Top 10 Movie Couples Based on Real People
These couples were the real deal. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the best movie couples who got their inspiration from real life romances.
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00:00 Welcome to MissMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the best movie couples
00:09 who got their inspiration from real-life romances.
00:14 10. Irving and Rosalind Rosenfeld - American Hustle
00:39 In American Hustle, Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence's formances are so over-the-top,
00:44 it's hard to believe they have any bases in reality. But David O. Russell's film is based
00:49 on a real-life scandal called the "Abscam Operation." Bale and Lawrence's characters
00:55 Irving and Rosalind Rosenfeld are based on Mel and Marie Weinberg, the real people involved.
01:02 For legal reasons, the filmmakers changed the characters' names and their appearances,
01:18 of course. But apparently, the relationship dynamic between Irving and Rosalind is loosely
01:24 lifted from the real-life couple.
01:35 9. Richard and Mildred Loving - Loving It's hard to imagine a time when people couldn't
01:54 marry someone of a different race. But that time really wasn't that long ago. We owe
01:58 that change in the United States laws to Richard and Mildred Loving, the real-life inspiration
02:04 for the 2016 film Loving. In 1967, the couple was a part of the famous Loving v. Virginia
02:19 case that ended with the Supreme Court calling laws that prohibited interracial marriage
02:25 unconstitutional. Although Richard died tragically young not too long after the ruling, Mildred
02:31 and Richard's love story endures on. We couldn't imagine a better last name for
02:36 them both.
02:47 8. Brandon, Tina and Lana Tisdall - Boys Don't Cry There are far too many real-life
03:05 stories of queer kids being killed. In 1999, Boys Don't Cry memorialised the story of
03:11 not only Brandon Tina, a trans man who was murdered, but also his girlfriend, Lana Tisdall.
03:17 The film does not shy away from Brandon's brutal murder at the hands of two men, but
03:22 it's endearingly tender when dealing with the relationship he had with Lana. Trying
03:35 to codify the relationship that the real Lana Tisdall had with Brandon is a tricky thing,
03:40 but one thing seems to be certain - she cared about him tremendously. And that sense of
03:45 care really shines through in the film.
03:55 7. Charlie Lang and Yvonne Biasi - It Could Happen To You Honestly, we wish that we could
04:03 be this real-life couple. It Could Happen To You stars Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda
04:08 as a cop and a waitress who have a clandestine meeting. Short on cash, Cage's character
04:24 jokes that if he wins the lottery, he'll split his earnings with her. Well, he did
04:28 win the lottery, and that promise he made to the waitress didn't sit too well with
04:32 his wife. It might surprise you to learn that this story is based on a real couple. In 1984,
04:42 Phyllis Penzo and Robert Cunningham split a $6 million lottery ticket. Beyond that,
04:48 the rest of the movie's plot is entirely made up. But what a way to win.
04:58 6. Leo and Paige Collins - The Vow Can you imagine your partner suddenly forgetting
05:15 all about your marriage after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a car accident?
05:20 Neither can we, and for a long time, we thought 2012's The Vow was a fictional story about
05:25 a fictional couple. But it turns out that this terrible thing actually happened to a
05:30 real couple in real life. The movie is based on a book written by Kim and Cricket Carpenter
05:43 about Kim's struggle with amnesia, which caused her to forget Cricket. In the movie,
05:48 the couple is able to come back to each other, but in real life, the Carpenters divorced
05:53 in 2018.
06:00 5. Sam Rothstein and Ginger McKenna - Casino If we were going to be involved in casino
06:17 crime, this is the couple we would like to be. Well, at least at the beginning of the
06:22 movie. The end, not so much. Casino is based on the life of Frank Rosenthal, a man who
06:34 ran a series of casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago Mob throughout the 70s. In the movie,
06:40 Frank's name has been changed to Sam "Ace" Rothstein, and his romantic interest Jerry
06:46 McGee's name has been changed to Ginger. Ace and Ginger have a terrifying, tumultuous
06:57 relationship that eventually turns incredibly violent. Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone bring
07:03 passion and intense chemistry to the characters.
07:10 4. Karen Blixen and Dennis Finch-Hatton - Out of Africa In Out of Africa, Meryl Streep
07:19 and Robert Redford bring the characters of Karen and Dennis to life. Little did we know
07:24 that they were actually based on a real couple. Out of Africa is taken from the movie, and
07:40 the real life and romance of Danish author Karen Blixen. During Blixen's life, she often
07:46 travelled to Africa and eventually had a long-lasting love affair with a big game hunter named Dennis
07:52 Finch-Hatton. If you've seen the film, you know what happens. Their love is passionate
08:08 and all-consuming, but eventually ends because of what they can't give each other. It feels
08:13 so right out of a film, it's hard to believe something this romantic happened to real people.
08:29 3. Stephen J. Russell and Philip Morris - I Love You, Philip Morris
08:46 I Love You, Philip Morris is a little-seen film, so it makes sense that not many people
08:50 know the real story behind it. The film stars Jim Carrey as Stephen J. Russell, a con artist
08:56 who falls in love with a man named Philip Morris while he is in prison. Russell was
09:00 a real person who really did fall in love with another man he met while incarcerated.
09:20 In the film, he escapes from prison four times in his efforts to be with Morris, who is played
09:26 by Ewan McGregor. The movie is a little strange, but has a lot of tenderness and heart to the
09:31 way it tells the story. You can't help but root for those two crazy kids to make it.
09:49 2. Kamel Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon - The Big Sick
10:11 A medically-induced coma isn't necessarily the perfect fairy-tale start to a romance,
10:16 but we have to take life as it comes at us. The Big Sick was written by Kamel Nanjiani
10:21 and his wife, Emily Gordon, and chronicles the real-life start to their relationship.
10:37 When the two characters based on the pair meet in the film, they briefly date but then
10:41 break up because of cultural differences they can't reconcile. But when Emily falls
10:46 ill and must go into a medically-induced coma, Kamel has to step up and deal with more important
10:51 issues. The film is incredibly heartfelt and tells a story that we can't believe is real.
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11:25 1. Ali Hamilton and Noah Calhoun - The Notebook That's right, the couple from The Notebook
11:42 didn't just pop up out of Nicholas Sparks' head. Ali Hamilton and Noah Calhoun are actually
11:48 based on real people. According to Sparks, who wrote the 1996 book that the film is based
11:54 on, he was inspired to write Noah and Ali because of his wife's grandparents. We don't
12:05 know their names, but according to Sparks, the two had been married for more than 60
12:09 years by the time that he had met them. After getting to know them, the blueprints for Noah
12:14 and Ali's love story sprung into his head and eventually enchanted millions of people.
12:27 What other real-life couples made a great transition to the screen? Share in the comments
12:32 below.
12:51 [music]
13:00 (upbeat music)