Aside from being based on a bestselling nonfiction book, "The Best of Enemies" also drew from a documentary about Atwater and Ellis titled "An Unlikely Friendship." According to History vs Hollywood, much of the 2019 film accurately portrays the true story of Atwater and Ellis. Ellis did own and operate a gas station, Atwater did spin councilmen around in their chairs at city council meetings, and both were initially hesitant about integrating their local schools. Some of the more dramatic elements in "The Best of Enemies" also appear to be based on real events, like Atwater wanting to stab Ellis with a knife and Ellis ripping up his KKK member card in public, much to the dismay of his supporters.
The director of "The Best of Enemies," Robin Bissell, told The Hollywood Reporter how he wanted to focus on the true events: "It's not lost on me that I three-dimensionalized a member of the Klan," he explained. "But I did that because that's what Ann Atwater did. It wasn't her business to have to change this guy, but she suddenly saw him as a person — not a good person, but a human — and he started seeing her that way. She saw a little crack in there, and said, 'I can get in there.' And he wasn't just a guy, he was the leader of the Klan. He had hundreds of men who would follow him to the ends of the earth. So if she could change him, she knew it would have some kind of trickle-down effect. And it did."
Though "The Best of Enemies" managed to stick to the facts, for the most part, some critics thought it focused on the wrong parts of the story.
