Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)

Based On the Life of: Charlie Wilson

Starring: Tom Hanks

Movie Budget: $75 million  

Star Salary: $25 million

Charlie Wilson’s War stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, as well as the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. This classic what-could-go-wrong story features Hanks as U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson, who seeks out Joanne Herring (Roberts) to help him boost funding for Afghanistan militants in their war against the Soviet Union in the eighties.

Wilson, Herring, and Gust Avrakotos, a CIA agent played by Hoffman, are successful in their funding of the Afghanistan militants—who were referred to as “freedom fighters” or “Mujahideen.” For a little foreshadowing, America would later come to know them by a different name: the Taliban.