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

The Coen brothers' stunning black comedy Fargo clearly relishes toying with the audience's perception of fact and fiction from its very opening moments, where a title card famously states:

"This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred."

Ever since the film's release, the Coens have been hilariously cagey and illusive about revealing which crimes precisely inspired this tale of robbery and murder.

That was, until 2015, when Joel Coen straight-up said that Fargo was "completely made up. Or, as we like to say, the only thing true about it is that it's a story."

It's easy to see why people wanted to believe the Coens' opening claim, even if the simplest answer once again ended up being the right one.

Things got stranger in 2014, however, when the film Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter was released.

It revolved around the apparently true story of a Japanese woman, Kumiko (Rinko Kikuchi), who travelled to Minnesota in pursuit of the money hidden by Steve Buscemi's Fargo character, Carl Showalter.

Yet in an ironic twist, the film itself heavily distorted fiction, being inspired by the infamous 2001 death of Japanese woman Takako Konishi, who travelled from Japan to Minnesota before committing suicide, with the media erroneously reporting that she was seeking out the fictional Fargo money.

Basically, anything even tangentially related to Fargo should be taken with a massive truckload of salt.