How True Are 'American Hustle' and 'Wolf of Wall Street?' The Real Stories Behind This Year's Oscar Nominees

The film is based on Northup’s memoir, published in 1853. Besides using the numerical 12, the movie version made a few other changes, though nothing that affects the story greatly. In Time’s comparison of the film and book, they found that the slave who died on the ship that took Northup the South actually died of smallpox, and wasn’t murdered as in the film.

Additionally, there is no mention of Mary Epps beating Patsey out of jealousy or of the sexual encounter Northup has with a slave early in the film. Other small changes include leaving out the facial scarring Northup developed from smallbox, and portraying him with two children instead of three.

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David O. Russell’s film turns some of Hollywood’s biggest stars into 1970s con artists. Christian Bale and Amy Adams play Irving Rosenfeld and Sydney Prosser, who run a fake loan business and deal counterfeit art. Bradley Cooper is the FBI agent who catches them and has them help him bring down Jeremy Renner’s well-intentioned local politician in an operation called Abscam. Jennifer Lawrence steals scenes as Rosenfeld’s unpredictable wife Rosalyn.

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Though American Hustle is considered an Original Screenplay, The Sting Man is now listed as “the true story behind the film American Hustle.” There are many differences between the film and book, and real Abscam operation general, beginning with the basics: the character names and ages. There are some common traits between the real life people and movie characters, but names were changed, everyone became younger, and some simply served as inspiration.

As for the details: The real Abscam took down more than just one mayor, and that mayor received a harsher sentence than Renner’s character. The real “Irving” and “Rosalyn” stayed married for longer than portrayed in the film, since Rosalyn never found out about his affair, and was found dead shortly after discussing her husband with the press, apparently of suicide. And while “Irving” did marry his mistress, she was not involved in Abscam and the two later divorced.

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Tom Hanks stars as the titular Captain in the story of Somalian pirates holding an American container ship for ransom in 2009. In the film, four pirates overtake the ship and eventually hold Phillips hostage on a lifeboat before their leader is tricked into boarding a U.S. Navy ship and the remaining three pirates are killed by Navy SEALs.

The film is nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for newcomer Barkhad Abdi.

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Like 12 Years A Slave, Captain Philips is based by a book written by the person at the center of the story. Phillips wrote A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea in 2010. There has been some controversy surrounding the film’s adaptation. Most notably, an anonymous member of the ship’s crew told the New York Post that the movie made Phillips seem more heroic than he actually was. Director Paul Greengrass, however, maintains that the film is an accurate account, though some details were not included.

As for specific differences, Time found that the crew did not actually leave broken glass on the ground to injure a pirate and, instead, one crew member attacked an unarmed pirate with a knife. And though later in the film, the pirates consider killing Phillips in a panic, they actually had a specific plan to kill him and left him tied up in the lifeboat for days.

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Another period piece, Dallas Buyers Club is set in 1985, amidst the rise of the AIDS epidemic. It stars Matthew McConaughey as Ron Woodroof, a homophobic cowboy who, after being diagnosed with AIDS, starts a club that provides AIDS patients with a Mexican medication unapproved in the United States. He is aided by Jared Leto’s Rayon, a transgender woman who helps bring people into the club. Jennifer Garner also stars as a doctor who directs AIDS patients to the club despite their being involved in a separate trial of an apparently dangerous drug.

Dallas Buyers Club is nominated for six Oscars, including Best Actor for Matthew McConaugney and Best Supporting Actor for Jared Leto, two likely wins.

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Unlike the other Best Picture nominees, Dallas Buyers Club isn’t based on a book, but on the life of its main character. Screenwriter Craig Borten interviewed Woodroof before his death in 1992, and continued with more research into his life and the Buyer’s Club he created.

The film gets most of the details of Woodroof’s life correct, though he was not actually a cowboy — just a fan of rodeos — and had a daughter not portrayed in the film. It is the other characters that are fictional. Both Leto’s Rayon and Garner’s Dr. Saks did not actually exist, and instead are based on multiple doctors and transgender AIDS patients that Borten interviewed.

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One of this year’s Oscar underdogs, Philomena stars Judi Dench as Philomena Lee, a woman who is searching for the son she was forced to give up for adoption, and Steve Coogan as journalist Martin Sixsmith, who helps her and plans to write a story about her journey. In the movie, Philomena gave birth as a teenager and was sent with her son Anthony to a convent, where nuns gave him up for adoption.

Her search for Anthony leads her to America, where she discovers Anthony’s name was changed to Michael, and he died of AIDS nine years earlier. She eventually is able to meet his partner Martin, who tells her that Michael was searching for her as well, and buried at the same convent where he was born. The film is also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score, and Judi Dench has a Best Actress nomination.

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This is the real Philomena Lee, who has publicly defended the film after a reviewer called it an attack on Catholicism and said in an interview with the LA TImes that she felt the film accurately told her story. Sixsmith’s book gives more of a focus to Michael’s story, while the film centers on Philomena, but there are only few very small differences between the real story and its adaptation.

One is Sister Hildegarde, who had actually died before Philomena returned to the convent with Sixsmith, but in the film is there and essentially serves as the villain. The real nuns of the Order shown in the film have protested it as misleading, and claim that they never accepted money for adoptions or destroyed any records.

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Much of Martin Scorsese’s latest film seems too extreme to be true, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker who used a variety of illegal and immoral methods to become insanely wealthy and fuel his extravagant lifestyle and drug habit. In the movie, Belfort goes from a small penny stock boiler room to an enormous Wall Street office to house arrest and, eventually, prison. Along the way, he divorces his first wife, marries another, has two children, sinks a Yacht, gets his wife’s British aunt to hide his money in a Swiss bank account, has sex with a lot of hookers and takes a ton of drugs.

The three-hour film has five Oscar nominations, including DiCaprio’s third Best Actor nomination.

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The film is based on the real Belfort’s memoir and as crazy as it seems, most of what you see actually happened. A few names were changed, including Jonah Hill’s character Donnie Azoff, who was actually based on Danny Porush, Belfort’s first wife was named Denise, not Theresa, and his second was named Nadine, not Naomi. Belfort really used “pump and dump” schemes, his company took Steve Madden public, his wife’s family helped him hide his money, he loved hookers and Quaaludes, he sunk a Yacht, and made a deal with the FBI in exchange for a reduced prison sentence.

Apparently, some of the film’s lines even come straight from Belfort’s book, so as long as he told his own story accurately, the film is almost entirely true. Even the famous nursery scene is in the book, as well as the disturbing physical fight between Belfort and his wife when she tells him she wants a divorce.

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