Occasionally, poorly received biopics are victims of having all the necessary elements in place, except for a compelling story. One notable example is the 2009 film Invictus. Filmgoers had been clamoring for a biopic about Nelson Mandela. When Clint Eastwood signed on to direct a movie starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela, it seemed like a lock that the film would be, at the very least, a best picture candidate. Eastwood, with three Best Director Oscar nominations (Mystic River, Letters from Iwo Jima, Million Dollar Baby) over the previous half dozen years, was at the peak of his behind-the-camera career. Freeman, also at the height of his career, had been just about everybody’s favorite choice to play the South African anti-apartheid activist turned politician, whenever the right opportunity arose. And yet, we ended up with a movie that revolved around a rugby team attempting to qualify for the 1995 World Championship. Invictus wasn’t a bad movie. By many accounts, the film was a success. It earned positive scores with critics (75% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.3 on IMDB, 7.4 on Metacritic). While it failed to break even domestically (with just $38 million in revenue from a $60 million budget), it earned an additional $85 million internationally. While Freeman did earn an Oscar nomination for his portrayal, many of us wonder what could have been had the film centered on a more compelling story.
The same could be said of Scott Cooper’s (Hostiles, Out of the Furnace) Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, the 2025 Bruce Springsteen biopic. The film could have touched on a variety of aspects of Springsteen’s life. It chose to center on the time around his writing of his quiet, retrospective Nebraska album.
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Jeremy Allen White has a commanding presence. Whether he’s the troubled but brilliant New York chef Carmy Berzatto in FX’s The Bear or the successful but haunted professional wrestler Kerry Von Erich in 
Talk about a gut punch of a movie. As a pro wrestling fan, I’ve known of the tragedy of the Von Erich family for years. However, while I know of the circumstances around each of the brothers, I was only familiar with the one brother who made it to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now World Wrestling Entertainment – WWE). Kerry Von Erich had a two-year run as The Texas Tornado in the early 90s. His time in WWF was when I was getting into pro wrestling, and The Texas Tornado was one of my favorites. A biopic about the Von Erich family had been in talks for years before Sean Durkin’s (The Nest, Martha Marcy May Marlene) The Iron Claw came about. I’ve read pre-screener reviews about how emotionally devastating this movie was for months. While I felt prepared for my watch, I left feeling wrecked. What a masterful feat.