10 Movies That Took Wild Artistic Liberties

After the release of Ben Affleck's 2012 thriller, writers, historians, and even the real life people depicted in the film, spoke out against the accuracy of the film's events. Unlike the movie, which features the Iranian embassy workers struck in a number of sticky situations, the real life escape was prepared for without much fuss and pulled off without a hitch. This might be a case where liberties are necessary — tension trumps the facts. [Photo Credit: Warner Bros Pictures]

Disney is well known for taking liberties with source material, but audiences — even the ones without history backgrounds — were left scratching their heads when "Pocahontas" arrived in 1995. The animated telling follows Pocahontas and explorer John Smith as they form a romantic bond and work together to keep their warring cultures at bay. In fact, Pocahontas wasn't even a teen when she met Smith in 1607, and there is no record that the two were ever romantic. Pocahontas eventually became intertwined with another Englishman, John Rolfe (who luckily arrived in time to sweep up Disney's Algonquian Princess in "Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World"). All this on top of the fact that, despite its prevalence in the lyrics of the film's big musical number "Colors of the Wind," there is no such thing as a "blue corn moon." [Photo Credit: Walt Disney Pictures]

When it comes to depicting the history of America, especially in the military, filmmakers have often sided with patriotically friendly scripts versus ones that nail every detail. "Battle of the Bulge" is the epitome of this tactic — and director Ken Annakin didn't go unpunished for it. The film, which boasts the likes of Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Dana Andrews and Charles Bronson, came under fire for its misuse of locations, chronology, and even skirmish outcomes in its depiction of the month long battle. [Photo Credit: Warner Bros Pictures]

Ridley Scott set out to make the most historically accurate Roman culture film of all time and ended up with a film that spawned its own Wikipedia page to discredit the movie. Scott's script smothered the facts of Maximus and Commodus in enough fiction that it was rumored the movie's historical advisors eventually quit the production or had their names taken of the film. The Romans take their history very seriously. [Photo Credit: Universal Pictures]

Ron Howard's biopic has taken heat since winning its Oscar for reworking the life of mathematician John Nash, combining people in his life and transplanting moments to new locations for the sake of making a better movie. But the debate that continues to rage is the accuracy of Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman's depiction of schizophrenia and the conditions' resulting hallucinations. In the film, Crowe's Nash sees people who aren't there — a rarity for most schizophrenics, who suffer mostly from audible hallucinations. Different experts support and debunk "A Beautiful Mind," but even Howard is open with the fact that he manipulated the truth to help the fictional examination of a troubled genius. [Photo Credit: Universal Pictures]

Anyone have a few hours? That's how much time it will take to list and explain the inaccuracies present in Mel Gibson's epic tale of William Wallace. Gibson stuck to legend when bringing the 13th Century Scottish warrior to screen, even adding on to the myth to amplify the drama. Origins, battles, and Wallace's own death were all fictionalized for the award-winning film. Not even the face paint is accurate (although it was a custom that pre-dated Wallace). Changing history with older history — that makes it okay, right? [Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures]

In an interview with The Guardian from 2006, Kirsten Dunst described Sofia Coppola's period dramedy as ''a history of feelings rather than a history of facts." Mostly true. A majority of "Marie Antoinette" was actually shot on location at the Palace of Versailles, bringing an unprecedented level of authenticity to the production design. But as many historians have cited, Coppola gravitated towards Marie's penchant for spending and lusting after men — fiction spread by her critics of the time that continue to paint her in modern times. [Photo Credit: Columbia Pictures]

The tirades against Oliver Stone's pointed docudrama are almost as long as the movie itself. Whether "JFK" takes artistic liberties may be up to personal opinions — diving into the conspiracy theories surrounding the President's death, Stone leaves no stone unturned when chronicling the events of the most infamous assassination in American history (even if those stories may or may not be true). The movie riled up the nation upon release — apparently, not every citizen was comfortable with the suggestion that Lyndon B. Johnson may have been involved with killing of Kennedy. [Photo Credit: Warner Bros Pictures]

No, Hitler wasn't actually shot up with a Tommy Gun inside of a burning movie theater. [Photo Credit: The Weinstein Company]