IMDb's Biography Top 50

Told from the perspective of businessman Oskar Schindler who saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his armor factory. Schindler’s list is bases on a true story and is illustrated in black and white and filmed on many original locations which brought much discussions and controversy.

Goodfellas is a mafia drama from Martin Scorsese about a gang of Irish-Americans who become fearless Mafia leaders.

The Pianist is a film adapted from the biography of Wladyslaw Szpilman. A Jewish-Polish pianist who during the second world war lived and hid miraculously in Warsaw after having gone through a terrible tragedy. A film from Roman Polanski.

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Lawrence of Arabia is the classic film from David Lean starring Peter O’Toole and based on the autobiography from Thomas Edward Lawrence who during the first World War was on assignment by the British Empire in Arabia. The film would become a cult classic and is known today as a masterpiece.

Presenting the tale of American founding father Alexander Hamilton, this filmed version of the original Broadway smash hit is the story of America then, told by America now.

Dangal is an extraordinary true story based on the life of Mahavir Singh and his two daughters, Geeta and Babita Phogat. The film traces the inspirational journey of a father who trains his daughters to become world class wrestlers.

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

A New York stockbroker refuses to cooperate in a large securities fraud case involving corruption on Wall Street, corporate banking world and mob infiltration. Based on Jordan Belfort's autobiography.

Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.

In this Oscar crowning work, director Ron Howard puts the magnified glass on mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash. With respect to Hollywood conformity the film details the life of a paranoid schizophrenic genius which caused the film much critique.

Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous facade, there is revealed a person of intelligence and sensitivity.

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

The Russian officer who befriends Dersu must bear some responsibility for the tragedy - taking Dersu to the town and the gift of the rifle significantly impact on the ending of the film.

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

Catch Me If You Can is the story of conman Frank William that transports audiences back into the 1960’s. Steven Spielberg surprised movie goers with this comedy starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to win the Congressional Medal of Honor.

American car designer Carroll Shelby and the British-born driver Ken Miles work together to battle corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominating race cars of Enzo Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.

A biography of Formula 1 champion driver Niki Lauda and the 1976 crash that almost claimed his life. Mere weeks after the accident, he got behind the wheel to challenge his rival, James Hunt.

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionis...

The true story of how The Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.

As a postulant nun, Maria leaves her Abbey to become a Governess to a retired Austrian Naval Captain and his 7 children.

A drama based on the true story of a college professor's bond with the abandoned dog he takes into his home

An emotionally self-destructive boxer's journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring, destroys his life outside it.

Inspired by true events this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990’s when more than a Million Tutsis’ were killed in a Genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

A small-time Belfast thief, Gerry Conlon, is wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing in London, along with his father and friends, and spends 15 years in prison fighting to prove his innocence.

The Passion of Joan of Arc is the masterpiece from Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer that depicts the story of French martyr Joan from Orleans seven years after her canonization from the catholic church.

The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches ou...

This gripping adaptation of the Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee play examines an issue that still causes great controversy: the role religion should play in the schools.

Handsomely-mounted historical epic concerns the birth of the Islamic faith and the story of the prophet Mohammed.

Based on a true story. After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters who shape his life.

The film based on the true stories of Christopher Gardner (played by Will Smith) as he struggles to get a job in a stock brokerage while at the same time he’s dealing with being a good father, being unemployed, and being kicked out of his home. Gardner’s son is played by Will Smith’s actual son.

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

Dog Day Afternoon is a film based on true events and directed by Sidney Lumet. The film stars Al Pacino as a robber who held a bank hostage in Brooklyn, New York.

The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexp...

A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.

After his brother, who he’d not seen for 10 years because of a falling out, had a stroke, the 73 year old Alvin Straight decided to visit him. Yet Alvin didn’t have a drivers license or a bus ticket so he decided he would drive his lawnmower 300 miles to see this brother. Based on a true story and by cult director David Lynch.

Cinderella Man is the story of a boxer in the 1920’s who after his retirement has a surprise comeback in order to get him and his family out of a socially poor state. The film is based on the true story of boxer Jim Braddock who was more famously known as Cinderella Man.

During the Japanese invasion of China, a wealthy martial artist is forced to leave his home when his city is occupied. With little means of providing for themselves, Ip Man and the remaining members of the city must find a way to survive.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a western comedy from 1969 starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, two robbers with one more job to finish. The film was biggest box-office hit of the 60’s.

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Director Richard Attenborough tells with this epic, and elaborate produced film, the story of freedom and peace fighter Gandhi, the Indian who helped give Indians their independence. The film was nominated in eleven categories at the Academy Awards, winning eight in total.

After four years of production the film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky would be banned soon after it’s release leading it to be shown only at foreign film festivals. The film is about a Russian icon painter Andrej Rubljow and the relationship of artists and their unique power.

The true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffers a stroke and has to live with an almost totally paralyzed body; only his left eye isn't paralyzed.

Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a ...

Loosely based on the true-life tale of Ron Woodroof, a drug taking, women loving, homophobic man who, in 1986 was diagnosed with full blown HIV/AIDS and given thirty days to live.

Stanley Kubrick's film Spartacus hosts top-class cast and tells the story of rebellion of the slaves in ancient Rome. The film was awarded four Oscars and stands today as one of the greatest classics of the Sword and Sandal genre.

"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.