Everyone loves conspiracies, don't they? Hollywood, in particular, thrived on them. Sometimes they make it up, sometimes even part of the conspiracy itself, but when there are so many great conspiracy theories and cover-ups to choose from in real life, it's easy to see why they don't bother very often.
Conspiracy movies always involve a good guy and some dark forces (usually representing corrupt businesses and/or selfish and secretive government agencies with too much autonomy and too little regulation). In other words, government agencies, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, and so on, and anyone who deals with money.
The first Lincoln Conspiracy, 1977
In 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head while viewing a play at ford's Theater in Washington. Because it was the end of the Civil War, the assassination caused a strong reaction throughout the United States. The assassin John Wilkes Booth attempted to start a new war, and Lincoln's assassination would be the trigger for this war, thus reviving the cause of the Confederacy.
In The Lincoln Conspiracy, director James W. Bush L. Conway proposed a different theory. He believed that the assassination was orchestrated by powerful government and commercial forces opposed to Lincoln's plans to rebuild the South, rather than by some fanatical Allies who could not accept defeat.
It even implies that the man who was shot at Garrett Farm in Virginia was not John Wilkes Booth at all, but James William Boyd, a recently released Confederate soldier whose name unfortunately bore a similar pronunciation to Booth's.
The film, played by Bradford Dillman as Booth, was largely ignored when it was released in 1977, but has since fueled speculation about the president's death and continues to spark controversy.
The second part, Capricorn One, 1978
In 1969, the United States sent Apollo 11 to the moon, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on another planet. In that brief moment, the world stopped spinning, and everyone looked at the stars and watched Armstrong come down the ladder and leave his footprints on the dust of a planet's moon.
In 1973, a man with no experience in space travel, aeronautical engineering, or anything else published himself, questioning for the first time the greatest achievements of humanity. In 1978, with the release of Capricorn One, the theory that the entire lunar landing process was a huge hoax began to catch on. The plot of that movie, ostensibly, was about a fake Mars space mission, but conspiracy theorists quickly noticed that Capricorn One bore an incredible resemblance to Apollo 11. The film explains how a well-motivated, well-funded space agency accomplished the scam.
In the film, at the beginning of the countdown, the confused astronauts are taken from the shuttle and secretly sent to an air base in the desert. Empty space shuttles were sent into space, press conferences left the public in the dark, and astronauts filmed fake footage of themselves landing on the Red Planet in space.
After the release of the film, starring Elliot Gould and Josh Brolin (Josh Brolin, played by OJ Simpson as an unlikely astronaut), the fake moon landing conspiracy received widespread attention, although in the film the scam was quickly debunked by NASA technicians and quickly exposed by the media.
The third "Xin Rena" (2005).
Whenever money or power is involved, conspiracy theories prevail. As a result, some industries are giants of conspiracy theories. Take oil, for example. There are few (few) films about amiable oil giants engaging in ethical business practices. But there are also many other types.
Directed and starring George Clooney, Cincinnam has been called a "geopolitical thriller." Of course, the film is based on the memoirs of a retired CIA agent who may or may not have exaggerated his narrative, knowing full well that the CIA would not confirm or deny it. The film examines the global reach of the oil industry.
For the sake of the authenticity of the story, the writers interviewed some of the major oil company executives, but used pseudonyms in the film, including not only those mentioned in the CIA memoirs, but also the name of the country in the play, Cinrina, which means "a bit like Syria, but not operational."
The film can be described as "ambitious". Filmed on 5 continents, the film has three intersecting story lines — several oil company executives, a CIA killer and a group of migrant oil workers, as well as bribery, corruption and murder over control of the oil fields.
The film was starred by dozens of Hollywood stars, and although many people found its plot a bit complicated, it was still popular overall, but Clooney won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film
The fourth Nixon, 1995
And his political rival John F. Kennedy. Like F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories. The number of conspiracy theories about Nixon seems to be small, in contrast to Nixon's own belief that many conspiracies were orchestrated against him.
After taking a closer look at the madness surrounding President Kennedy's death, Oliver Stone seemed inevitably turning his attention to Nixon.
Stone's film opens with a warning that the film is "an attempt to understand the truth ... Based on an incomplete history. "
The film begins with the intrusion of the Watergate Building, then documents his strange relationships with employees, his growing secrecy, and recordings of his compulsive conversations in the office and on the phone, which he indulges in, culminating in his downfall.
Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins, is portrayed as a talented but somewhat eccentric man, and his machinations to gain a high position, as well as his conviction that others are plotting against his ideas, slowly cause him to fall into hallucinations.
Critics have mixed reviews of Kennedy, while Nixon has been credited as a masterpiece and received four Oscar nominations, including Anthony Hopkins for Best Actor.
The fifth part of "China Syndrome", 1979
First of all, this movie has nothing to do with our country, "China Syndrome" on Wikipedia refers to "China Syndrome" which probably means that if an irredeemable core melting occurs in a nuclear power plant in the United States, the hot nuclear fuel melt will melt everything and penetrate the crust, mantle and center of the earth, directly to China, which is located "below" the United States on the earth.
"China Syndrome" was shot by director James Bridges. The film tells the story of a journalist who discovers repeated violations of safety procedures at a nuclear power plant that has just been melted down.
Although the story is entirely fictional, 12 days after the film's release, a nuclear disaster occurred on Three Mile Island. Not only that, but it was soon discovered that nuclear power plants had been violating their own safety procedures for months. The operator repeatedly manually overhauled the faulty cooling system, which would otherwise have been impossible.
The similarities between this film and "The Event" are chilling. The event undoubtedly contributed to the film's success, with both lead actors Jane Fonda and Jack Lemon nominated for the 1980 Oscars.
The Sixth Immortal Gardener, 2005
John Le Carré's most famous spy novel was The Constant Gardener, but when he finished writing The Constant Gardener, he turned his attention to the pharmaceutical industry, only to find that the conspiracies of these companies were as cruel as any secret service agency.
In 2001, the novel was adapted into a film starring Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes plays a British diplomat trying to solve the murder of his wife, who has been investigating a pharmaceutical company that tests TB drugs on poor African women.
Although the film does not mention a particular drug scandal, many drug trials have been conducted in Africa, particularly for diseases such as meningitis and HIV, which have obtained dubious consent. There are also allegations that more unethical drug trials have also been conducted in which subjects were infected with polio and HIV in order to test vaccines, although this has never been conclusively confirmed. The film is also similar to the plot of "Dark Waters," which highlights the two failures of an international chemical company that dumps dangerous chemicals at will, showing that the big companies are still polluting the environment at will, leaving customers and employees with impunity.
The Immortal Gardener did, though, win multiple awards, including the Oscars won by Rachel Weiss.
The seventh part of "The Inside Story" in 1999
Michael Mann's 1999 film The Inside Story tells the true story of an informant exposing the tobacco industry. Russell Crowe plays real-life whistleblower Jeffrey Wigan, while Al Pacino stars as the documentary producer who exposes the matter, despite confidentiality agreements that protect the company.
Wigan works as a chemical researcher at a tobacco company, studying the production of cigarettes with lower tobacco content. He claims that while reducing nicotine levels, the company is also adding other chemicals, such as ammonia, to increase the effects of nicotine, thereby making customers addicted to nicotine. As a result of the revelations, Wiegand was harassed by his employers and even received anonymous death threats.
Michael Mann's film was popular, receiving 7 Oscar nominations. These include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Russell Crowe) and Best Screenplay.
The eighth part of "The Big Short", 2015
It's not so much a conspiracy theory as a conspiracy, and the big short proves that banks, stockbrokers, and all-round treacherous people are making a fortune on subprime mortgages and bankrupting the entire world in the process.
A movie about a mortgage is often hard to sell, or even more ugly. Mortgages are not very interesting.
The Big Shorts succeed in explaining exactly how subprime mortgages work, why it inevitably collapses, and more importantly, how everyone in the banking world knows but is too busy putting their hands in the slot to take care of.
The film won multiple awards and received 5 Oscar nominations and 1 Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Ninth Manchurian Candidate, 1962
The Cold War of the 1950s created an atmosphere of extreme hostility and suspicion in international relations. Each country's secret agency is spying on their enemies and allies. John Frankenheimer's 1962 book The Manchurian Candidate summed up this climate of mutual distrust.
The film stars Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, who play soldiers captured in the Korean War, brainwashed through hypnosis. Meanwhile, Harvey returns to his dysfunctional, ambitious family, and Sinatra begins to have strange dreams.
Realizing that he had been implanted with the wrong memory, Sinatra feared that Harvey had been brainwashed into becoming an Assassin and manipulated into shooting a presidential candidate.
The film draws heavily on McCarthy's political persecution in the 1950s, the instability of the international situation, and distrust of secret-government-backed organizations that seem to be setting their own rules of engagement in defiance of the Geneva Conventions or any other convention.
The film even hints that notorious foreign governments could exert undue influence over the affairs of other countries by spreading disinformation.
The Tenth Assassination of Kennedy, 1991
About John F. Kennedy F. Kennedy's death is almost as much a movie as there are conspiracy theories about who killed him.
The best thing to date, though, is Oliver Stone's The Assassination of Kennedy.
Stone himself described his film as "anti-mythical," refuting the Warren Commission's myth about who killed the president. Stone's film shows that the assassination of Kennedy was far from being the sole sole task of a gunman, but was facilitated and encouraged by the CIA. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner, said there were 3 gunmen at the time and at least 6 shots were fired.
Although the public loves the film, critics do not rate it highly. Many reviews focused on conspiracy theories rather than the film's merits, and Stone himself was heavily criticized. An article in the Washington Post called him "a skilled, uneducated, conscienceless man."
Despite poor reviews, The Assassination of Kennedy was a huge success. Stone's film, however, doesn't solve the problem of who killed Kennedy, only adding another theory or counter-myth to this huge mystery.
If you think you're missing other great movies, let me know in the comments below!