History ArtisticLicenseHistory / LiveActionFilms

** While Neil did crash while flying the LLRV, he suffered nothing more than a bit tongue during his parachute landing.

** During the Apollo 11 launch, Michael Collins is shown sitting in the LMP's seat while Buzz Aldrin is in the CDR's seat when it should have been the reverse[[note]]the mission commander sat in the CMP's seat during launch so he could grip the abort handle[[/note]].

** Paul Gauguin wasn't a StarvingArtist anymore by the time he left France for Polynesia, he had managed to sell a number of his paintings; whereas it's said he hasn't sold any in the film. His disillusion with bleak modernity in France in the late 19th century is still part of his motivations to go at the other side of the world in the film, that said.

** The Battle of Little Round Top omits that Chamberlain sent Company B of the 20th Maine to a different part of the hill and they were cut off by the waves of Confederates, leaving him to assume they'd been wiped out until the bayonet charge, which allowed Company B to rejoin the rest of the unit in the charge.[[note]]had they tried sooner, they would have been slaughtered.[[/note]] The sudden appearance of fresh troops looked like reinforcements to the Confederates and contributed to their surrender. This was shown in the source novel, ''Literature/TheKillerAngels'', but would have added yet another complication to the 4-hour film.

** The film is unusual in getting the fact that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masamune Masamune]] was a swordmaker rather than a sword correct, but then claims that Masamune made Ramirez's katana thousands and thousands of years before he was born or katanas even existed. Lampshaded by Brenda as she explains that she wants to find this katana because it's dated to over a thousand years before katanas even existed, like finding a modern vehicle made in ancient times.
** The villain is referred to as "the Kurgan" even back in medieval times. In reality, a "kurgan" is a burial mound, and "kurgan culture" is a modern archaeological term for a wide range of Proto-Indo-European cultures that are known primarily through study of their burial mounds. People in centuries past would not be calling him a "Kurgan."

** UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan died in 1227 while besieging the rebellious Western Xia in UsefulNotes/{{China}}, he never went to UsefulNotes/{{Poland}}. The Poland campaign of the Mongols started in 1240.

* ''Film/Midway2019'' actually [[ShownTheirWork gets a lot of really obscure stuff right]], including [[RealityIsUnrealistic incidents that audiences and critics wrote off as dramatic license]]. However:
** The film depicts the Japanese correctly deducing they had sunk an American carrier (''Yorktown'') in retaliation for the destruction of ''Akagi'', ''Kaga'', and ''Soryu''. In truth, and significantly, they thought they had sunk ''two'': ''Hiryu'' launched two attacks, and while ''Yorktown'' sustained heavy damage from the first one, its crew was able to repair the damage so effectively that, when a second attack came, the Japanese assumed it was a different ship altogether. After destroying it, Nagumo assumed the Americans had only one carrier left and decided to let his pilots take a break, unaware that they actually had two; thus, the final attack on ''Hiryu'' caught the Japanese by surprise. It's also worth noting that while the second attack put the ''Yorktown'' out of action, she was not actually sunk until three days later thanks to a Japanese submarine attack as she was being towed back to Pearl Harbor.
** Four US Army B-26 Marauders from Midway attacked the Japanese carriers on the morning of the 4th, but they did not bomb from high altitude. The Marauders were armed with torpedoes and came in at wavetop height under heavy fire from fighters and antiaircraft guns. No hits were scored with the torpedoes, but one B-26, ''Susie-Q'' flown by 1LT Jim Muri, skimmed ''Akagi'''s flight deck while bombardier 2LT Russ Johnson fired his nose-mounted .30-cal machine gun, knocking out an antiaircraft mount and critically wounding two men. Another B-26 nearly crashed into ''Akagi'', but was confirmed by American and Japanese witnesses to be spinning out of control. The suicide attack was made by a USMC dive bomber piloted by Capt. Richard Fleming, who took an antiaircraft hit and reported that he was badly wounded and his gunner was dead, then dove his [=SB2U=] Vindicator into the cruiser ''Mikuma''. A flight of B-17 Flying Fortresses out of Midway airbase ''did'' make a high-altitude bombing run against the Kido Butai, but scored no hits.
** When discussing the odds against them before the battle, Best notes the Japanese have the world's largest battleship (the ''Yamato'' and ''Musashi''). In real life the Americans were unaware of the type's status as such until after the war: the two ships were designed and built in extreme secrecy since battleships heavier than 35,000 tons were banned under the Washington Naval Treaty, to which Japan was a signatory. (The slightly smaller German ''Bismarck'' and ''Tirpitz'' were equally illegal, but by the time they were built the Nazi regime had pretty much openly decided ScrewTheRulesTheyreNotReal)
** Very few of the [=B5N=] torpedo/level bombers used by the Japanese were armed, carrying only a flexible gun for defense. However they are shown joining the Zero fighters strafing the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.
** Two important aircraft from the battle are missing entirely:
*** The Japanese [=D3A=] dive bombers, which were used extensively at Pearl Harbor and Midway, including causing severe damage to ''Yorktown'' in the first wave of ''Hiryu's'' counterattack.
*** However more egregious is lack of the American [=F4F=] Wildcat fighters. As much as the devastating blow to the Japanese fleet, Midway was important as a turning point for the Navy's fighter pilots, as it was the first opportunity for Thach to use what would become the Thach Weave in a major combat with the Japanese.
** Doolittle's raiders are shown flying B-25Js. This later model was distinguished by the top turret having been moved forward directly behind the cockpit. The historical Raiders flew the earlier B-25B, which had the dorsal turret located much further aft.
** Dick Best's Dauntless is accurately painted with the number B1 and two diagonal white stripes on the vertical stabilizer, as shown in [[http://fineartofdecalsimages.s3.amazonaws.com/SBD-3B1LS.jpg this]] color plate. The other ''Enterprise'' [=SBDs=] and [=TBDs=] show a similar marking scheme (such as Scouting Six's Dauntlesses using an S# fuselage number). However this was only the aircraft's markings ''at the time of Midway'', but is used throughout the film. As shown [[http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/images/coralseasbd_1.jpg here]], from 1941 through May, 1942, US Navy aircraft featured red and white stripes on the rudder, and red disks in the middle of the roundel. The red was removed to reduce the chance of American gunners mistaking the red disk for the Japanese ''Hinomaru'', (aka, the "Meatball") and prevent friendly fire incidents. Additionally, ''Enterprise's'' air wing adopted comically oversized national insignia for the first few months of the war as a result of the loss of several aircraft and their crews to friendly fire when they arrived at Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the attack. None of the aircraft in the film are shown with these early markings.

Contrast ShownTheirWork.LiveActionFilms.

* A minor example in ''Film/TimeBandits'': The fourth and final time period the characters visit before they end up in Evil’s time period is on the Titanic in 1912. A life preserver shows it being called the S.S. Titanic, when the actual title was the R.M.S. Titanic.

** In the film, Bobby Seale's case is declared a mistrial almost immediately after he's dragged back to court in a gag and chains, which is a compression from reality — he was brought into court this way for four ''days''. Sorkin said in an interview with The Economist that this was done to not have the audience get used to seeing him that way and therefore not normalize it.

** When confronted on whether to [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki drop the atom bomb in order to end]] UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, Truman believes that he must go forward with it in order to save millions of lives. While this was certainly one of the pros of the bombings, and Truman would later take credit for saving lives, in actuality Truman was convinced by his advisors that dropping the bomb would display American superiority over the UsefulNotes/SovietUnion, an idea which was representative of the naescent UsefulNotes/ColdWar tensions between the two powers.

* ''Film/{{Vice|2018}}'': The film acknowledges in the beginning and several other times that it has little to go on for information on certain areas of Cheney's life, due to his secrecy, but that, "We tried our fucking best."

** In ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade Last Crusade]]'', set in 1938, Indy and his father drive from Venice to Berlin (passing a road sign with these two names on and [[ArtisticLicenseGeography no other place]] in between) to retrieve a book from a Nazi book burning and escape Germany in a commercial Zeppelin flight (all canceled after the Hindenburg's disaster in 1937). The third act takes them to Hatay, a short-lived ([[AluminiumChristmasTrees but real]]) Turkish republic that is portrayed as an Arab monarchy. Even the Hatay flag is fictional.

* In ''Film/Houdini (1953)'', Harry Houdini dies from being unable to escape a water tank. The real Harry Houdini died from a ruptured appendix after receiving a series of punches from a university student, but many still believe in the film's presentation of his death.

* The murders committed in ''Film/ManIntheAttic'' do not match up to ones historically committed by UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper.

* ''Film/PrincessOfThieves'': Philip was not legitimized, and thus never the heir to the throne. It was lawfully John's.

* ''Film/YoungGuns'':
** In real life, Alexander [=McSween=] died in the middle of a furious shootout, while the movie shows him being gunned down by US army soldiers for no apparent reason at a time when there was no other shooting by anyone.
** Lawrence Murphy was not present at the actual final battle of the Lincoln County War, nor was he shot by Billy the Kid as the movie depicted. In fact, he was in extremely poor health at the time, and died of cancer a few months later.
* ''Film/YoungGunsII'':
** The character "William Henry French" is [[CompositeCharacter a composite]] of two real-life members of the Regulators (Jim French and Henry Brown), though he bears little resemblance to either one of them.
** [[spoiler: Doc and Chavez both die in the movie. In real life, both of them survived their exploits with Billy the Kid and went on to live full lives, both passing away from natural causes in the 1920s. Chavez died in 1924 at age 73, while Doc died in 1929 at 80. Oddly enough, the end of the first movie actually gets it right, explaining what they both went on to do after the Lincoln County War, but the sequel decides to change course and kill them off for some inexplicable reason.]]
** Also, rather than be famously shot dead by Pat Garrett, Billy's portrayed as surviving to old age by faking his death (though the first film accurately says what happened to him, aside from his supposed dying note reading "Pals"). This is based on the real-life case of "Brushy" Bill Roberts, an old cowboy who claimed to be Billy the Kid shortly before his death in 1950.