10 Movies Everyone Thinks Are Based On A True Story (But Aren't)

1977's iconic dance drama Saturday Night Fever helped popularise both disco music worldwide and rising star John Travolta, who received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance.

The film's script was based on a 1976 New York Magazine article about the 1970s disco scene, "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night," written by Nik Cohn.

However in 1996, 20 years after the film's release, Cohn revealed that his article was largely a fiction, that he had little knowledge of the New York disco club scene and most of the characters featured in his story were inspired by people he met back in the UK. Cohn said:

"My story was a fraud... I'd only recently arrived in New York. Far from being steeped in Brooklyn street life, I hardly knew the place. As for Vincent, my story's hero, he was largely inspired by a Shepherd's Bush mod whom I'd known in the sixties, a one-time king of Goldhawk Road."

In 2016, Cohn admitted he was surprised that anyone believed the story he turned in:

"It reads to me as obvious fiction, albeit based on observation and some knowledge of disco culture. No way could it sneak past customs now. In the '60s and '70s, the line between fact and fiction was blurry… Few editors asked tough questions. For the most part it was a case of 'Don't ask, don't tell.'"

And yet, even today many still believe that Saturday Night Fever is based on Cohn's real experiences.