There are few things people on the internet love to do more than debate whether or not something is accurate, and there’s never a better opportunity to have these debates than when a historical movie debuts. We have sources that tell us what actually happened back in the olden days, we have scholars who interpret these sources to tell a narrative of what life was like decades or hundreds or thousands of years ago, and we have Reddit threads and website comments where people can argue about these things until they’re blue in the face. What fun!
Now, every now and then a historical film comes along that everyone basically agrees is inaccurate to the point of derision. Most period pieces have some inaccuracies, because movies are not real and plots require that time be condensed, characters written out or combined, and conflicts and battle scenes made more exciting than they likely were when they happened (if they happened at all). But there are some that are basically just fantasy fiction with a vaguely “historical” vibe. These are the most fun.
We’ll give most of these films the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that none of them were truly meant to depict actual historical events as realistically as possible. If you want that, we recommend reading the Wikipedia page instead. Still, many of these movies are inaccurate to the point of hilarity, fudging timelines and straight up inventing new events (and, in some cases, supernatural foes) to make things more cinematic. There are bits and pieces of real stuff here and there in all of these movies—just don’t expect to watch any of them in history class.
The 10 Most Historically Inaccurate Period Pieces Ever
Okay, maybe some of these were meant to be a little inaccurate.
Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky
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10 Happy Endings in Movies That Are Way Darker Than They Seem
We’re not convinced by these apparent happily ever afters.
Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky
