Frost/Nixon is quickly rising to the short-list of 2008's best picture contenders. It has all the right ingredients: it's based on a famous play, stars heavy-hitting (but relatively unknown) actors and has a much-loved director (Ron Howard).

But the film, based on the play, based on David Frost's 1974 interview with a disgraced Richard Nixon, has some purists upset that the movie doesn't unfold exactly how the interviews did. There's also concern that – *gasp* – Howard and scriptwriter Peter Morgan may have deliberately excluded certain key-elements from the story to add to the dramatic tension!

This from the Huffington Post:

But it's because of the enormously historical importance of that period that the film raises serious questions of its legitimacy. The film's plot is a contrivance; its telling is so riddled with departures from what actually happened as to be fundamentally dishonest; and its climactic moment is purely and simply a lie. Literary license in the name of drama or entertainment is one thing; the issue comes down to what one is taking license with, and the degree of license being taken.

Shocking, HuffPo! (Kidding. Snark!) Are people going to keep doing this every time any film "based" on a historical event comes out? If so, movie criticism is destined to get even more awful than it already is. Get over it! Most movies based on actual events are riddled with inaccuracies and distorted for dramatic tension, people. That's why they're not called documentaries.

Here, our favorite historically inaccurate moments in film.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

All the Nazi stuff in the Indiana Jones trilogy was pretty much fabricated, except for the fact that they were all evil. To wit: the Nazis never found the Ark of the Covenant and had their faces melt off, nor did they find the Holy Grail. And, um, whatever happened in that second movie probably didn't occur in real life either. Our favorite blunder? Hitler spelling his own name wrong (Adolf instead of Adolph).

Gladiator

Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) was actually a pretty peaceful ruler, not a totally fey momma's boy the way Phoenix portrayed him. Also, Commodus didn't kill his dad. He was, however, a total alcoholic and probably in love with his sister. But come on, they were Romans!

2001: A Space Odyssey

When it premiered in 1968, Stanley Kubrick's trippy space baby had a ton of people buying tickets (while dropping acid) to hear Hal's soothing voice say, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." But now, 40 years later, the film has lost some of its fright factor. Almost eight years beyond 2001, and our space stations are nowhere near looking like minimalist mansions designed by M.C. Escher, and computers are still generations away from developing a taste for blood. This doesn't mean you won't have to one day kill a MacBook, it just means that you probably won't have to do it anytime soon. So screw A Space Odyssey.

Dick

Ah, Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst's only screen time together in history. But you would think those two blonds would have had more fun together. Dick found the two teens running around America in the 70s, befriending Richard Nixon and stumbling onto the Watergate scandal. Biggest uh-oh? A scene portraying Nixon ending the Vietnam War because he accidentally ate some pot brownies.

Titanic

Billy Zane was not on the Titanic. But the boat did sink, so director James Cameron got something right.