10 Oscar Winning Films With Huge Historical Inaccuracies

8. Midnight Express (1978) - Murder And Attempted Rape Were Gross Exaggerations

Midnight Express
Columbia Pictures

A double Academy Award winner, Midnight Express claimed Oscars for Best Music/Original Scores and Best Writing/Screenplay Based on Material From Another Medium in 1979 for its portrayal of the book of the same name - written by Billy Hayes, who was imprisoned in Turkey in the early 1970s for attempting to smuggle hashish out of the country. Hayes was alone in Turkey when he was arrested, yet in the film he is on holiday with his girlfriend.

Also, in arguably the most violent scene of the movie, he bites the tongue off an officer in the prison's psychiatric hospital - and, although Hayes did spend 17 days inside in 1972, this episode did not take place in real life.

The accidental killing of the guard who attempts to rape him in the film is also fictionalised - Hayes was never sexually assaulted while inside, and the officer was actually shot dead by a recently paroled inmate in 1973, not by Hayes himself. Midnight Express the book is an exaggeration of the reality of the situation to a degree, yet the film takes it to a whole new level.

Contributor
Contributor

NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.