The Best Based On True Story Movies on Prime Video

What it's about: In 2001, editor Marty Baron of The Boston Globe assigns a team of journalists to investigate allegations against John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys. Led by editor Walter "Robby" Robinson, reporters Michael Rezendes, Matt Carroll and Sacha Pfeiffer interview victims and try to unseal sensitive documents. The reporters make it their mission to provide proof of a cover-up of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: 1986 Gyunggi Province. The body of a young woman is found brutally raped and murdered. Two months later, a series of rapes and murders commences under similar circumstances. And in a country that had never known such crimes, the dark whispers about a serial murderer grow louder. A special task force is set up in the area, with two local detectives Park Doo-Man and Jo Young-Goo joined by a detective from Seoul who requested to be assigned to the case.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Viewster), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Prime Video).

What it's about: Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and grad student Emily Gardner fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family's expectations, and his true feelings.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: An aspiring actor in Hollywood meets an enigmatic stranger by the name of Tommy Wiseau, the meeting leads the actor down a path nobody could have predicted; creating the worst movie ever made.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Set in the summer of 1984 – Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is on strike. At the Gay Pride March in London, a group of gay and lesbian activists decides to raise money to support the families of the striking miners. But there is a problem. The Union seems embarrassed to receive their support.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A biopic of the writer, Truman Capote and his assignment for The New Yorker to write the non-fiction book, 'In Cold Blood'.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Hulu & Tribeca Short List), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Terry is a small-time car dealer trying to leave his shady past behind and start a family. Martine is a beautiful model from Terry's old neighbourhood who knows that Terry is no angel. When Martine proposes a foolproof plan to rob a bank, Terry recognises the danger but realises this may be the opportunity of a lifetime. As the resourceful band of thieves burrows its way into a safe-deposit vault at a Lloyds Bank, they quickly realise that, besides millions in riches, the boxes also contain secrets that implicate everyone from London's most notorious underworld gangsters to powerful government figures, and even the Royal Family. Although the heist makes headlines throughout Britain for several days, a government gag order eventually brings all reporting of the case to an immediate halt.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Gritty adaption of William Shakespeare's play about the English King's bloody conquest of France.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Vudu).

What it's about: Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Based on the autobiographical novel, the tempestuous 6-year relationship between Liberace and his (much younger) lover, Scott Thorson, is recounted.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO & Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocates them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Based on a true story: Norwegian winter, 1915. On the island Bastøy, outside Oslo, a group of young boys aged 11 to 18, are held in an institution for delinquent youth, notorious for its sadistic regime. One day a new boy, Erling, arrives, determined to escape from the island. After a tragic incident, he ends up leading the boys in a violent uprising. When the boys manage to take over the island, 150 soldiers are sent in to restore order.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

What it's about: An elderly Charlie Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor, while is depicted his amazing journey from his poverty-stricken childhood to world-wide success after the ingenious invention of the Little Tramp.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who, over many years, claimed victim to over 50 people. His victims were mostly under the age of 17. In what was then a communists state, the police investigations were hampered by bureaucracy, incompetence and those in power. The story is told from the viewpoint of the detective in charge of the case.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO & Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: The true story of Billy Moore, an English boxer incarcerated in Thailand's most notorious prison. Thrown into a world of drugs and violence, he finds his best chance to escape is to fight his way out in Muay Thai tournaments.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Henry likes to kill people, in different ways each time. Henry shares an apartment with Otis. When Otis' sister comes to stay, we see both sides of Henry: "the guy next door" and the serial killer.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Shudder) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: After her mother's death, six-year-old Frida is sent to her uncle's family to live with them in the countryside. But Frida finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki's shrewd and intelligent polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: On the rocky path to sobriety after a life-changing accident, John Callahan discovers the healing power of art, willing his injured hands into drawing hilarious, often controversial cartoons, which bring him a new lease on life.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: King George III's erratic behaviour leads to a plot in Parliament to have him declared insane and removed from the throne.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Tribeca Short List), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The familiar story of Lieutenant Bligh, whose cruelty leads to a mutiny on his ship. This version follows both the efforts of Fletcher Christian to get his men beyond the reach of British retribution, and the epic voyage of Lieutenant Bligh to get his loyalists safely to East Timor in a tiny lifeboat.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Based on the true story of Robin, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: In 1981, an enthusiastic young adventurer follows his dreams into the Bolivian Amazon jungle with two friends and a guide with a mysterious past. Their journey quickly turns into a terrifying ordeal as the darkest elements of human nature and the deadliest threats of the wilderness lead to an all-out fight for survival.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Vudu & 2 others).

What it's about: Based on the legendary true story of the Red Dog who united a disparate local community while roaming the Australian outback in search of his long lost master.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: It’s 1929 on the vast, desert-like, Eastern Arrernte Nation lands that are now known as the Central Australian outback. Sam Kelly, a middle-aged Aboriginal man, works the land of a kind preacher, Fred Smith. After an ill-tempered bully arrives in town and Kelly kills him in self-defence, he and his wife go on the run as a posse gathers to hunt him down.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his partner, a former sheriff.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Starz), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz & Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Vudu).

What it's about: One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Sir Robert Beaumont is behind schedule on a railroad in Africa. Enlisting noted engineer John Henry Patterson to right the ship, Beaumont expects results. Everything seems great until the crew discovers the mutilated corpse of the project's foreman, seemingly killed by a lion. After several more attacks, Patterson calls in famed hunter Charles Remington, who has finally met his match in the bloodthirsty lions.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A brother's journey to unravel the truth about the mythic death and little known life of Kitty Genovese, who was reportedly murdered in front of 38 witnesses and has become the face of urban apathy.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In October 1991, a confluence of weather conditions combined to form a killer storm in the North Atlantic. Caught in the storm was the sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail. Magnificent foreshadowing and anticipation fill this true-life drama while minute details of the fishing boats, their gear and the weather are juxtaposed with the sea adventure.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing the Nazi invasion of Britain.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Vudu).

What it's about: A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Tribeca Short List) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: In a twenty-year career marked by obsessive secrecy, brutality and meticulous planning, Cahill netted over £40 million. He was untouchable - until a bullet from an IRA hitman ended it all.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix) & stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

What it's about: When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A victim of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 helps the police track down the killers while struggling to recover from devastating trauma.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Hulu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $7.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: The true story of boys being sexually abused at their orphanage ran by a religious community in Newfoundland.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: This is the story of a British Naval ship, the HMS Torrin, from it's construction to its sinking in the Mediterranean during action in World War II. The ships first and only commanding officer is the experienced Captain E.V. Kinross who trains his men not only to be loyal to him but to the country and most importantly, to themselves. They face challenges at sea and also at home. They lose some of theirs shipmates in action and some of their loved ones in the devastation of the blitz. Throughout it all, the men of the Torrin serve valiantly and heroically.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: The life of American public enemy number one who was shot by the police in 1934. After a shoot-out kills five FBI agents in Kansas City the Bureau target John Dillinger as one of the men to hunt down. Waiting for him to break Federal law they sort out several other mobsters, while Dillinger's bank robbing exploits make him something of a folk hero. Escaping from jail he finds Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson have joined the gang and pretty soon he is Public Enemy Number One. Now the G-men really are after him.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Buford Pusser's a wrestler, whose wife wants him to settle down, so they go to his home town in Tennessee, where he plans to get into business with his father. But he is shocked to discover all sorts of graft and corruption going on. And when he is a victim of it and decides to strike back by running against the corrupt sheriff. And he wins and wages his own little war against them

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A drama centered around the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (FX) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A Bridge Too Far tells the story of Operation Market Garden, the failed attempt by the allies to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland and allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of poor allied intelligence and the presence of two crack German Panzer divisions meant that the final part of this operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine, the titular 'bridge too far') was doomed to failure.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: When Colin Warner was wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend Carl King devoted his life to proving his innocence.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Director John Boorman drew from his own childhood experiences for this coming-of-age tale about a boy growing up in and around London during World War II. For young Billy Rowan, the nightly bombings provide a frightening show, but they include opportunities to rummage through the rubble with friends in the mornings. As Billy plays, his family struggles to remain intact as they suffer through the anguish and losses of wartime.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & stream on a TV everywhere service (TCM).

What it's about: Based on a true story, a group of boys from Monterrey, Mexico who become the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Urban Movie Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: In 1890, Catherine Weldon, a painter from New York, travels to North Dakota to paint a portrait of Sitting Bull and becomes involved in the struggle of the Lakota people to get the Government respects their rights over the land where they live.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Thousands of activists arrive in Seattle, Washington in masses to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 (World Trade Organization). Although it began as a peaceful protest with a goal of stopping the WTO talks, it escalated into a full-scale riot and eventually, a State of Emergency that pitted protesters against the Seattle Police Department and the National Guard.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.00 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: Reeling from a terrifying assault, a nineteen year old enrolls into college with his brother and pledges the same fraternity. What happens there, in the name of 'brotherhood,' tests him and his loyalty in brutal ways.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 9 services (iTunes, Google Play & 7 others).