When reality is stranger than fiction, Hollywood takes notice - these films prove it.
I caught “Last Breath” in theaters this weekend, and wow - what a ride. Beautifully shot, intense, and suspenseful - and incredibly, it’s all based on a true story. It follows a deep-sea diver who gets stranded 300 feet below the ocean with only minutes of air left… and the rescue mission to try and save his life. After the movie, I got to thinking about other great scripted movies that have associated documentaries. There are some incredible films out there that take real-life stories and turn them into gripping, cinematic experiences. So, here are my top 7 favorite scripted movies inspired by true-story documentaries.
Top 7 scripted movies inspired by documentaries
No. 7: ‘Into the Wild’
No. 6: ‘The Fighter’
No. 5: ‘Lords of Dogtown’
No. 4: ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’
No. 3: ‘The Walk
No. 2: ‘Foxcatcher’
No.
I caught “Last Breath” in theaters this weekend, and wow - what a ride. Beautifully shot, intense, and suspenseful - and incredibly, it’s all based on a true story. It follows a deep-sea diver who gets stranded 300 feet below the ocean with only minutes of air left… and the rescue mission to try and save his life. After the movie, I got to thinking about other great scripted movies that have associated documentaries. There are some incredible films out there that take real-life stories and turn them into gripping, cinematic experiences. So, here are my top 7 favorite scripted movies inspired by true-story documentaries.
Top 7 scripted movies inspired by documentaries
No. 7: ‘Into the Wild’
No. 6: ‘The Fighter’
No. 5: ‘Lords of Dogtown’
No. 4: ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’
No. 3: ‘The Walk
No. 2: ‘Foxcatcher’
No.
- 3/4/2025
- by Thomas Waschenfelder
- The Streamable
Lords of Dogtown is getting rebooted as a series at IMDb TV. Kat Candler is on board to write and executive produce alongside Shawn Ryan and Marney Hochman of Sony Pictures Television. Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the original movie released in 2005, will also return as an executive producer for the project.
Described as a one-hour drama, the Lords of Dogtown TV show is "set in the 1970s skateboarding scene in southern California and centers on a hell-raising teenage girl growing up in the foster care system. She falls in with a crowd of skaters who idolize the famed Zephyr Skateboard Team."
Lords of Dogtown is based on the true story of the Zephyr Skateboard Team, otherwise known as the Z-Boys. In the 1970s, the group helped to bring skateboarding to the mainstream with their innovative tricks and aerial maneuvers. Their story was told by director and Z-Boys member Stacy Peralta...
Described as a one-hour drama, the Lords of Dogtown TV show is "set in the 1970s skateboarding scene in southern California and centers on a hell-raising teenage girl growing up in the foster care system. She falls in with a crowd of skaters who idolize the famed Zephyr Skateboard Team."
Lords of Dogtown is based on the true story of the Zephyr Skateboard Team, otherwise known as the Z-Boys. In the 1970s, the group helped to bring skateboarding to the mainstream with their innovative tricks and aerial maneuvers. Their story was told by director and Z-Boys member Stacy Peralta...
- 1/7/2021
- by Jeremy Dick
- MovieWeb
Get ready to gain a better understanding of Heath Ledger's devotion to his craft. When the Spike documentary I Am Heath Ledger premieres on Wednesday, May 17, fans of the late actor will not only gain access into his personal life thanks to their access to a wealth of home video footage filmed by Ledger himself, but they'll get the opportunity to hear about the way the Oscar-winning actor thoroughly threw himself into each and every character he inhabited on the screen. In this sneak peek of the film, exclusive to E! News, Lords of Dogtown director Catherine Hardwicke recounts the slavish attention to detail that Ledger brought to the role of real-life Z-Boys sponsor Skip Engblom. "Heath, he...
- 5/10/2017
- E! Online
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50 fabulous documentary films, covering hard politics through to music, money and films that never were...
Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix, we’ve never had better access to documentaries. A whole new audience can discover that these real life stories are just as thrilling, entertaining, and incredible as the latest big-budget blockbuster. What’s more, they’re all true too. But with a new found glut of them comes the ever more impossible choice, what’s worth your time? Below is my pick of the 50 best modern feature length documentaries.
I’ve defined modern as being from 2000 onwards, which means some of the greatest documentaries ever made will not feature here. I’m looking at you Hoop Dreams.
50. McConkey (2013)
d. Rob Bruce, Scott Gaffney, Murray Wais, Steve Winter, David Zieff
Shane McConkey was an extreme skier and Base jumper who lived life on the edge, and very much to the full.
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50 fabulous documentary films, covering hard politics through to music, money and films that never were...
Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix, we’ve never had better access to documentaries. A whole new audience can discover that these real life stories are just as thrilling, entertaining, and incredible as the latest big-budget blockbuster. What’s more, they’re all true too. But with a new found glut of them comes the ever more impossible choice, what’s worth your time? Below is my pick of the 50 best modern feature length documentaries.
I’ve defined modern as being from 2000 onwards, which means some of the greatest documentaries ever made will not feature here. I’m looking at you Hoop Dreams.
50. McConkey (2013)
d. Rob Bruce, Scott Gaffney, Murray Wais, Steve Winter, David Zieff
Shane McConkey was an extreme skier and Base jumper who lived life on the edge, and very much to the full.
- 11/12/2015
- by simonbrew
- Den of Geek
In an ideal world, Australian actor Heath Ledger would have been celebrating his thirty-third birthday today. Heartbreakingly, he isn't here for it: the actor passed away from an accidental prescription drugs overdose just over four years ago, on January 22, 2008. At the time, the actor was shooting Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," and the director managed to finish the film with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law paying tribute to the late actor by joining the production.
Ledger had a rare talent that seemingly wowed everyone he would work with -- Matt Damon, who appeared with the actor in Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm," recently called him "the best actor I ever worked with" -- and it's hard not to be distraught at the thought of the performances we'll never get to see. But even so, Ledger left behind an enormously impressive body of work for one so young,...
Ledger had a rare talent that seemingly wowed everyone he would work with -- Matt Damon, who appeared with the actor in Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm," recently called him "the best actor I ever worked with" -- and it's hard not to be distraught at the thought of the performances we'll never get to see. But even so, Ledger left behind an enormously impressive body of work for one so young,...
- 4/4/2012
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
Dogtown And Z-boys (Blu-raySONY Home ENTERTAINMENT2002/Rated PG-13/91 minsNow Available – List Price $24.95By the mid seventies, skateboarding was considered to be a sixties fad that had all but died out, except for a handful of committed fans in Santa Monica, California. When a group of surfers known as the Zephyr team sought to translate the phenomenal stunts of world-class wave riders onto their skateboards, they had no idea they were giving birth to modern skateboarding. At the Santa Monica Surf Shop, Zephyr Productions, twelve of these surfers organized themselves into a team to compete at local skate events with the help of the store's owners Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom. Soon the radical moves and urban style of the Zephyr Skate Team, aka Z-Boys, destroyed public preconceptions of skateboarding as a sport and a lifestyle, and the pioneering styles of Z-Boy skaters like Tony Alva, Jim Muir, and Jay Adams...
- 1/14/2010
- LRMonline.com
Lords of Dogtown
NEW YORK -- A fictionalized rendition of the events and figures described in the award-winning documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, this film tells the story of the young skateboarding enthusiasts who rose to fame and riches in Southern California in the 1970s. Written by that film's creator Stacy Peralta and directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("thirteen"), Lords of Dogtown takes a surprisingly gritty approach that gives the material some gravitas but also robs it of some of its fun. With its handsome young male stars frequently shirtless, the film could reach some commercial traction thanks to its appeal to teenage girls as well as boys.
From its clever, graffiti-style opening credits to its canny use of pop music from the period, the film well conveys the atmosphere of its setting, 1970s Venice Beach. But it also -- not so surprisingly from the director of the gritty portrait of female adolescence "thirteen" -- eschews sunniness, both in its storytelling and visual style. Indeed, at times Southern California looks as depressing here as an eastern industrial city.
The story depicts the bonding together of the Z-Boys, longtime surfing buddies, over their newfound appreciation of the landlocked sport of skateboarding. Propelled by the invention of urethane wheels that enabled the skates to hug concrete surfaces and a drought in Southern California that resulted in many empty swimming pools perfect for this new style of skating, the trend caught on. The boys' youthful sex appeal and daring physical bravado further fueled the movement into a media and commercial phenomenon.
The interpersonal dynamics of the group, which included Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch), Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk) and Peralta (John Robinson), are less interesting than their sheer physical prowess, well demonstrated by the actors themselves and a formidable team of stunt doubles. Such plot elements as the romantic triangle that develops between Alva's sister Kathy (Nikki Reed) and two of the Z-Boys, the fatal brain tumor of one of the skaters (Michael Angarano) and the relationship between Adams and his troubled but loving mother Rebecca De Mornay) ultimately come across as detours from the extended skateboarding sequences.
With its frequent use of handheld cameras and jerky editing, the film well conveys the dizzying and terrifying aspects of the virtuosic skating stunts, as well as the air of iconoclasm and danger that gave the activity, a precursor to today's extreme sports, its allure.
The young performers supply the necessary physicality and charisma, with Hirsch particularly effective as the sensitive Adams. Heath Ledger, seemingly channeling Val Kilmer, delivers a colorful turn as Skip Engblom, co-founder of the legendary Zephyr surfboard and skateboard shop and the boys' team leader. De Mornay downplays her glamour, if not her still-potent sexuality, in her affecting performance as Adams' mom, and Johnny Knoxville delivers an entertaining turn as a sleazy entrepreneur. There's also an amusing cameo by skating legend Tony Hawk, as an astronaut unable to remain vertical on skates.
Lords of Dogtown
Sony Pictures Entertainment
A Columbia Pictures presentation of a TriStar Pictures release
A Linson Films production in association with Senator International
Credits:
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Screenplay: Stacy Peralta
Producer: John Linson
Executive producers: Art Linson, David Fincher, Joe Drake
Director of photography: Elliot Davis
Production designer: Chris Gorak
Editor: Nancy Richardson
Costume designer: Cindy Evans: Music: Mark Mothersbaugh
Cast:
Jay Adams: Emile Hirsch
Tony Alva: Victor Rasuk
Stacy Peralta: John Robinson
Sid: Michael Angarano
Kathy Alva: Nikki Reed
Philaine: Rebecca De Mornay
Skip Engblom: Heath Ledger
Topper: Johnny Knoxville
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 110 minutes...
From its clever, graffiti-style opening credits to its canny use of pop music from the period, the film well conveys the atmosphere of its setting, 1970s Venice Beach. But it also -- not so surprisingly from the director of the gritty portrait of female adolescence "thirteen" -- eschews sunniness, both in its storytelling and visual style. Indeed, at times Southern California looks as depressing here as an eastern industrial city.
The story depicts the bonding together of the Z-Boys, longtime surfing buddies, over their newfound appreciation of the landlocked sport of skateboarding. Propelled by the invention of urethane wheels that enabled the skates to hug concrete surfaces and a drought in Southern California that resulted in many empty swimming pools perfect for this new style of skating, the trend caught on. The boys' youthful sex appeal and daring physical bravado further fueled the movement into a media and commercial phenomenon.
The interpersonal dynamics of the group, which included Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch), Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk) and Peralta (John Robinson), are less interesting than their sheer physical prowess, well demonstrated by the actors themselves and a formidable team of stunt doubles. Such plot elements as the romantic triangle that develops between Alva's sister Kathy (Nikki Reed) and two of the Z-Boys, the fatal brain tumor of one of the skaters (Michael Angarano) and the relationship between Adams and his troubled but loving mother Rebecca De Mornay) ultimately come across as detours from the extended skateboarding sequences.
With its frequent use of handheld cameras and jerky editing, the film well conveys the dizzying and terrifying aspects of the virtuosic skating stunts, as well as the air of iconoclasm and danger that gave the activity, a precursor to today's extreme sports, its allure.
The young performers supply the necessary physicality and charisma, with Hirsch particularly effective as the sensitive Adams. Heath Ledger, seemingly channeling Val Kilmer, delivers a colorful turn as Skip Engblom, co-founder of the legendary Zephyr surfboard and skateboard shop and the boys' team leader. De Mornay downplays her glamour, if not her still-potent sexuality, in her affecting performance as Adams' mom, and Johnny Knoxville delivers an entertaining turn as a sleazy entrepreneur. There's also an amusing cameo by skating legend Tony Hawk, as an astronaut unable to remain vertical on skates.
Lords of Dogtown
Sony Pictures Entertainment
A Columbia Pictures presentation of a TriStar Pictures release
A Linson Films production in association with Senator International
Credits:
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Screenplay: Stacy Peralta
Producer: John Linson
Executive producers: Art Linson, David Fincher, Joe Drake
Director of photography: Elliot Davis
Production designer: Chris Gorak
Editor: Nancy Richardson
Costume designer: Cindy Evans: Music: Mark Mothersbaugh
Cast:
Jay Adams: Emile Hirsch
Tony Alva: Victor Rasuk
Stacy Peralta: John Robinson
Sid: Michael Angarano
Kathy Alva: Nikki Reed
Philaine: Rebecca De Mornay
Skip Engblom: Heath Ledger
Topper: Johnny Knoxville
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 110 minutes...
- 6/21/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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