Google: 10 most historically inaccurate movies

@Richard Howard2, yeah, and pretty soon we'll be seeing lists like "10 worst actor rankings" followed by "10 worst rankings of actor rankings"...

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but we're definitely heading that way...

On the flip side, I actually dig this take on Gladiator from my favorite forum folks. It’s almost like the movie lives up to its title of being "historically inaccurate." In that sense, movies like Alexander belong in the same category. I'm not talking about little things like "the Trojans having perfectly groomed chests," but rather the whole vibe of how people actually lived and acted back then...

why isn't "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on this list?
I mean, if we're talking about an "Odyssey" vibe, shouldn't "The Day After Tomorrow" and "The Omega Man" be in there too?

honestly, what creeps me out here is just the fact that anyone even bothered making a "list" that's basically absurd to begin with.
the whole point of a movie isn't to give you a history lesson—it's just straight-up entertainment.
if this were a list of documentaries, I'd get the backlash, but as it stands... hmm

Exactly, they're historical movies, so whatever.

Mezomorph said:Sorry, Rista, but that’s just nitpicking—you're basically just overanalyzing things to mask the actual experience of watching the movie. 👎

There’s this one movie about Cleopatra—I can’t quite wrap my head around the title right now—that I remember catching on the Hallmark Channel. There’s this one specific scene where she turns to Caesar and goes, "Look, the pyramids! Nobody even knows who built them or why..."😂

I mean... where’s the logic in that? You've got this Egyptian queen—who, let's be real, is actually part of Ptolemy’s Hellenistic dynasty, so her Greek family has been running the show in Egypt for generations, surrounded by Egyptians and priests and all that—and you're telling me she’s never once heard about who built the pyramids or why? It's just wild. Honestly, doesn't that kind of stupidity totally kill the whole cinematic experience for you?

I don't know—call it nitpicking if you want, but for me, that kind of thing just completely kills the vibe of the movie. 🤷

It’s just like that series by Fazli's Vrdoljak... you know, that absolute garbage—what was it called again? The one with Goran Visnjic, about those militias fighting in the Midwest... I can't even remember the title anymore.

It’s just a total distortion of historical facts—honestly, it’s offensive to anyone with decent taste, common sense, or even a shred of basic culture. It completely ruins that specific cinematic experience you're supposed to get from a movie like this.

The Cleopatra movie is basically just a story about a guy and a girl—they just happened to dress up as Egyptians. 🙂

I get it, certain massive, glaring blunders can definitely pull you out of the experience.
Take "The Last Legion," for instance: "The film alters the capital of the Western Empire from Ravenna to Rome."
They swapped in Rome because they didn't want to confuse an audience that’s only ever heard of Rome, but personally, I would have loved if it stayed in Ravenna—just so you could sit there halfway through and think, "Wait a minute, Ravenna? Why isn't it Rome?"
But whatever, who cares after you've finished reading up on it? Historical epics aren't exactly meant to be classroom teaching tools. For Alice, it's actually nice when a movie sparks an interest in something you wouldn't have bothered looking into otherwise.

Then you've got those little errors—like Romans having saddles when they actually didn't, or whether the thumbs were up or down in the arena, or if the armor was even remotely accurate... honestly, forget it. Who's going to teach the actors how to ride without a saddle? And in the costume warehouse, the legionnaire gear is all from Caesar's era; there's nothing from the time of Commodus.

Raymond Palmer8 said:why isn't "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on this list?
I mean, if we're talking about an "Odyssey" vibe, shouldn't "The Day After Tomorrow" and "The Omega Man" be in there too?

honestly, what creeps me out here is just the fact that anyone even bothered making a "list" that's basically absurd to begin with.
the whole point of a movie isn't to give you a history lesson—it's just straight-up entertainment.
if this were a list of documentaries, I'd get the backlash, but as it stands... hmm

I truly wonder what those people—the ones who don't mind historical distortions as long as they're entertained—would say if some massive American historical epic casually depicted, say, Americans as just Catholic Mexicans whom Vatican propaganda somehow rebranded into a nation. As long as the movie is fun, right?

Or when the standards slip even further: a huge Iranian spectacle that "funly" portrays how global Jewry declared war on Germany in 1933, only to invent some pious version of the Holocaust to cash in on. All you need are expensive special effects and hot actresses... mmm, curves...

I suppose it’s perfectly acceptable to tweak history if it serves the cinematic vision. After all, a feature film isn't exactly trying to be a documentary.

Raymond Palmer8 said:why isn't "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on this list?
I mean, if we're talking about an "Odyssey" vibe, shouldn't "The Day After Tomorrow" and "The Omega Man" be in there too?

honestly, what creeps me out here is just the fact that anyone even bothered making a "list" that's basically absurd to begin with.
the whole point of a movie isn't to give you a history lesson—it's just straight-up entertainment.
if this were a list of documentaries, I'd get the backlash, but as it stands... hmm

Yeah, let's say in... 300 That's true, but *Gladiator* acts like it’s some deep masterpiece rather than just pure entertainment. Even though it did win an Oscar. 🙏 🤣

goldeneagle2, you're hitting a nerve here! 😉

I actually think the whole argument about movies being purely for entertainment and killing time is valid. Why? Because that’s exactly why I watch them myself. Whether I walk away with some profound life lesson is secondary. However, I draw the line at having things shoved down my throat when there is no reason to do so.

I don't buy the idea that we're running out of true stories capable of making a great movie. Nor do I believe we need to "tweak" essential facts just to crank up the entertainment value. That's total bullshit. It’s nothing more than a convenient excuse for lazy, incompetent filmmakers looking for an easy way out. Honestly, it feels like part of a larger trend toward mass-producing cookie-cutter cinema that insults the audience's intelligence—assuming, of course, that such intelligence still exists. If I were leaning into conspiracy theories, I’d suggest there's a systematic effort to cultivate an audience that demands less and less, eventually making the filmmaker's job completely trivial.

Fine. You get what you pay for, right? If I were a producer, I wouldn't make my own life harder by shelling out massive fees for historians, ethnologists, or archaeologists to check the facts... after all, we all know the foundation of any democracy is a kakistocracy. I rest my case! 🍿

Jerry Martin19 said:Taking a first look at this list gave me what felt like a permanent migraine, but reading Joseph Lee3 and goldeneagle2 actually helped me wrap my head around how things should be categorized. Still, nothing is getting me any closer to tackling this massive list obsession, not even Joseph Lee3 and goldeneagle2 at their absolute best...

btw, since we're talking historical facts about ancient Rome, I read somewhere that the "thumbs down" didn't actually mean death, but something else (can't recall exactly) and that it's one of those huge global myths that's been fooling modern civilization...

I can already see the quality here. It can't be bad if Milius is involved...

@Richard Howard2, even though we were going at it hard on a different thread about a week ago, I have to totally agree with you. Saying that Odyssey lacks historical accuracy is basically saying someone is sub-average. The fact that anyone put Odyssey or even 300 in this category is horrifying. The level of pure stupidity here is so extreme it swings between being pathetic and hilarious every few seconds...

Why the attitude?! 😉 These lists are great! I personally love all those intense ideas people come up with to sort movies into categories. It usually helps me focus my thoughts or crystallize an idea somewhere along the line.

True, which is exactly why I can't stand lists that try to be too "all-encompassing" and end up trivializing everything. Sure, it always feels like a list has to oversimplify things at first, but that just opens the door for a real debate. The kind of lists I can't stand are the ones claiming to be the "Top 250," "Top 100," or "26 Greatest Films Ever Made." To me, that's just pandering to the masses. 🙂

The whole thing about the palace burning was just an excuse to pull a sword out of its scabbard😁

The director of Gladiator knew that, but he didn't want to confuse the audience😛

Joseph Lee3 said:goldeneagle2, you're hitting a nerve here! 😉

I actually think the whole argument about movies being purely for entertainment and killing time is valid. Why? Because that’s exactly why I watch them myself. Whether I walk away with some profound life lesson is secondary. However, I draw the line at having things shoved down my throat when there is no reason to do so.

I don't buy the idea that we're running out of true stories capable of making a great movie. Nor do I believe we need to "tweak" essential facts just to crank up the entertainment value. That's total bullshit. It’s nothing more than a convenient excuse for lazy, incompetent filmmakers looking for an easy way out. Honestly, it feels like part of a larger trend toward mass-producing cookie-cutter cinema that insults the audience's intelligence—assuming, of course, that such intelligence still exists. If I were leaning into conspiracy theories, I’d suggest there's a systematic effort to cultivate an audience that demands less and less, eventually making the filmmaker's job completely trivial.

Fine. You get what you pay for, right? If I were a producer, I wouldn't make my own life harder by shelling out massive fees for historians, ethnologists, or archaeologists to check the facts... after all, we all know the foundation of any democracy is a kakistocracy. I rest my case! 🍿

Just a bunch of envious, ego-driven blowhards. Bravo.

HA HA HA!
Why is everyone getting so worked up over this list?
There is a simple answer: a feature film isn't intended to be a documentary, which means the director has complete artistic freedom.

Most of these movies are made primarily for profit; their main goal is to entertain audiences in the US and then everywhere else. Most directors aren't making these films for the sake of art—they're doing it for the paycheck. They just sprinkle in a few crumbs of historical accuracy here and there just to secure the funding. Truth isn't the priority; money is. Because of that "noble" pursuit of profit, a movie can include anything—whether it's distorted facts in Gladiator or the monsters in 300. But honestly, who cares? The average person doesn't.

That is why those of you who truly appreciate cinema should avoid these big commercial blockbusters. They are designed for the average American to head to the theater with a date after a long day at work, where they spend half the movie watching it and the other half just kissing in the dark. That's the whole point.

To them, all of this is just cool and fancy; they aren't looking for deep meaning or high art. Men mostly just want the action, and for women, a couple of romantic scenes are usually enough to keep everyone happy.

Joseph Lee3 said:Why the attitude?! 😉 These lists are great! I personally love all those intense ideas people come up with to sort movies into categories. It usually helps me focus my thoughts or crystallize an idea somewhere along the line.

True, which is exactly why I can't stand lists that try to be too "all-encompassing" and end up trivializing everything. Sure, it always feels like a list has to oversimplify things at first, but that just opens the door for a real debate. The kind of lists I can't stand are the ones claiming to be the "Top 250," "Top 100," or "26 Greatest Films Ever Made." To me, that's just pandering to the masses. 🙂

Yeah, agreed. You can always spark a good (or at least heated) debate from categorizing stuff like that, but when I saw Odyssey on a list like that, I thought they were trying to manipulate us with some kind of megalomaniac scale 😠

I'm always going to be aggressive toward that kind of pigeonholing 😁

Jesse Ortiz4 said:The whole thing about the palace burning was just an excuse to pull a sword out of its scabbard😁

The director of Gladiator knew that, but he didn't want to confuse the audience😛

In that case, thanks to the director for making sure people weren't already confused enough by keeping them hooked with blockbusters like Gladiator 🤮

Jerry Martin19 said:Yeah, agreed. You can always spark a good (or at least heated) debate from categorizing stuff like that, but when I saw Odyssey on a list like that, I thought they were trying to manipulate us with some kind of megalomaniac scale 😠

I'm always going to be aggressive toward that kind of pigeonholing 😁

In that case, thanks to the director for making sure people weren't already confused enough by keeping them hooked with blockbusters like Gladiator 🤮

Does it mean anything to you that "2001" is at the very end of the list?
It’s pretty obvious you haven't looked at many lists in your life...
Look, I seriously doubt the author of this list is so dim that they can't tell the difference between the past and the future.
For any normal person, it’s clear that nobody has an issue with "2001" (they probably don't have an issue with most films either, though they likely watch them with a bit of ironic distance), they just wanted to wrap up the list with a joke about how little humanity has actually progressed over the last 40 years.
You clearly didn't even catch the joke back in 2005, when George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were nominated for a Zlatan Malina for worst lead and supporting actor in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

I also see most people here commenting about how those films "weren't intended to portray history as it actually was."
Who gives a damn what the intention was?
The guy simply picked movies based on real events or real people (for some, that basis is obvious just from the title) and decided to hold them up against those actual events and people.

Also, I'm not buying the argument that artistic license serves as an excuse for these kinds of fabrications.
Even if the people behind these movies will probably never answer for these crimes, there's still such a thing as moral responsibility—to certain individuals, or even entire nations that such distortions could hurt.
I highly doubt Americans would be fine with someone twisting historical facts to depict them as a nation built on genocide. But no... that's not...

And while I can somewhat understand it when directors like Roland Emmerich (10,000 B.C.) or Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor) do it, it’s at least a little strange when respected, serious filmmakers like Ridley Scott and Oliver Stone pull the same stunt.

I find this constant urge within the public to perpetually prove—to themselves, mostly—that they are practicing some semblance of morality quite fascinating. It manifests in all sorts of ways, including this obsessive tendency to critique utterly trivialities, such as whether a feature film maintains historical accuracy.

It is quite obvious that this compulsion stems from the simple fact that true morality doesn't actually exist.

We scramble in every conceivable direction to convince ourselves that we aren't being fooled, desperately trying to ensure that media-driven narratives can't impose any sort of "false" truth upon us. We obsess over statistics, archives, historical data, a hollow version of "objectivity," rationalism, and skepticism.

This particular list of grievances is merely another symptom of the same disease, much like those endless debates over which sci-fi flick is the most scientifically accurate versus which one isn't.

And now, we see the exact same mindless pattern in these discussions. Enter the "prophets"—our supposed saviors—who arrive to reveal truths that are already painfully obvious to everyone: that movies are historically inaccurate. They lecture us on morality, adopting this critical stance to dictate how things ought to be instead of how they actually are.

In doing so, they create various flavors of absurdity. Some are banal, arguing that a movie should essentially be a documentary just to be considered legitimate as a film—be it a work of art or a consumer product. Others are more complex, suggesting that a film has a duty not to offend anyone through its inaccuracies, an idea that contradicts the very nature of almost every piece of art that has ever reshaped history.

This whole exorcism of political correctness, which serves as a convenient alibi for the world's obsessive behavior toward everything produced, is nothing more than a placebo for those of us who passively and inertly swallow whatever the media serves up on a silver platter.
Ultimately, the media itself has imposed this senseless need for validation—the very thing we take such immense pride in.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15014...naccuracy.html

I suppose this might actually be a somewhat superior article regarding those cinematic endeavors that fail miserably at historical accuracy.

Great post, wearytinker8! You laid out those arguments perfectly. 👍

Jerry Martin19, I don't see how Odyssey fits in here either; it completely misses the point of why someone would bother putting together such an overambitious list. To me, you can split these types of movies into three distinct buckets. The first is just harmless fiction—a made-up story regardless of the genre. The second involves taking actual historical figures or events and twisting them out of shape. Then there’s the third—and by far the worst kind (think Fazli's Vrdoljak or a whole bunch of cheap American productions)—where the entire purpose is blatant political propaganda.

I don't see Odyssey fitting into any of those categories. In my eyes, Odyssey is pure cinema: a tapestry of images, music, and scattered ideas. It feels totally out of place among the titles mentioned. That’s exactly why I doubt the utility of lists like this, other than giving us something to pick apart and criticize! 👍

Oh yeah, I actually caught a segment on Channel A coming from the kitchen yesterday about this exact list! Honestly, I was stunned at how much weight people are trying to give this thing. My god, a whole feature dedicated to these specific titles, but unfortunately, without a single shred of critical insight.

Joseph Lee3 said:Great post, wearytinker8! You laid out those arguments perfectly. 👍

Jerry Martin19, I don't see how Odyssey fits in here either; it completely misses the point of why someone would bother putting together such an overambitious list. To me, you can split these types of movies into three distinct buckets. The first is just harmless fiction—a made-up story regardless of the genre. The second involves taking actual historical figures or events and twisting them out of shape. Then there’s the third—and by far the worst kind (think Fazli's Vrdoljak or a whole bunch of cheap American productions)—where the entire purpose is blatant political propaganda.

I don't see Odyssey fitting into any of those categories. In my eyes, Odyssey is pure cinema: a tapestry of images, music, and scattered ideas. It feels totally out of place among the titles mentioned. That’s exactly why I doubt the utility of lists like this, other than giving us something to pick apart and criticize! 👍

Oh yeah, I actually caught a segment on Channel A coming from the kitchen yesterday about this exact list! Honestly, I was stunned at how much weight people are trying to give this thing. My god, a whole feature dedicated to these specific titles, but unfortunately, without a single shred of critical insight.

You’re looking at Odyssey through too narrow a lens. That film is primarily a modernist contemplation of utopia, a pure reflection of the zeitgeist in which it was conceived. The 1960s perspective is terrifyingly well-articulated here—ranging from the inevitable progress we would have seen had the Cold War (and the space race) continued in that specific manner, to the dangerous potential of AI (or more broadly, the risk of machines assuming responsibility for humanity), all the way to a symbolically crafted re-examination of mankind, our nature, and our place in space.

At its core, Odyssey cannot be any more authentic than it already is.

It’s no different for 300, which also captures the spirit of our era perfectly.
The same applies to all the other historically inaccurate films mentioned. They are all precisely, historically accurate. Don't let minor details or trivial formalities mislead you. Besides, these aren't mistakes; the authors didn't design these developments by accident.

It’s easy to trash-talk American culture if all you care about is some "average couple's little getaway after work." What, do you guys just hop on a jet and head straight to Radio City Music Hall the second you clock out? I mean, sure, some people probably do, but let’s not get carried away here...
American politics has definitely played its part in making the world a whole lot stupider in a bunch of different ways—no argument there—but we can't just ignore the massive perks of American show business, whether it's movies or music. We spend all our time whining about the quality or the "intentions" behind Hollywood flicks, but does anyone ever stop to ask why some indie director or producer from overseas can't seem to pull off something like Schindler's List? Oh, wait, I bet someone will jump in to tell me exactly why... and yeah, there are plenty of excuses. Part of being high-quality is actually grabbing the public's attention, especially when you're looking at the marketing side of things. Take the ending of Schindler's List, for example—historically, it's not quite right (the goodbye scene)—and the artsy types absolutely lose their minds over how "sentimental" it is. Give me a break, look at the big picture! Besides, who was it that opened the doors to Rome in the first place?