Hugh Jackman commands attention every time he’s on screen, regardless of the quality of the film surrounding him. Though he has just one Oscar nomination—for his performance in Les Misérables (2012)—his career spans fan favorites (Logan, Real Steel, The Greatest Showman, Eddie the Eagle), underseen gems (Bad Education, The Fountain), and even standout performances in films that never quite came together (The Front Runner, The Son). Jackman’s presence is undeniable, so it speaks volumes when an actor can upstage him in one of his films. Kate Hudson (Deepwater Horizon, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) does just that, delivering an Oscar-worthy performance in Craig Brewer’s (Black Snake Moan, Hustle & Flow) Song Sung Blue.
Category Archives: Based on a True Story
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025)
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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The Smashing Machine (2025)
You’ll remember it for the acting. Dwayne Johnson (San Andreas, Fighting With My Family) and Emily Blunt (Sicario, A Quiet Place) deliver a pair of Oscar-worthy performances in Benny Safdie’s (Good Time, Uncut Gems) raw and unapologetic The Smashing Machine. Based on the true story of Mark Kerr, a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter who entered the international Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) circuit in the late 1990s, The Smashing Machine chronicles Kerr’s first professional fight, his early success in Japan, his personal struggles with opioid addiction, and the ups and downs of a volcanic, often toxic relationship with his girlfriend, Dawn (Blunt).
A Complete Unknown (2024)
Entertaining, engrossing, and educational, it’s hard not to leave James Mangold’s (3:10 to Yuma, Ford v Ferrari) A Complete Unknown disappointed. While many will call it a paint-by-numbers musical biopic (which is completely justified), it does three things that recent films, such as Bob Marley: One Love, Rocketman (Elton John), Back to Black (Amy Winehouse), Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and Elvis couldn’t do. It held my interest throughout its 140-minute runtime. It implored me to read Bob Dylan’s Wikipedia page. It led to an interest in looking up the songs performed in the film that I had not heard before. The musical biopic genre has been bad for nearly 20 years (Bohemian Rhapsody and Straight Outta Compton are outliers). A Complete Unknown feels like a companion piece to two fabulous turn-of-the-century musical biopics with terrific lead performances in 2004’s Ray (Jaime Foxx as Ray Charles) and Walk the Line (Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash). Each film landed the lead performer an Oscar nomination, including a win for Foxx.
Woman of the Hour (2023)
In her directorial debut, Anna Kendrick (Alice, Darling, Up in the Air) displays a knack for her work behind the camera, rivaling her ability to perform in front of it. Her insights into the powerful, disturbing, and thought-provoking film Woman of the Hour, a film about the murders committed by Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto – Lady Bird, Don’t Breathe), a serial killer who appeared on a 1978 episode of “The Dating Game” in the middle of his killing spree years.