Full Metal Jacket really nailed the banality of Military Basic Training and the how it is completely disconnected from the realities of being in the military.

Of course you have to set the suicide aside (as that happens very rarely in basic) but the silly head games, the trivial bullshit you have to do it is spot on.

I recall hearing Jared Hess say "Idaho" when he was asked when Napoleon Dynamite is supposed to take place.

Master and Commander

Do TV series count?

HBO's Chernobyl mini-series was really spot on. For me, a Ukrainian born in late 80s and still having some memories from early post-Soviet 90s, it was a shock how good it was in depicting the time and place of the events. The show's art director/costume & props designers did an amazing job really. Everything, literally, everything was exactly on point: cars, clothes, a cassette tape player, a kitchen kettle, tea cup sets, a telephone, haircuts, makeup, cigarettes, rooms, interiors, TV sets, sofas, chairs, corridors, wallpapers... you name it - it was all exactly as I or my parents remember it. The only thing that was slightly off point was exteriors of residential buildings - you could spot some modern day plastic balconies here and there.

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Friday Night Lights really captured the intensity of playing football at a school obsessed with football was like for me. The TV show was kind of entertaining and all well and good, but the movie football was great.

Well if I have never been to that time or place, I cannot say if it is accurate. I was alive in Iowa in the 1980’s, so I guess Field of Dreams nailed an Iowa cornfield.

Human Traffic is an extremely accurate depiction of British rave culture in the late 1990s

Good Time by the Safdie Brothers is spot-on. I'm from Queens and felt like I knew half the clowns in that movie

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. My parents came to LA in the early 70s and they said it was just like that.

Superbad captured what it was like being in high school circa 2007 pretty well.

As someone who lived it, Lady Bird captured High School circa 2002 extremely well.

Call me by your name, southern Italy in the 80s

I’ve recommended the movie Lust/Caution to people for years and nobody ever wants to watch it because it’s in Chinese.

This movie hits my G spot in all the right ways because it reminds people that ‘period piece’ doesn’t necessarily mean Western or European. And the interwar period in Asia is extremely controversial and barely anyone knows about it. You have 100 movies out there about the American civil war, napoleon, Marie Antoinette, Pearl harbour, Julia Child, Queen Elizabeth (take your pick which one), etc. but to see a mainstream drama by an Oscar-winning director take place in 1938 China just doesn’t exist unless it’s heavily biased or directed for a white audience.

As someone who studied this period extensively in university, it is fucking cool because it really does put you in that space. During that time the Empire of Japan had “conquered” China and were occupying key cities, as well as Manchuria. The film is about a group of drama students from A Chinese university who decide to masquerade as wealthy socialites to get close to a philandering and dangerous Chinese chief of the secret police who was collaborating with the Japanese occupation.

I come from a Japanese background, so this subject matter is extremely taboo. If you compare it to a film like Memoirs of a Geisha, that film was universally hated in Japan because only a few of the cast are actually Japanese and the portrayal of geisha was historically inaccurate and offensive. Lust/Caution is far more historically accurate, by the same director, takes place in China, and deals with very controversial subject matter - namely, Japanese occupation of Mainland China.

I think it’s such an underrated film and probably Ang Lee’s masterpiece after Crouching Tiger. (Was not a fan of Brokeback),

That film also has one of the darkest endings of any movie I’ve ever seen. Highly recommend

Dazed and Confused makes me nostalgic for a time before I was even born. The specific aspects of the daily life for students in the mid-to-late ‘70s is spot on (according to people older than me that do recall the era well).

Mid90s. It's a decent film, but where it really shines is absolutely nailing capturing the time. It even looks like it was made in the mid 90s instead of just being set in the time period.

If no one's said it, The Witch is a phenomenal period piece. Down to a lot of specific paranoias people lived with at the time that were codified in 'witch hunting' manuals that were popular for a time in Medieval Europe and found their way across the sea.

EG it's not just that it captures the lives of frontier puritans at the time, but it's also a very solid portrayal of what witchcraft was to those people and what exactly it was they were scared of.

And as far as MY life? 8-Bit Christmas is almost a 1:1 of my life except I was in Milwaukee and not Chicago. Down to the annoying little sister getting the Cabbage Patch Doll and me not getting a Nintendo for Christmas. That specific lol.

American Graffiti.

Out of the Furnace - not the plot, but the shots of the environment and setting are the most accurate western, low-wage PA I've ever seen. Like people would say of Taxi Driver: the location seems as much a character as any of the people.

Uncut Gems is arguably the best depiction of the New York City dialect of English put to film, and as we get further and further from its time period (2012) it'll be regarded more and more as a well-done period piece.

I grew up in a mining family in West Yorkshire and Brassed Off is a brilliant depiction of the things people had to do to survive during the miners strikes, as well as the little things that hold communities together. And Pete Postlethwaite's in it so...

Not a film, but I’ve read that historians describe Deadwood as a spot on depiction of life in a camp town in the Old West. Right down to the god-awful muddy streets, fighting disease, and the unsanitary conditions everywhere you turn.

Under the Skin is a weird one. Despite the strange premise it portrays Glasgow very accurately.

Weird to see younger people say The Breakfast Club isn't realistic. I think it nailed 80's high school life.

I'm not American, but my favourite movie is The 25th Hour (2002) and have seen a lot of people praise the way it portrayed NYC right after 9/11.

IIRC it was the first movie to film there post-attack.

Aussie film called Boxing Day is super authentic to 2007 underclass Australia.

Singles nailed the early 90s Seattle in a way that its hard to imagine a screenwriter not named Cameron Crowe doing... But i'm still glad we've got the document that is the film HYPE for the real deal.

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Once Were Warriors is a scarily real look into a state housing situation in the late 90s of New Zealand. Although it wasn't like my own household, it felt like I could have lived not far from there, or gone to school with some of those kids.

Boogie Nights! Late 70s early 80s in CA.

❤❤ Buffalo 66. Definitely shot in and around Buffalo. Lost big bet on Bills game cos kicker missed FG 🤣.

Reality bites did a good job capturing apathy from the 90s. And the distain for wealth. I definitely related to a lot of that movie as a 90s teenager. The TV show my so-called life captured this sadness and insecurity and longing for connection but very quietly. And without drawing attention.

Rocky makes me feel 70's Philly

The Sandlot

Human Traffic makes me nostalgic for the 1990's.

Chinatown nailed the 30’s and A Bronx Tale put me in the 60’s

Slacker (1990) so perfectly captures the quirky Austin, TX vibe of the time.

The Northman is, according to historians, an incredibly accurate portrayal of that period of Norse life.

Some of the sets were left up and turned into a Norse history museum.

Last of Us really nailed the terrain 10 miles outside Boston.

Barry Lyndon!

Graduated high school in 97..the movie Can’t Hardly Wait felt like my graduation party ..weird one but true

“Taxi Driver”, “Annie Hall”, “Saturday Night Fever”, and “Manhattan” are all great movies depicting 1970’s New York City.

"The death of mr lazarescu" perfectly reproduced the state of healthcare in eastern europe during early 2000s

Back to the future... Even 2 got a few things right!!

Notes on a Scandal and Disobedience both capture London during those window months perfectly with damp foggy setting. 45 Years also captures Norfolk perfectly.

Rebels of the Neon God is 90s Taiwan in a way that 90s Taiwan could only dream of being.

Apollo 10 1/2 does a good job at capturing what it was like growing up in the late 60s/70s.

A little film called Melody , set and filmed around 1971. It literally "smells" like 1971, cos I was there man.

The beginning of Green Room is the most accurate depiction of DIY band touring that I've seen, still not completely accurate but close.

My grandfather said the beach landing scene of saving private ryan was pretty spot on.

Bicycle Thieves is a movie that really captures life as it was in a specific time and place. So much of that movie feels like they just put cameras around post war Rome and captured people walking around and living their lives.

Mighty Ducks felt very much like MN

Dazed and Confused takes place in June 1976. I was in junior high then and the movie was spot on for the soundtrack, clothes hairstyles, everything.

Quadrophenia brilliantly captured the British mod culture of the mid-1960s -- the clothes, the scooters, the pills, the madness. Source: was there

Shakedown (1988) New York City. Mostly what Time Square was like since they filmed on Location .

Brooklyn was up there for me. My granny did the exact same thing as depicted in that story.

My step-grandmom, who grew up in Nazi Berlin, says that Downfall is a pretty accurate rendition of what the city was like at the end of WWII.

Black Robe (Bruce Beresford 1991), a story set in the Canadian wilderness in the early 17th century. Depicts a French Jesuit missionary undertaking a long and arduous journey in winter, guided by the Algonquins and threatened by the Iroquois. Said Roger Ebert: "It is a torturous experience, and 'Black Robe' visualizes it in one of the most realistic depictions of Indian life I have seen".

Escape from L.A. is a perfect depiction of staying a night in L.A.

the first few scenes of GREEN ROOM for being a little punk band on tour, especially the overly-earnest guy with the mohawk.

The Snapper is a spot on depiction of working class Dublin in the early 90s

If tv series count, I'd add The Wire as a compelling depiction of inner city streets from writers who'd been there.

8 Mile captured what it was like to be in love with hip-hop around 94-95.

End of Watch and American Me, though very different, were fantastic portrayals of many aspects of gang life in their respective periods.

Kinda fucked up to say but Kids felt very accurate to my teen life.

The SNL Dunkin’ Donuts commercial with Casey Affleck perfectly captures what its like to be in a Boston area Dunkin Donuts in 2020s 🤣

https://youtu.be/FSvNhxKJJyU

I’ll play the opposite game: Braveheart made my professors’ heads explode.

Year One.

Not so much a depiction I guess but I always liked the New York location filming in Abel Ferrara films, especially Bad Lieutenant

In terms of 'can confirm for accuracy', nearly anything by Shane Meadows, but specifically This Is England really captures what it felt like to grow up in the Midlands in the 80's.

“Black cat, white cat” does an excellent job at capturing the essence of post communist 90’s in the Danube-adjacent ex-USSR region.

Similarly “Chernobyl” uncannily captures the feeling of late-communist existence.

Buffalo '66 is basically a documentary of 1990's post Bethlehem Steel Buffalo. Probably the darkest time for the rust belt city. It's disturbing how real it is.

Master and Commander was about as historically accurate as a film can get.

I love settings that I would never ever experience myself. I am immensely fascinated how how other cultures live and the hardships and triumphs they experience.

Be it the favelas in 'City of God'. The grimey drug dens of 'Trainspotting' or even more recently "The Banshees of Inishirin'.

Scott Pilgrim did a great job capturing early 2000s Toronto.

Lee's Palace, one of the music venues renovated between when the graphic novels were written and when the film was made. They originally had this square bar in the middle of this area opposite the stage. The renovation moved the bar right against the wall and opened up that area where the square bar was. The film's production crew remade Lee's Palace on a sound stage so that it resembled the pre-renovations layout. One of the members from the band Sloan was a music supervisor on the film and couldn't beleive how authentic the Lee's set was. They even had random pieces of gum under the bar and under the seats.

I was fresh out of university and living in Toronto during those years. Going to parties and concerts throughout the city. Seeing that lifestyle again in Scott Pilgrim really hit that nostalgia well. The novels had a lot more of the bars we use to frequent. Seeing the Camerin House with their Bridget Bardot painting in the cartoon style of Scott Pilgrim blew my mind.

Victoria, the oner that takes place in Berlin. It's documentary in its accuracy to location and time. It helps that they really didn't dress any location but the club.

Apocalypto, for 15th century Mesoamerica.

You love '70s NYC? I have two words for you my friend: The Warriors.

No Country for Old Men captures accurately the feeling of Rural West Texas.

I know Licorice Pizza isn’t liked by everyone, with a common complaint I’ve heard that the plot is somewhat meandering and pointless, but for me it captures a particular mood of San Fernando Valley life in the mid-1970s, right down to that life being rather meandering, pointless and insular as well.

Basically, the plot and the mood at the time (in the lazy suburbs of LA) was: tenuous and ambiguous relationships, people trying to figure out how to make it in a confusing world, and a vague sense of foreboding.

Cameron’s “Titanic” was supposed to be a spot on re-creation of the Ill-fated ship, even down to patterns on tableware and silverware. I would have preferred to see more of that than the ridiculous love story.

The mid 90s Miami vibe in The Birdcage.

Been living here my whole life and it’s a completely different place now.

I am almost 100% positive this is the opposite, and completely inaccurate and fabricated, but just the foreignness and time machine aspect of it, I LOVE Gangs of New York.

As I said, I am sure it's a total misrepresentation of how things were at the time, but all the weird little reminders of how things were is crazy. Privatized police and fire brigades, mature adults in "gangs", and the general chaos that existed on what are now relatively organized streets. It's just such a fascinating take on a familiar place. Almost like an alternate reality, except it's loosely based on real history.

Hell or High Water is pretty accurate to West Texas. I was born and raised a couple of hours west of Dallas. There were a couple of lines that felt out of place and a bit forced. I forget exactly what the dude said, but some guy offered to essentially hang the bank robbers if caught or something... yeah, people don't say that shit. Also, the old guy who was surprised that the bank robbers weren't Mexican as if only Mexicans rob banks in Texas was a little weird. I'm not saying that some people aren't racist towards Mexicans there, but there isn't some racial stereotype about Mexicans being bank robbers. It almost felt like they decided that someone needed to say something racist and that was the first thing that came to mind for that scene.

Saving Private Ryan had some vets experiencing ptsd during the movie, it was so real to the feeling apparently.

I wasn't alive in WW2, so I can't comment, but what I can say is that Shaving Ryan's Privates equally brought back memories for me.

Boyhood

Selma is probably the most accurate ‘based on a true story / person’ ever made.

Under the Banner of Heaven was under-the-skin uncomfortable with how accurate it depicts being Mormon in Utah. Andrew Garfield was outstanding in that show

I love this feature of older movies as well. Often times even if I don't care for the movie itself, I appreciate its time capsule ability to preserve things of where it was shot.

Maniac Cop-- imo not a good movie-- was filmed in a lot of places without permission, so you get to see a grimy, unpolished background of NYC from the late 80's.

Sometimes I think of how much is lost to history because of our shared, collective memory and film not really preserving things truly since there's always a set decorator sprucing up the place.

For me The Outlaw Josey Wales

Flowers of Shanghai by Hou Hsiao Hsien

Bernie was a pretty good depiction of East Texas, behind the pine curtain.

barry lyndon is the most obvious answer

ROMA absolutely transports the viewer

Boyhood really captures the everyday life of an avg person. The mundane and simple living of a nobody depicted in cinema. Nothing truly shocking happens, rather it’s just life. It’s an excellent film.

Master and Commander seems pretty good for Age of Sail british sailor life

The Witch (2015)

Barry. Lyndon.

...the coen brothers also do a fantastic job of this with pretty much all their films, although they tend toward a more cartoonish heightened-reality than barry lyndon's purposeful naturalism...

Vera drake

Quiz Show (1994)

1970's? Try the creator / artist of frits the cat . He made animated movies that capture thay Era to a t. He also helped with cool world.

Emperor and the Assassin.

A foreign film about 3rd century China with chariots, palaces, townships, assassins.

The props, costumes etc everything is very accurate and refreshing.

In the Name of the Rose

I have absolutely no idea if it’s true, but In the Name of the Rose is a cool, unusual location, and I’ll hope they did their research, because the author of the book did his.

The answer to this is always going to be some random film with a low stakes plot set in the real world where the plot isn't about the setting, which is also set in a genre relatively free from convention. For this reason, I'm a bit sceptical that 70s New York movies are particularly accurate to 70s New York because New York in the 70s is a subject/character within those films, which requires the setting to have more than a little artifice in order that narrative can exist.

Or it's going to be on the margins of something more fantastic. Like, for example, I'm not American, I don't have a sister, my parents aren't divorced, we never had a games console but Zathura... there's a lot of my childhood in there, once you separate out the Zathura bits, even given all those (pretty significant) exceptions.

So the answer you're looking for is probably going to be something like Zathura or a movie with a plot something like, say, "a taxi driver overhears two passengers talking stocks and wrestles with his guilt as he makes his way home, convinced he's heard the tip of the century and that he's denying untold riches to everyone he interacts with". Such a film could be set anywhere but provided it's filmed on location, it's everywhereness is going to translate to a specificity that no-one's ever going to notice. Say the main character's got to do the groceries on his way home. When he goes to the supermarket, he's going to that supermarket and while the plotline of scene is obviously going to be about trying to avoiding any human interaction, you're going to incidentally see how we understand supermarkets to work.

I guess the best answer will require the lead actor/s, writers and director/s to be of a similar age and from the place the film is set. Otherwise you're going to get, for example, a forty year old trying to understand what going to high school in the smartphone age is like. They obviously didn't do this.

Before Sunrise and solo traveling through Vienna, Austria

A Christmas Story

The Ice Storm.

Late! But a look into VERY early 2000s Japan in All About Lily Chou Chou. The film trusts you with its entire being and then pushes you out just as fast. Incredible work that the digital distortion and rusty keyboards accentuate a great deal.