3/10
Director: John Gray
Starring: Natasha Richardson, Colm Feore, Henry Czerny, Sheila McCarthy, Sebastian Roche,...
The stirring true story of Ruth Gruber (Natasha Richardson), an American journalist who volunteered for a treacherous wartime mission - escorting near... Read more
Hawking (2004)
7.6/10
Director: Philip Martin
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Lisa Dillon, John Sessions, Michael Brandon, Peter Firth
A BBC drama based on events from the life of Stephen Hawking. At the end of January 1963, 21-year-old Stephen Hawking (Benedict Cumberbatch), a young... Read more
Heaven and Earth (1993)
7.1/10
Director: Oliver Stone
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Hiep Thi Le, Joan Chen
The third film in director Stone's Vietnam trilogy (following "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July"), based on the true-life perils of a Vietname... Read more