You’ll watch Michael Keaton’s portrayal of Ray Kroc transforming McDonald’s and assume Hollywood invented half the details—but his ruthlessness is historically accurate. Kroc actually did manipulate his franchise partners, particularly the original McDonald brothers, to gain control of their empire in the 1950s. The film captures his relentless ambition so intensely that it feels dramatized, yet the real story involved even more calculated business betrayal than the movie shows.