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Biopics are risky, and audiences have learned it’s usually best to take them with a grain of salt. There’s a great deal of incentive for filmmakers to exaggerate reality, fabricate details, and change events to better suit dramatic narrative for the purpose of cinematic entertainment. Frequently, that results in a “true story” being grounded in reality, but rendering the details that built those realities false.

Straight Outta Compton (2015) is director F. Gary Gray’s bio-drama about the rise and fall of hip hop group N.W.A., one of the earliest and most significant popularizers of the gangsta rap / West Coast hip hop music subgenres. Their controversial songs with angry, explicit lyrics were largely banned from American mainstream radio stations, and inspired generations of future hip hop artists. The film does not shy away from drawing correlations between the events that inspired these lyrics in 1988 and the racially-charged news of today; a comment in itself on the societal realities behind the groundbreaking group.

“Director F. Gary Gray treats “Straight Outta Compton” as an epic-sized take on approaching the American Dream from an askew angle that draws straight outta Compton and straight into capitalism.” - Odie Henderson, RogerEbert.com

So how accurate is the film? Overall, response has been quite positive toward the film’s portrayals of the key events in N.W.A.’s history. According to The Daily Beast, creative license allows the film to play fast and loose with the spirit of some of the situations it depicts. And though the film’s tone frequently romanticizes situations that were categorically not heartwarming, most of the major events in the film were events in reality. Having N.W.A. frontrunners Ice Cube and Dr. Dre involved with the production, as well as Eazy-E’s widow Tomica Woods Wright and other relevant entities, lends some credibility to the picture’s authenticity. And though MC Ren, one of the group’s less-famous members, took to Twitter to voice his displeasure about his character being left out of the film’s trailers and insignificantly represented in the film, he also vouched for its quality in later tweets.

“Ice Cube and Dr. Dre’s buddy F. Gary Gray directs the period biopic with an insider’s eye and a nose for emotional gut punches that key into why the story of five young men from South Central rapping about police brutality and hood unrest in 1988 still resonates today” - The Daily Beast

“There’s a scene in Straight Outta Compton when Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) kicks a girl out of a party after she causes some trouble. He shoves her out the door and dismisses her by saying “Bye Felicia!” It’s definitely a memorable scene that audiences will certainly laugh at, but at the same time, they’ll ask, did that really happen? Is it the real origin story of the popular catchphrase, “Bye Felicia”? Unfortunately, it’s totally fake — but on the bright side, it’s probably one of the few scenes used to enhance the N.W.A biopic for cinematic purposes. For those wondering how accurate Straight Outta Compton is, the happy answer is that despite injecting some “Hollywood flair” into the movie (which happens in nearly all biopics), the movie is a true-to-life portrayal of the trailblazing group that redefined the rap game” - Dino-Ray Ramos, Bustle

(The “Bye, Felicia” line in Straight Outta Compton is actually an homage to Ice Cube and F. Gary Gray’s 1995 stoner buddy comedy Friday.)

One important consistency across most reviews of the film is that even when it’s taking liberties with its storytelling, it doesn’t alter the virtue of the events.

F. Gary Gray told The Associated Press ““Obviously you can only do so much when you have two hours and 10 years and five guys in one movie, but I’m very happy with the accuracy, especially given that I got it from the members of N.W.A.””

As a friend of both Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, Gray was an excellent choice for the director’s chair. He understood the importance of sincerity in the film, and worked to tell the story with faithfulness. “When you’re doing a biopic, you want to stay as close to the truth as possible,” he told All Hip Hop. “Especially if the principal characters are still in the social consciousness. It’s really important to get it right.”

Early reviews of the film lamented the movie’s exclusion of some of the more deplorable behaviors of N.W.A.’s members, such as Dr. Dre’s 1991 attack of journalist Dee Barnes at a Hollywood nightclub. Gray acknowledges this, saying the movie is about N.W.A., and the rise and fall of them as a group - not the extraneous behaviors of its members. “It’s about the group, the rise of the group and the subsequent following of the group and you can make five N.W.A. movies with all the information that is out there.”

Casting was as important to the authenticity of the story as the story itself, and the film has been praised for its wonderful collection of actors that do justice to the people they portray. Gray has also been publicly adamant that O’Shea Jackson Jr., who plays his father Ice Cube in the film, wasn’t chosen simply because of genetics:

““He had to earn it,” says Gray. “I’m not going to put my career in the hands of a novice just for nepotism. These guys didn’t bring me on for that. They brought me on to serve the story and tell the history of N.W.A., and I’m here to make the hard choices. So, when Shea’s name came up at first, it was interesting but it was certainly a longshot. But he did the work, over two years, and I auditioned hundreds of people along the way.”

For those who have seen the film, there exists a number of side-by-side comparison charts pitting events from the film against events in real life, examining the accuracy of the film. A couple can be found at History Vs. Hollywood, and The Guardian, as well as a character comparison gallery at Time.

For example:

• Did N.W.A. really form after Eazy-E bailed Dr. Dre out of jail for punching a guy? No - he bailed him out for unpaid parking tickets.
• Did Ice Cube really smash Priority Records’ office with a bat? Yes - almost exactly as is depicted in the film.
• Was N.W.A really arrested after being told not to play “Fuck Tha Police” at a show? - Yes, but not quite the way it played out in the film. It was hours later, in their hotel.
• Did Eazy-E really make up with Dr. Dre and Ice Cube just before his death? Yes. They had even considered re-forming the group, but Eazy-E died a few weeks later.

See the pages above for more comparisons. They are great resources for juxtaposing scenes from the film against situations from life.