Movies: Based on memoir or autobiography

Middle-aged Gerald Kingsland advertises in a London paper for a female companion to spend a year with him on a desert island. The young Lucy Irving takes a chance on contacting him and after a couple of meetings they decide to go ahead. Once on the i...

Former Marine Louanne Johnson lands a gig teaching in a pilot program for bright but underachieving teens at a notorious inner-city high school. After having a terrible first day, she decides she must throw decorum to the wind. When Johnson returns t...

Athlete Diana Nyad sets out at 60 to achieve a nearly impossible lifelong dream: to swim from Cuba to Florida across more than 100 miles of open ocean....

Fresh out of rehab, Rona returns to the Orkney Islands—a place both wild and beautiful, right off the Scottish coast. Now 29 and after more than a decade of living life on the edge in London, where she both found and lost love, Rona attempts to come ...

Daigo, a cellist, is laid off from his orchestra and moves with his wife back to his small hometown where the living is cheaper. Thinking he’s applying for a job at a travel agency he finds he’s being interviewed for work with departures of a more pe...

An urgent phone call pulls a Yale Law student back to his Ohio hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history and his own future....

The true story of teen surfer Bethany Hamilton, who lost her arm in a shark attack and courageously overcame all odds to become a champion again, through her sheer determination and unwavering faith....

The amazing true story of Billy Moore, an English boxer incarcerated in Thailand’s most notorious prison. Thrown into a world of drugs and violence, he finds his best chance to escape is to fight his way out in prison Muay Thai tournaments....

The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence....

Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, is outed to his parents at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith....

A woman with a tragic past decides to start her new life by hiking for one thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail....

Tells the life story of Danish author Karen Blixen, who at the beginning of the 20th century moved to Africa to build a new life for herself. The film is based on her 1937 autobiographical novel....

A young boy and his family set off on a sailing trip of a lifetime until a violent storm erupts, sweeping Michael and his dog overboard. After washing up on a remote island, terrified, they struggle to survive and adjust to life alone, One day, Micha...

This engaging series of childhood recollections tells of an unconventional school in Tokyo during World War II that combined learning with fun, freedom, and love. The school had old railroad cars for classrooms and was run by an extraordinary man – i...

The true, harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends, is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam....

In a small Vietnamese village torn apart by war, a young woman faces unimaginable horrors before deciding to escape to the city. There, she encounters a compassionate Marine who offers her hope and a chance at a new life, igniting the possibility of ...

Based on the autobiographical novel, the tempestuous 6-year relationship between Liberace and his (much younger) lover, Scott Thorson, is recounted....

A young girl is raised in a dysfunctional family constantly on the run from the FBI. Living in poverty, she comes of age guided by her drunkard, ingenious father who distracts her with magical stories to keep her mind off the family's dire state, and...

Rachel is a food writer at a New York magazine who meets Washington columnist Mark at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reservations about marriage. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel thinks they are living happily...

A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth....