How many times have you seen 'based on a true story' during the opening credits of a movie? Chances are it's quite often, especially if you're a fan of historical dramas. However, have you ever wondered how 'true' is true? If so, a lovely piece of data visualisation work by Information is Beautiful could provide the answer to your question.

Information is Beautiful have reviewed a number of Hollywood movies, assessed them for historical accuracy and given each one an overall 'truth' percentage. What's more, they've assessed each scene so, while some scenes might score highly for truth others might be a figment of the script writer's imagination.

The truth of each movie is illustrated in a simple yet highly effective piece of data visualisation  comprising a series of colour coded vertical bars representing scenes which are either; true, true-ish, false-ish, false or unknown. Viewers are able to click on each bar to read an explanation of the scene plus the assessment of its relative truth.

You can also filter the research by level of pedantry; ‘only the absolute truth’, ‘can bear some dramatic license’ or ‘flexible, c’mon it’s the movies!’.

You can find the research here.

It's a fascinating piece of research. Fun to look at if you're a movie buff. Interesting to see if data visualisation is your thing. And, essential viewing if you enjoy both!

Photo by Ahmet Yalçınkaya on Unsplash