Time’s top 10 biopics

The release of Sean Penn’s Milk — a chronicle of the life and times of gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk — got the folks at Time magazine thinking about some of cinema’s better efforts at portraying real people on the big screen.

It can be tricky business. Even if a director does his best to stay true to the source material, a certain amount of fictionalization is necessary to move the story along. How much is too much? that can be a fine line to walk.

Eventually, the editors came up with a list of 10. Here’s who made the cut:

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Patton (1970)

Raging Bull (1980)

The Elephant Man (1980)

Malcolm X (1992)

Ed Wood (1994)

Kundun (1997)

American Splendor (2003)

I’m Not There (2007)

To read all about these films, and to see a slideshow, visit Time.