10 Movies That Get Elite Jobs Right, According to Experts

From soldiers and spies to bodyguards and bankers, film fans have long been enthralled by jobs that involve special skills and the ability to keep a cool head when the stakes are high. However, Hollywood portrayals of these professions tend to be over-the-top, which can warp fans’ perceptions of them. But once in a while, a film really gets things right. Here are ten that portray elite professions accurately, according to experts who did them in real life.

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10 Warfare (2025)

Many D-Day veterans have confirmed the accuracy of Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene, with some claiming that the only missing detail from that day is the smell. Films about recent wars seem to have been less strict about realism, but the 2025 flick Warfare has changed that. The movie was co-directed by Alex Garland and ex-Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, who set out to recreate a real event from the Iraq War as accurately as possible.

The film follows a Navy SEAL team who get into trouble in an al-Qaeda-controlled area. It plays out in almost real time, with no added soundtrack or translation of the SEALs’ military jargon. Even the tactics they use are true to life, according to Aaron Mackenzie, one of the film’s stars and a former member of the UK’s Royal Marines. He shared that the cast took part in drills to get things right, just like real soldiers.^[1]

9Margin Call (2011)

Jobs on Wall Street are also prone to being sensationalized, albeit in a different way than those of soldiers. It is hard to sell Wall Street’s professionals as heroes, so Hollywood tends to focus on their worst traits. But one movie that does not do this is 2011’s Margin Call. Despite being released just a few years after the global financial crisis, it portrays the fictional employees and executives of a Wall Street brokerage in a grounded and humanizing light.

Stefan Nilsson, a former hedge-fund executive and investment banker, wrote in a review that the characters reminded him of real people he had met in his career. He also said he recognized a lot of the behavior seen in the film. The movie’s realism results in part from the background of its director, JC Chandor, who is the son of a stockbroker. The all-star cast also went to the real Wall Street to meet actual bankers before filming.^[2]

8 Spy Game (2001)

It is a well-known fact that the James Bond films do not accurately represent what a spy does, but can any movie truly show what goes on in such a secretive profession? According to Naveed Jamali, a former double agent in the FBI, the answer is yes. The movie that he claims hits the nail on the head is Spy Game, which stars Robert Redford and Brad Pitt as a CIA case officer and operative.

Jamali praised the movie for its realistic portrayal of how spies are recruited and for countering the myth that they must be serial liars. Mark Davidson, a former senior intelligence officer at the CIA, has also cited the movie as a great piece of spy cinema. He claims that it has some of the best tradecraft scenes of any film and shows many of the important soft skills that spies need.^[3]

7 Gravity (2013)

The 2013 film Gravity stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts in peril after their space station is struck by debris. Following its release, people naturally wanted to know how much of what is shown in the film could happen in real life, and former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman answered. When it comes to the laws of physics, he says, it falls well short of the truth. But it gets a remarkable amount right about being an astronaut.

Reisman says that the film’s spacewalk scene is the best of any sci-fi film, and that it does a good job of capturing the visuals of space and the way that astronauts move in a vacuum. He also praised the film for its attention to detail, pointing out how Sandra Bullock turns the right valves to stop the flow of oxygen to the Soyuz and presses the right buttons at other points in the movie.^[4]

6 Sully (2016)

They may not leave the atmosphere, but pilots still hold a good amount of prestige in modern society. However, the procedures they follow to safely fly thousands of people all over the world every day do not make for interesting viewing. That is why films that feature planes tend to skip over things like safety checks and focus instead on aerial acrobatics. But the true story behind the movie Sully is exciting enough that there is no need to sensationalize.

The movie tells the true story of US Airways Flight 1549, with Tom Hanks playing Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the heroic pilot who ditched the plane in New York’s Hudson River after a bird strike. Veteran airline pilot Les Abend said that the movie accurately depicts the checklist completion procedure and the kind of banter that pilots have with each other. He also praised the realistic reactions of the pilots in the film to the emergency.^[5]

5 Close (2019)

2019’s Close is a gritty thriller that follows a female bodyguard, Sam, as she shields a young heiress from harm. While the film has explosive, action-packed scenes, it earned a solid 8/10 rating for realism from close-protection veteran Kenneth Bombace, CEO of a firm that protects the rich and famous all around the world. According to him, a scene which shows Sam looking up her new client’s social media reflects the research real bodyguards would do.

Another realistic scene shows Sam watching over her client from a bar, drink in hand. This type of covert protection is common in settings like bars and restaurants, where it would be awkward to stand around looking like a security agent. But it is no surprise that the movie depicts the reality of the profession well. Sam is based on real-life bodyguard Jacquie Davis, who was present during filming to help give the film an authentic edge.^[6]

4 Blackhat (2015)

Hackers surely have some special skills, and what their role lacks in prestige, it makes up for in mystique. They are also misrepresented in most movies, as real hacking would be incredibly boring to watch. However, director Michael Mann was brave enough to keep the hacking scenes in his 2015 film Blackhat close to reality. This may have played a part in the film’s mixed critical reception, but reports say it was widely praised by hackers and cybersecurity experts.

The movie features the kinds of attacks that really keep experts up at night, and although the story is pure fiction, aspects of it are based on the real Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran in 2010. What happens on the hackers’ screens resembles real life, too. There are no Matrix-style digits rushing down Chris Hemsworth’s screen as he hacks, only lines of white code on a black background. The actor even took lessons to help make the scenes more realistic.^[7]

3 Only the Brave (2017)

The name “Granite Mountain Hotshots” might sound like it has been made up for cinema, but it is actually one of the many details that 2017’s Only the Brave gets right. The film tells the heroic true story of the elite fire crew’s battle to stop a destructive wildfire. The story is slightly dramatized, but the firefighting tactics, toll on the Hotshots’ families, and even the pranks are spot-on, according to deputy fire staff officer Terri Brown.

Brown, who fights fires in the Umpqua National Forest, claimed that the film is about 98% accurate. It even gets the small things right, like the crew boss packing the correct Incident Response Pocket Guide to take with him. The way the Hotshots use controlled burnouts to try and tackle the fire head-on is also a tactic her team employs. However, she had never seen trees explode after falling from a ledge like in the movie.^[8]

2 Das Boot (1981)

The realism of Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 film Das Boot has not just been attested to by a few experts speaking to journalists. It was actually the consensus pick among U.S. Navy personnel with real-life submarine experience when the U.S. Naval Institute asked them to choose the most realistic submarine film ever made. One standout feature of the film is the setting, with sailors saying that it nails how cramped and claustrophobic life is on board.

Another feature of the film they praised was the balance of intense moments of danger and tedious stretches where the crew have little to do except for their usual routines. Some of the sailors also said that the movie depicted the crew’s duties and the operation of the boat well. Despite the movie focusing on a German crew fighting the Allies in World War II, many real sailors said they could relate to the characters.^[9]

1 The Negotiator (1998)

As a New York Times reviewer pointed out upon the film’s release in 1998, The Negotiator really should have been “Negotiators.” It stars Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey as two top hostage negotiators who find themselves in a standoff when the former is forced to take hostages of his own. It is loosely based on a real event, and although it changes details of the story, it keeps the negotiation process grounded in reality.

This has been confirmed by Frank A. Bolz Jr., who helped found the New York Police Department’s hostage-negotiation team. At least, he went as far as to say that the movie did a better job than most at depicting his profession.^[10]

fact checked by
Darci Heikkinen