Whether American Renegades is based on a true story has come into question from viewers streaming the military film on Netflix.
Renegades, also known as American Renegades, follows a team of Navy SEALs who, while on a covert mission in Bosnia, discover a cache of Nazi gold hidden in a submerged town and attempt an unauthorized retrieval.
The film, which starred Sullivan Stapleton, J.K. Simmons, and Charlie Bewley, struggled at the box office in 2017 but found a second life when it recently began streaming on Netflix.
Is American Renegades a True Story?
The short answer is no, American Renegades isn't based on real-life people, but that doesn't mean it's entirely fictional.
American Renegades sparked speculation about its historical accuracy, mainly due to its use of World War II-era footage (both authentic and artificially created) to enhance realism.
While the film does not appear to be directly based on a true story, its premise ties into a long-standing legend about the Nazis allegedly hiding caches of gold. In the film, the supposed treasure is submerged in a Serbian lake, but in real-life lore, one of the most famous rumored locations is Austria's Lake Toplitz.
Over the years, this isolated Alpine lake has been at the center of various expeditions seeking lost Nazi gold, yet no confirmed treasure has ever been found.
The legend of Nazi gold fueled conspiracy theories and treasure hunts for decades. During World War II, the Nazis looted valuables from their victims, with some wealth believed to have been hidden rather than spent on the war effort.
For more stories related to World War II, learn about The Six Triple Eight cast, who play members of the first and only Women's Army Corps unit of color.
In 1959, divers recovered £700 million in counterfeit British banknotes from Lake Toplitz, part of Operation Bernhard, a Nazi scheme to undermine the U.K. economy.
However, no proof of hidden gold surfaced, and multiple expeditions ended in failure or tragedy, as several divers died in the treacherous waters.
Whether any real treasure remains buried beneath the lake's log-strewn depths remains a mystery, fueling historical fascination and the cinematic storytelling in Renegades and others.
An award-winning Netflix series, Baby Reindeer, was also put under the microscope of whether its plot was based on real-life events.
American Renegades is streaming on Netflix.
