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Just how 'true' are Hollywood 'true stories'?

With this website, find out -- scene-by-scene -- which movies are the most accurate to their source material, and which are just flat out making stuff up.

Mark Serrels Editorial Director
Mark Serrels is an award-winning Senior Editorial Director focused on all things culture. He covers TV, movies, anime, video games and whatever weird things are happening on the internet. He especially likes to write about the hardships of being a parent in the age of memes, Minecraft and Fortnite. Definitely don't follow him on Twitter.
Mark Serrels
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Many Hollywood movies are "based on a true story" but just how true are they?

If you're the type of person frantically Googling during biopics, then you'll love this: a scene-by-scene breakdown of multiple "true stories" as told by Hollywood that compares the cinematic recreation with the reality.

The site is called Information is Beautiful and it features movies like Lion, 12 Years A Slave, American Sniper and Dallas Buyers Club feature, among many others, with each scene scored by its accuracy.

movie-true

Blue is true! Red is... less true.

Screenshot by Mark Serrels/CNET

Perhaps the coolest function: the ability to literally highlight individual scenes and compare fact to fiction. Like this spotlight scene for example.

spotlight
Screenshot by Mark Serrels/CNET  

And yes, before you ask, The Social Network is there!

social-network
Screenshot by Mark Serrels/CNET  

And it scores relatively highly! 76 percent. The least accurate from the movies currently on the site is The Imitation Game, the biopic on English math genius Alan Turing. Hacksaw Ridge and American Sniper also score pretty low. 

The most accurate movie on the list? Selma, the Oscar nominated recreation of the civil rights marches in 1965. The Big Short and Bridge of Spies came in second and third respectively.

It's a very cool site. Well worth a look.

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