The words, "Based on a True Story" shouldn't mean anything to the frequent moviegoer. The whole truth isn't something the fits nicely into the typical Hollywood screenplay.

Last year's Best Picture winner, "Argo," is the epitome of classic Hollywood tinkering. Sure, the CIA used a fake movie production to smuggle diplomats of out Iran, but all those tense, dramatic roadblocks at the airport never happened. The real escape, while certainly risky, was uneventful.

Does knowledge of the real events ruin the experience of seeing the movie? In the case of "Argo," the added thrills make for a better movie. That can often be the case with these "true story" movies, because, frankly, real life is rarely as eventful as the average Hollywood thriller.

At least not when adhering to the basic mechanics of good storytelling.

How much a movie fibs the facts is less important than how well those fibs serve the film's overall story arc. With something like "The Blind Side," the truth is being pigeonholed into an overly familiar, "inspirational" family movie. It has fundamental storytelling problems that have little to do with the movie's historical accuracy (no knocks on Sandy Bullock, though).

For a director like Paul Greengrass, the facts are secondary to the visceral feeling of reality. His "United 93" takes many liberties in how the passengers of the doomed 9/11 flight responded to hijackers, but there is never a moment on the plane that doesn't seem authentic. His claustrophobic camerawork and driving music, combined with naturalistic performances from unknown actors, creates a reality that feels accurate.

It certainly helped to hire the real life air traffic controllers and military personnel to recreate some of the exact dialogue that transpired on the ground.

Contrast that approach to "World Trade Center," an equally sincere effort about a true 9/11 story that never really shakes its Hollywood gloss. The changes it makes with history are too apparent in a film that is trying for larger, unattainable themes.

It probably didn't help that Nicolas Cage and a distracting mustache anchored the movie.

Greengrass' knack for creating "movie realism" is on full display again in "Captain Phillips," a film about the real life hijacking of an American container ship by Somali pirates. And this time, Greengrass manages to successfully integrate movie star Tom Hanks into his hyper-movie realism.

It's a thrilling movie, buoyed (boat pun intended) by the best Hanks performance in years. And, if you are to believe several crew members of the actual hijacked boat, it's a movie that idealizes and exaggerates the accomplishments of its central protagonist.

Here's the thing: I don't care if the real Captain Phillips was a reckless jerk, or if Ben Affleck inserts Batman into the climax of "Argo." If the storytelling works, and I'm captivated by how a movie builds momentum from scene to scene, then I don't care how many facts get lost in translation.

Sometimes there is added fun in completely throwing out the basis of truth. A straightforward adaptation of "The Orchid Thief" would have been a complete bore; I much prefer the multiple Nicolas Cage craziness that is "Adaptation."

And who really believes game show host Chuck Barris was an assassin for the CIA? His unauthorized biography and subsequent film "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is much better than the real backstage nonsense at "The Gong Show."

Most history is dictated by point-of-view. An autobiography of, say, Nicolas Cage is likely to be a whole lot different than the biography written by an outside researcher. A movie "based on a true story" is history told from a Hollywood storytelling point-of-view. If that means more gunfights and inspirational personal growth, so be it.

Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.