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)