List of Films Based On Actual Events - 1960s

1960s

• Sink the Bismarck! (1960) – Behemoth German battleship flees British armada before being bombarded and sent to the bottom in May 1941.
• Spartacus (1960) — Stanley Kubrick's epic treatment of Roman slave revolt known as the Third Servile War in 73 B.C.
• El Cid (1961) — A highly romanticized story of the life of the Castilian knight El Cid.
• Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) — Spencer Tracy portrays an American judge in Nuremberg in 1948, assigned to preside over the trial of four German judges, each allegedly guilty of war crimes and charged with having abused the court system to help cleanse Nazi Germany of the politically and socially undesirable.
• Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) — Burt Lancaster portrays convicted murderer Robert Stroud.
• Gypsy (1962) — Musical film about the relationship between legendary stripper Gypsy Rose Lee and her irrepressible stage mother. Adapted from the Broadway show, which was in turn based on Lee's memoir.
• The Counterfeit Traitor (1962) — William Holden as WWII spy Eric Erickson whose life view is broadened by the woman he loved (Lilli Palmer).
• The Longest Day (1962) — About "D-Day", the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, during World War II.
• The Miracle Worker (1962) — Blind and deaf humanitarian Helen Keller and her teacher, the titular Annie Sullivan; reprised by Broadway cast.
• Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) — Telling of the famous mutiny tale.
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962) — David Lean's epic on T. E. Lawrence.
• Cleopatra (1963) — Chronicles the struggles of Cleopatra VII, the young Queen of Egypt, to resist the imperialist ambitions of Rome.
• The Great Escape (1963) — Allied prisoners attempt a mass, 175-man breakout of Stalag Luft III.
• PT 109 (1963) — President Kennedy's exploits and heroism as captain of the ill-fated patrol boat, cut in half by Japanese destroyer in WWII.
• Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
• The Sound of Music (1965) — The story of the Von Trapp family, with Julie Andrews as the young woman who leaves an Austrian convent to become a governess to a Naval officer widower's seven children.
• Harlow (1965) — Biographical film about the life of film star Jean Harlow, starring Carroll Baker in the title role.
• The Battle of Algiers (1966) — Based on occurrences during the Algerian War (1954–62) against French colonial rule in North Africa, the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers.
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967) – A highly romanticized story of outlaw couple Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.
• In Cold Blood (1967) – The Clutter family murder in 1959 Kansas, taken from Truman Capote's book of the same name.
• The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) – Based on the true events leading to the 1929 murder of seven mob associates of the North Side gang. The murder was led by Al Capone's (played by Jason Robards) South Side gang.
• The Boston Strangler (1968) – Tony Curtis is Albert DeSalvo, convicted and imprisoned for the Boston area "Green Man Rapes" and suspected of the murders of thirteen women from 1962 through 1964.
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – An account of outlaw pair who fled the closing Old West for greener pastures of Bolivia.
• Kappalottiya Thamizhan (1961) - Indian Tamil film based on the life of Va Vu Chidambaram Pillai staring Sivaji Ganesan and Gemini Ganesan
• Cast a Giant Shadow (1961) - The life of Colonel David Marcus, who volunteered to help Israel in the war of independencs. With Kirk Douglas