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Hidalgo was another “based on a true story” that wasn’t true

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/03/is-hidalgo-reall...

Hidalgo was truly a story Hopkins told and the movie was based on that.

Seriously though, I think that movie was what really broke the "based on a true story" thing for me. There's no real criteria for claiming something is based on a true story, you only need a tenuous grasp to reality.

Basically, you can make the claim that Avengers Endgame is just as much based on a true story as Hidalgo if you wanted to.

"Inspired by the real world": The writer has heard some stories and made up another interesting one. That is definitely the weakest one, and the default that doesn't need to be stated usually.

"truly based on a story": strictly based on a story somebody else made up