When adapting fact-based stories for the screen, you may find that your main characters are difficult, divisive, or […]
Category Archive: Articles & Analysis
Steve Coogan stars in this tale of how a rescued penguin helped to transform the lives of students […]
The recent Bob Dylan biopic provides a good example of how you can shape historical events into a […]
The addition of a real-life historical figure can elevate a fictional narrative, whatever the genre. So, here, we […]
The early career of Bob Dylan is the subject of this impressive biopic, which departs from the traditional […]
Saturday Night takes us back to October 1975 and the 90 frenetic minutes leading up to the first […]
Our series on key names, genres, and movements to know about in fact-based film and television moves on […]
One of the challenges of writing the historical film is that the story is… well historical. This raises […]
Jeff Nichols’ visceral crime drama benefits from some strong performances but takes us on an emotionally unsatisfying ride […]
While its main narrative is fictional, Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 feature blends fiction with fact to entertaining and somewhat […]
To tie-in with the recent controversies surrounding The Apprentice (2024), we take a look at some other fact-based […]
An ambitious TV news booker attempts to secure an interview for BBC’s Newsnight show with Prince Andrew to […]
When it comes to a fact-based film, placing the narrative into its historical context is as important as […]
To mark the release of the zany Unfrosted (2024) here’s a quick run-down of a few films which […]
The real-life rivalry between two leading cereal-makers in the 1960s leads to a poptastic breakfast creation in this […]
Our series on key names, genres, and movements to know about in fact-based film and television moves on […]
If you plan to tell a screen story inspired by real-life events, the facts of which are in […]
The screenplay for the James Mangold-directed racing film Ford v Ferrari (aka Le Mans ’66) is a great […]
In 1972, Brooklyn schoolteacher turned Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman to run for president in […]
Our series on key names, genres, and movements to know about in fact-based film and television moves on offer […]
A “cursed” family of well-known wrestlers is the subject of this biographical drama, which, while largely impressive, suffers […]
The life and marriage of renowned composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein is the subject of this stylised “biopic”, […]
To mark the recent release of Bradley Cooper’s Maestro (2023), which focuses on the life of Leonard Bernstein, […]
Mother Nature is the foe in this inspiring sports biopic, in which retired open water swimmer Diana Nyad […]
Who says exposition is boring and hard to weave into a script? In The Trial of the Chicago […]
Even before its release, this fictionalised account of the real-life discovery of Richard III’s remains under a car […]
While it’s based on compelling historical material, Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher offers a good example of […]
A clearly defined midpoint can help to propel your story through the long Act Two, raising the stakes […]
Overblown, gimmicky, stylised – and utterly mesmerising. Baz Luhrmann harnesses the visual power of cinema to take us […]
The recent release of Baz Luhrmann’s much anticipated Elvis (2022) offers the chance to take a closer look […]
In office from 1969 to 1974, US President Richard Nixon has been portrayed in various films and documentaries, […]
The troubled life of WWI soldier and acclaimed poet Siegfried Sassoon is the subject of Terence Davies’ affecting […]
When is the flashback more than just a flashback? When it’s the B-story! The use of structural flashback […]
The second part of our analysis focuses on the opening to Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi’s sprawling Las […]
In this analysis, we take a closer look at how Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi’s Las Vegas-set crime […]
An unlikely art heist carried out in the name of social justice in 1960s Britain is the subject […]
We’ve all seen films that have an agenda woven through the narrative. When done well, these ‘social issues’ […]
We’ve chosen a scene from Serpico that highlights how an alternative point-of-view and protagonist weakness can be incorporated into the […]
Voice-over is an often criticised screenwriting tool, but Milk highlights how it can be effectively employed to enhance a biopic […]
Having more than one protagonist can be problematic, but it can also offer rich opportunities to develop several […]
In the investigative biopic narrative, it is the protagonist and her development that drive the story… Even though […]
This dramatization of the investigation into the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation programme provides a good example of […]
The troubled final years in the life of artist Vincent van Gogh are the subject of this intimate […]
The first 10 pages of any screenplay are important, as they set the scene, introduce the main characters […]
A tenacious environmental lawyer comes up against the might of a multinational chemical firm when he investigates potential […]
Melissa Leo takes on the role of feisty Madelyn Murray O’Hair, founder of the controversial group American Atheists, […]
The fictionalised account of the birth of social media platform Facebook provides an opportunity to look at how […]
Meryl Streep leads a stellar cast in Steven Soderbergh’s quirky but uneven journey to the dark heart of […]
The fictionalised account of Brian Clough’s turbulent and short-lived time as manager of Leeds United soccer club provides […]
Henry Fonda is wrongly accused of armed robbery in this interesting fact-based entry in the filmography of the […]
Renée Zellweger turns in an Academy Award-winning performance as troubled entertainer Judy Garland, who arrived in London in […]
In this analysis, we break down the first 30 pages of Spotlight, which tells the story of how […]
Following a severe head injury, a horse trainer and rodeo rider struggles to comes to terms with the […]
Clint Eastwood directs and takes the lead role in this tale of a fun-loving elderly man who falls […]
In this analysis, we break down the story structure of the first act of this 1950s-set tale of […]
Is torture permissible when national security is at stake? This was the question facing the US in the […]
Martin Scorsese takes a different approach to familiar territory with this epic tale of Mob hitman Frank Sheeran, […]
There’s no doubt that technology has transformed the film industry, making the impossible possible and giving filmmakers the […]
One of the main issues of interest when discussing the fact-based film is the extent to which the […]
Ahead of the much-anticipated release of The Irishman (2019), in which Pacino plays Jimmy Hoffa, we’ve expanded our […]
The troubled life of controversial US comedian Lenny Bruce is unravelled in Bob Fosse’s stark biopic… Director: Bob […]
In this analysis, we break down the narrative structure of Moneyball, the Oscar-nominated story of how a baseball […]
Robert Redford stars as an elderly gent who likes to rob banks in this low-key crime film based […]
One of the factors that lifts a sports film from good to great is that the audience doesn’t […]
The pantheon of boxing movies gets a (kind of) new entry with a look at the life of […]
Ryan Gosling takes one small step for man as he dons the spacesuit to star in a biopic […]
For his 33rd film behind the camera, the legendary Clint Eastwood focuses on the seemingly unlikely world of […]
Love & Mercy is a different kind of music biopic, which chronicles the struggles of Beach Boy, Brian […]
The Butler certainly feels like an important film. Based (loosely) on the life of Eugene Allen, the story […]
Celebrated comedy duo Laurel and Hardy get the biopic treatment in this interesting and affectionate look at their […]
This series of articles takes a film based on real-life events and analyses the opening section, following the […]
Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks fight for the freedom of the press in Steven Spielberg’s intelligent and classy telling […]
The historical film is a tricky beast to tame. However, the filmmakers approach the story, there’ll always be […]
The final article in the series on the screenwriter’s role explores a few issues around the idea of […]
Studying successful screenplays and films is a key part of learning how to write them yourself! In this […]
A real whale of a tale! Ron Howard directs and Chris Hemsworth stars in this true story that […]
The Killing Fields is an Oscar-winning fictionalisation of the experiences of two journalists working in war-torn 1970s Cambodia… Director: Roland Joffé […]
The second article in our short series on the screenwriter’s role, looks at how employing journalistic skills can […]
This critical and commercial hit focusses on the lead-up to the 2005 financial crisis and the Wall Street […]
It’s 1957, the height of the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union. Each side is paranoid […]
The first article in our short series on screenwriter’s roles, looks at how the function of the ‘history film’ […]
With 22 November bringing the 55th anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination, we take a look at two […]
Reds tells of John Reed, an American journalist and radical who chronicled the 1917 Russian Revolution. Director: Warren Beatty […]
We don’t go to the movies for a history lesson. So, why should makers of the fact-based film […]
In the nearly 30 years since its release, Goodfellas has been much parodied, discussed and downright adored. So, to accompany […]
In this article, we take a look at some of the elements which make Martin Scorsese’s fact-based films […]
While Martin Scorsese’s historical epic is not strictly a fact-based film due to its original narrative, it’s a […]
In the second part of our article, we take a look at researching a screenplay based on a […]
To tie in with our two-part article on the historical fact-based film, we follow George Clooney and his […]
The first part of our article on adapting history for the screen looks at some things to think […]
Alongside such cult classics as Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart and Blue Velvet, David Lynch’s filmography includes two […]
If you’re grappling with writing a fact-based film, a good exercise is to pick a classic film that […]
When adapting from any type of source material, it is accepted, and indeed required, practice to compress events, […]
While it’s been a few years since American Sniper hit the big screen and the headlines, the film offers a […]
Transforming a true-life, or fact-based, tale into a screen story is problematic for many reasons, both practical and […]