In a survey of 2,000 British people to coincide with the DVD release of the film Mr Turner discovered that 28% didn’t know that JMW Turner was a painter. Other significant British people (along with the most notable film about them) who didn’t do well in the survey are:
Charles Darwin – 25% didn’t know that he was a key contributor to evolutionary theory and wrote On the Origins of Species
Creation (2009)
Sir Isaac Newton – 25% didn’t know that he discovered the existence of gravity.
Me & Isaac Newton (1999 documentary)
Sir Francis Drake 26% didn’t know about his part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada
Drake of England (1935)
Sir Alexander Fleming 29% that he discovered penicillin (15% thought he was the James Bond author [Ian Fleming]).
(not aware of any films about him)
Marie Stopes 33% didn’t know that she was a women’s rights campaigner and pioneer of birth control
(not aware of any films about her)
Oliver Cromwell 33% didn’t know who that he was a political leader and his part in the English Civil War.
Cromwell (1970)
Michael Faraday 35% didn’t know that he was a pioneer in the field of electricity
(not aware of any films about him)
William Wilberforce 40% didn’t know about his part in the abolition of slavery
Amazing Grace (2006)
William Tyndale 43% Didn’t know that he was the first man to translate the Bible into English and led the Protestant reformation (I had never heard of him either)
God’s Outlaw (1986)
Tim Berners-Lee Most surprisingly 44% didn’t know that he invented the World Wide Web.
(not aware of any films about him)
As Mr Turner finds its way to DVD then TV will more people be aware of Turner? If so, do these people need to have a film made about them, and those that already have a film, do they need a better one? For example, is Lord Mansfield better know now thanks the film Belle (2014)? Stephen Hawking is clearly well know now, but will the film The Theory of Everything (2014) help keep him in peoples concessions for longer? My knowledge of Alan Turing only comes from an interest in wartime code-breaker, I am sure many people knew less than that before seeing The Imitation Game (2014).
I am sure many people will think that it is a poor state of affairs that people history comes from motion pictures, however I have a different theory on the subject. Watching a film may encourage people to read the true story about the characters they have been watching for example Louis Zamperini from Unbroken (2014) or the aforementioned Alan Turing.
Fandango Groovers Movie Blog 
I LOVE this post. Thanks for the history lesson and yes, to your theory, historical fiction or biopics do a great service teaching about heroes from our past. Awesome job.
They can also fool people into believing everything they say!
There is a movie about Fleming (breaking the mould) but it’s more about Florey and Chain who helped develop Penicillin further. Great list though, very interesting.
No heard of either. Thanks.
Interesting post. I think the problem with a lot of these names is that there really isn’t much taught about them in schools. I certainly don’t remember learning about them (I mean, unless you take advanced classes, especially for painters), but films do start to raise awareness and teach us things we wouldn’t have already known, regardless of how important their contributions were. We do like in a time where almost everyone takes everything for granted, unfortunately.
Agreed, unless I learnt about something at school I tend to find thinks out from movies and books. If I am interested I will look them out to find out more.
Interesting. I know quite a few of them, the science ones, from school.
Like you, I think that movies are a way for people to get people aware and interested about history. Books and TV series could play the same role too!
I think the key is for people to know how to differentiate between fact and fiction. For me, I don’t believe everything about history that I see in a movie ‘coz I know that some creative liberty must have been taken. If I am interested in the characters and history after watching a movie, I’ll Google them.
Good point. Movies are a good way in, not a history lesson.