25 of the most random, odd and unexpected biopics ever made

Francis Ford Coppola directing a biopic starring Jeff Bridges. With that combination, why is the movie largely forgotten? Well, do you know who the Tucker in question is? Do you have a guess? Bridges plays Preston Tucker, an innovator in the automobile industry. While in the 1940s the Tucker 48 was possibly well-known, that was decades ago, even in 1988. He did square off with some bigger automakers, which is part of why he is notable, but an esoteric automobile executive is not your typical biopic fodder.

It’s the oddness of the story that inspired “The Informant!” that probably got Steven Soderbergh interested. Mark Whitacre, played by Matt Damon, in the movie, was a whistleblower. Did he blow up Big Tobacco? Or the Nixon White House? No, Whitacre exposed price fixing in the sales of lysine, an additive used in animal feed. That may be dry, but the movie is quite good, a mix of the absurd and the matter of fact. It does help give “The Informant!” more oomph that Whitacre has bipolar disorder and so his actions were not always sensible.

It’s weird, branded biopics like “Flamin’ Hot” that led to Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tarts movie. Hey, at least that movie was intentionally silly (if not terribly funny). “Flamin’ Hot,” directed by Eva Longoria of all people, is the story of Richard Montanez. He claims to have invented the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto. Really, that’s it. Also, “claim” is the accurate word, as there is much skepticism about the veracity of that assertion by Montanez.

What if a lady invented a mop? David O. Russell was on a heater, as “The Fighter” had won multiple Oscars, and “Silver Linings Playbook” got Jennifer Lawrence an Oscar as well. Even “American Hustle,” though not an Oscar winner, saw four different actors get Oscar nominations. That paved the way for Russell and Lawrence to reunite for Joy.” Lawrence played Joy Mangano, who invented the Miracle Mop. It’s the kind of movie you get to make when a movie star agrees to play the lead role.

Remember the BlackBerry? If you are old enough, it may ring a bell. “BlackBerry” is basically “The Social Network,” but for an obsolete line of cell phones. It focuses on the men who created the BlackBerry and built the company. As unexpected as it might be for guys you have never heard of, aside from maybe Jim Balsillie if you’re an NHL fan of a certain age, to get a biopic, the general consensus was that this movie was quite good.

Some people from television getting biopics makes all the sense in the world. Even people like Andy Kaufman, who was a sitcom star, and Edward R. Murrow, who was a longtime news anchor. Chuck Barris, was just the guy who created “The Dating Game,” and also the host of “The Gong Show.” However, this is not why Barris got a biopic. He claimed during his life that, while he was working in television, was also an assassin for the CIA. Yes, really. This is a good movie, by the way. Sam Rockwell is great as Barris.

Apparently all you have to do to get a biopic is to make a movie that is perhaps the worst of all-time. “The Room” became a cult classic, and the eccentric Tommy Wiseau himself a cult figure. Although, the point-of-view character of “The Disaster Artist,” which chronicles the making of “The Room,” is not Wiseau. It’s actor Greg Sestero (oh hi Mark) who serves in that role. That makes sense, as “The Disaster Artist” is based on his memoir of the same name.

“Ed Wood” is, counterintuitively, a very good movie about maybe the worst filmmaker in history. Johnny Depp stars as Wood, though it’s Martin Landau, playing Bela Lugosi, who won an Oscar for the movie. Tim Burton probably viewed this as one of his “outsider” movies, but the biopic nature of the film kept the director grounded, probably to his benefit. Then again, “Big Eyes” is another biopic from Burton, and that one is maybe too straightforward.

How many radio personalities could they make a biopic about that wouldn’t be wholly esoteric? Howard Stern? Maybe Wolfman Jack? Do people still remember Alan Freed? Unless you are from the D.C. area, there is a good chance you’ve never heard of Petey Greene. Even if you are from the D.C. area, Greene died in 1984, so a lot of the movie audience in 2007 would have missed his entire run. Well, “Talk to Me” only made $4.7 million at the box office. Greene didn’t prove a draw, nor did Don Cheadle, who played him.

No, this movie has no relation to the Goo Goo Dolls song of the same name. It’s a melodramatic biopic about novelist Iris Murdoch that stars Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, and Kate Winslet. Yes, it’s about as stuffy as British Oscar bait gets, but it also worked. Dench and Winslet got Oscar nominations, and Broadbent actually won for Best Supporting Actor.

There’s no doubt Dalton Trumbo was a key Hollywood figure. In addition to being a talented screenwriter, he fought against the government Community witch hunt and was summarily blacklisted. On the other hand, this is a biopic about a screenwriter. What most people took from it, those who saw it at least, was that Trumbo wrote a lot in the bathtub.

“Charlie Wilson’s War” is a very good movie, and it comes with a lot of cache. It was Mike Nichols’ last movie, it was written by Aaron Sorkin, and it stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and a stellar Philip Seymour Hoffman. That being said, it’s also the only reason we’ve ever heard of Charlie Wilson, a Texas congressman in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.

Harvey Pekar isn’t just a comic book writer. He’s an obscure comic book writer, a cult favorite at best. This isn’t like making a movie about Stan Lee, or even Steve Ditko. “American Splendor” is fully a work for Pekar’s cult following, which includes David Letterman, who had the ornery writer on his old show fairly often back in the day.

Andrew Johnson is one of the worst U.S. Presidents. He was an old school “Southern Democrat” chosen to be Abraham Lincoln’s second Vice President to try to get Lincoln sufficient support for re-election. After Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson set about swiftly undoing much of what Lincoln had done, appeasing former Confederates every step of the way. This led to his impeachment. All that begat “Tennessee Johnson” a biopic of the former President that indicates…he got a raw deal? That impeaching him was unfair? Yeah, hasn’t aged well.

The description of “odd” is accurate for “Lisztomania” in multiple ways. First, it’s about 19th-century composer Franz Liszt, popular in his time, but not one of the top five composers people think of these days. Second, the movie is insane. It’s a bizarre Ken Russell acid trip of a movie, which was his whole vibe. For comparison’s sake, the same year “Tommy,” the Who rock opera, came out, and it was also directed by Russell.

Oh, just your run-of-the-mill biopic about a mathematician. After all, what is more compelling on screen than math? Now, John Nash’s life story also offers up issues with mental health and bouts of paranoia, but even so, Nash was a truly obscure figure before “A Beautiful Mind.” Frankly, he’s still a fairly obscure name. That’s even with the fact that Ron Howard’s adequate directing and Russell Crowe’s peak stardom led to “A Beautiful Mind” winning Best Picture.

Sports movies are commonplace. Stories about underdog teams make up a hefty portion of those movies. A movie about the Oakland Athletics overcoming financial straits to find success on the field is not in and of itself an odd choice. However, “Moneyball” is focused not on the players, but on Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Athletics. The film was a big hit, though you can credit that to America’s love of underdog sports movies and the fact Brad Pitt played Beane.

“October Sky” is essentially “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” but instead of a famous singer, it’s about a…future NASA engineer? You had to be there. Homer Hickam grew up in rural West Virginia the son of a coal miner and, inspired by Sputnik, took up rocketry. Eventually, it would lead to his job at NASA. Hickam wrote a memoir, “Rocket Boys,” that became a surprising “New York Times” best seller. This, in turn, led to that book being adapted into “October Sky.” The movie is pretty good, bolstered by a wise choice of casting a young Jake Gyllenhaal as Hickam.

Speaking of best sellers becoming movies, “The Blind Side,” like “Moneyball,” was based on a Michael Lewis book. This one proved thornier, though. Ostensibly, it’s a biopic about Michael Oher, who would have a middling career as an NFL offensive lineman. However, the movie is also focused on the Tuohys, a well-off white couple who took Oher in and, um, taught him about life and stuff maybe? It’s a facile movie, but it did win Sandra Bullock an Oscar, which kept her from winning a deserving Oscar for “Gravity.”

Maybe a biopic about Patch Adams makes more sense than a biopic about most doctors would. He didn’t do anything remarkable, but he did have a schtick. Adams was also a clown, so the saccharine biopic focused on a “laughter is the best medicine” thing, which Adams himself did not really appreciate. He did get the chance to be played by Robin Williams in a movie, though.

“Air” is a movie about Nike signing Michael Jordan to a shoe deal, but it is crucially not a Michael Jordan movie. It’s part of the conceit of the movie that Jordan is basically not a character. “Air” isn’t even a movie about Nike founder Phil Knight, though Ben Affleck plays him in this movie that he also directed. No, the main character in this movie is Sonny Vaccaro, a name only a certain sort of basketball diehard knows. It’s a movie about a marketing guy, a basketball scout, and that is certainly an interesting take on this story.

The only paleontologist from film we ever think of is Alan Grant from “Jurassic Park.” He’s, you know, fictional. In terms of geologists, we think of…um…nobody. “Ammonite” is a movie about a British paleontologist and a British geologist in the 1840s. Given that it stars Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, one assumes that there was hope this would be an Oscar play. It was not. We haven’t even said who Winslet or Ronan play, and if we don’t, there is a 99.9 percent chance you have no idea who this movie is about. Too bad!

(Okay their names are Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison)

We are talking about the 1973 original, because in the remake starring Dwayne Johnson, he’s a fictional character. That’s for the best, because Buford Pusser was not the best guy. He was a pro wrestler turned Tennessee lawman who saw himself as the law. Driven almost fanatically, ethics be damned, Pusser’s life story inspired one of the many “white guy with a gun getting revenge on the world” movies of the 1970s.

Another Robin Williams role, while “Good Morning, Vietnam” is about as fun as a movie about Vietnam can be, it’s also solely the reason why anybody has heard of Adrian Cronauer. He was a radio DJ in Saigon during the war for the Armed Forces Radio Service. It’s a role right up Williams’ alley, and he won a Golden Globe for the movie and got an Oscar nomination.

It’s odd that Michael Larson had a biopic made about him, but his story is also so odd that making a movie about it feels worthwhile. He’s the man who broke a game show. Marginally employed (he was driving an ice cream truck at the time he rose to infamy), Larson loved a get-rich-quick scheme. He also was not without intelligence, and he realized that the “random” pattern of lights on the “Press Your Luck” board wasn’t random at all. Larson memorized the pattern, got on the show, he made a record-breaking $110,237 in 1984 dollars. The producers of the show, naturally, assumed he was cheating, and chaos ensued. It now stands as one of the most memorable episodes in game show history, right up there with that one “Newlywed Game” episode you’re thinking of.