Three or four times a day, the little red bus departs from the corner of Elm and Houston Streets in Dallas, or, as it's better known, Dealey Plaza. The JFK Assassination Tour has no shortage of customers. Dealey Plaza is like Disneyland for conspiracy theorists and history buffs alike. Roswell, but real.

Across the street is the former Texas Book Depository, which houses the excellent Sixth Floor Museum, dedicated to the life and death of John Kennedy. From Elm Street, I can see the window from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed the 35th president of the United States on November 22, 1963 – 52 years ago today. Or not, depending on whether you accept the lone gunman theory.

The bus driver and guide is a genial and patriotic Texan, born and bred in Dallas. His father, a Dallas policeman, was assigned that day to the Trade Mart where the president was due to speak.

"It's always the 22nd of November in Dealey Plaza," says our guide, with resignation. He understands. It's not just tragedy tourism; we need to see for ourselves. We head off around the major sites – the boarding house where Oswald lived, the exact spot where he shot and killed officer J.D. Tippitt on East 10th Street, Oak Cliff, about 45 minutes after the assassination, and the Texas Theatre, where Oswald was arrested. The theatre, built in 1932 with Howard Hughes' money, still shows movies. It was shut down in 1989 and almost lost to developers, but saved by the efforts of historically aware benefactors.

On November 22, 1963 it was showing a double bill: a Korean war drama called War is Hell, narrated by Audie Murphy, and Cry of Battle, set in the Philippines in World War II. Oswald's big mistake was to walk in without buying a ticket – 95 cents that might have saved his life. The police took Oswald inside the theatre after a brief struggle. He tried to fire the gun he was carrying in his belt, according to the blow-by-blow account in Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F Kennedy, by Vincent Bugliosi.

Bugliosi's book was published in 2007 and became the basis for Parkland, one of the better movies about the assassination, released in Australia last year. The film doesn't concern itself with Oswald or the question of whether there was another shooter on the grassy knoll. It simply follows what happened at Parkland Hospital from just before the assassination, through the doctors' futile attempts to save Kennedy, and on to Oswald's pathetic funeral, a few days later.

Jacki Weaver gives another memorable performance as Oswald's mother, Marguerite. If the real woman was like this harridan, Oswald's actions become a little easier to understand.

Parkland has two major sub-plots: the story of the film shot by Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti), which established much of the evidence for the Warren Commission, and the actions of Dallas FBI agent James Hosty, played by Ron Livingston. Hosty was monitoring Oswald before the shooting. He questioned Oswald's Russian wife, Marina. Oswald then wrote Hosty an angry, unsigned letter two weeks before the assassination. Hosty burned the letter after November 22, on orders from his boss. Nor did he disclose its contents to the Warren Commission. The letter is important because it suggests a motive, in Oswald's grudge against the FBI.

Parkland was written and directed by Peter Landesman, an American writer and journalist. Tom Hanks was one of the producers. It was Landesman's debut film and it tanked, taking just $1.4 million on a $US10 million ($14 million) budget. The reviews were mixed but it's a better film than those figures suggest. It is more historically accurate than any other film about JFK's death – assuming you believe the lone gunman theory.

Landesman avoids the conspiracy theories that fed into Oliver Stone's fascinating but flawed JFK, from 1991.  The films are polar opposites. One is largely factual; the other largely speculative. Stone set out to prove a personal point – that the killing of JFK facilitated the escalation of the Vietnam War, in which Stone took part. He was willing to fictionalise events and characters to support his thesis. Both the gay prostitute, played by Kevin Bacon, and General X, the military officer in Washington, played by Donald Sutherland, are composites. Joe Pesci's confession as David Ferrie never happened. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) spent years trying to prove his theory of a Kennedy conspiracy. Stone invented the scenes he needed to fill gaps in the record, and was pilloried for those inventions. Quite rightly.

Stone is a gifted story-teller, passionate about American history, but his fabrications just aided his enemies. And yet, the film asks difficult and pertinent questions about the assassination. It's far from worthless as history, as long as you do your own research afterwards.

Kennedy lived and died through the camera. He was one of the first to understand the power of television. He was one of the first to die on camera. Oswald followed a few days later, murdered on live TV by Jack Ruby. When I visited Dallas recently, a new television series based on Stephen King's book 11.22.63 was in production. It's about a man who travels through time to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. Like the man said, it's always the 22nd of November in Dealey Plaza.

Twitter: @ptbyrnes