Hollywood vs. History

The Hollywood vs. History series returns to examine the key figures, uniforms, military maneuvers, and more in The Patriot with Mel Gibson.

Military historian Christopher Johnson assesses the 2003 film The Last Samurai – starring Tom Cruise – and its depiction of social, political, and military transition in Japan in the 1870s in the latest...

Military historian Dirk Ringgenberg assesses the historical accuracy of the 2001 film Black Hawk Down, which depicts the horrific battle that erupted when U.S. forces attempted to captu...

Seventy-five years after the real-life trial it depicts, Mark Hull of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College assesses the historical accuracy of the acclaimed 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg...

World War II scholar William S. (Bill) Nance, a former Army armor officer, assesses the historical accuracy of one of the greatest military movies ever made, 1970’s Patton. It’s the latest installment of the Library’s Ho...

Military historian Geoff Babb assesses the historical accuracy of the 1963 film 55 Days at Peking, which delivers an epic retelling of a central episode in China’s turn-of-the-20th-century Boxer Rebellion. It’s the latest installment of the Library’s Hollywood vs. History series in partnership with the U.S....

David Mills and Kayla Westra, co-authors of Great Wartime Escapes and Rescues, assess the historical accuracy of the classic 1963 film The Great Escape – the latest installment of the Library’s Hollywood vs. History series in partnership with the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

Brian Steed of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College continues the Hollywood vs. History series, examining the film industry’s role in shaping the nation’s response to, and support of, World War II. He looks in depth at The Best Years of Our Lives, the 1946 movie about three servicemen who struggl...

Military historian Harry S. Laver of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College separates fact from Hollywood fiction in one of the most acclaimed Civil War films ever made, 1989’s Glory. It spotlights the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first African American units to fight for the No...

Nearly 60 years after its release, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb remains one of the greatest satires in American film history. A wicked black comedy about Cold War politics and inadvertent, pre-emptive nuclear attack, it raised questi...