50 Iconic Movies Set In Every State
From Alabama to Wyoming and everything in between.
Forrest visited a wide variety of locations during his travels (especially when he ran back and forth across the country multiple times), but he always returned to his hometown of Greenbow, Alabama.
The premise of this movie is crazy — Sandra Bullock forces Ryan Reynolds to marry her so she doesn't get deported to Canada — but as rom-coms go, it's a gem. Unfortunately for Alaska residents hoping to see their home state on screen, the movie was actually shot in Massachusetts instead of Sitka, Ryan's character's hometown.
While Thelma & Louise is a road trip movie set across multiple states, the film's most indelible image — spoiler alert for a movie that's more than 25 years old — is the girls rocketing over a cliff at the Grand Canyon.
The movie that made a Billy Bob Thornton a star (he won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for Best Actor).
The movie that (wrongfully) taught us everywhere in L.A. takes 20 minutes.
Never accept an invitation to stay at the Overlook Hotel.
Set in the fictional Connecticut town of Stoneybrook, The Baby-Sitters Club is the definition of squad goals for young women of a certain age. I've always wanted to be a Dawn but I know deep down I'm a Mallory.
Don't forget to celebrate Rex Manning Day every April 8.
Set in Miami, Moonlight tells the story of a young man named Chiron, played by three different actors as the character ages. The movie's only flaw — and it's a minor one — is that Best Supporting Actor winner Mahershala Ali isn't in more of it.
Based on the novel by Alice Walker, The Color Purple is great for a lot of reasons, but mostly because of its extremely stacked cast — Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Laurence Fishburne all star.
Not to be confused with the direct-to-video Blue Crush 2, which despite what you might think is not a sequel to Blue Crush.
This is by no means a great movie, but Jane Fonda and Lindsay Lohan starring together makes it at least a little bit iconic (and I refused to put Napoleon Dynamite).
Illinois has served as the setting for its fair share of iconic teen movies — Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, etc. — so it's hard to choose just one, but since Mean Girls, set in Evanston, has its own holiday and Broadway musical, it wins this round.
One of those movies your dad is always trying to get you to watch, Rudy tells the true story of a guy who desperately wants to play football at Notre Dame. You will cry. Just let it happen.
This movie, set in the town of Endora, Iowa, garnered Leonardo DiCaprio his first Oscar nomination (for Best Supporting Actor).
Oz is a fictional place, of course, but the movies starts in Kansas and ends there too (and if you believe that the rest of it only happened in Dorothy's dreams, then Oz is technically Kansas too).
Only the beginning of this movie takes place in Kentucky — in Butcher Holler, to be precise — but Sissy Spacek's performance as Loretta Lynn is so iconic that I'll let it slide. (The alternative is what, Elizabethtown?)
Girls Trip is one of the newest movies in this slideshow, but if you've seen it, then you likely know it deserves a place on the list, not least because Tiffany Haddish is an absolute genius in it. No real-life girls trip could ever live up to the one in this film, but that's probably a good thing.
Many of Stephen King's books are set in Maine, but few are as scary as the tale of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and even fewer of the film adaptations are as well made as the 2017 edition of It. Bill Skarsg?rd's Pennywise will be haunting dreams for a long time to come.
Runaway Bride isn't quite as good as Julia Roberts and Richard Gere's other collaboration, Pretty Woman, but the competition for California was stiff. Unfortunately, Hale isn't a real town in Maryland, but parts of the movie were shot there — the real town of Berlin stood in for Hale.
Way better than The Departed.
Set and shot in Detroit, It Follows is one of those rare horror movies that scares you pants-less without sacrificing any of the things that make non-horror movies good. You'll be looking over your shoulder for weeks.
Shoutout to the entire generation of women confused by what their bodies felt when they looked at Gordon Bombay.
Fast forward through all the parts with Emma Stone and bask in the glory of Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer acting everybody else into oblivion. Octavia Spencer won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; Viola Davis was nominated for Best Actress but was robbed by Meryl Streep.
If you find yourself saying, "Uh, I've never heard of Mad Money," it's because this is a criminally underrated film that, yes, has a 12 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But who cares when it stars Diane Keaton, Katie Holmes, and Queen Latifah (!) as women who decide to rob the Federal Reserve Bank (!) of Kansas City, Missouri? No one. No one cares.
Based on short stories by Maile Meloy, Certain Women explores the lives of various women in Montana as their paths intersect in unexpected ways.
Sorry, Legally Blonde fans, but Tracy Flick could kick Elle Woods's ass any day of the week.
Though you might first think of the aliens blowing up the White House when you think of Independence Day, remember that a large portion of this movie is set in Nevada, the home of Area 51. Independence Day did nothing to quell rumors about what the government is hiding at the real-life Area 51, but it did a lot to help Will Smith become one of the richest men in Hollywood.
Even if your therapist is Richard Dreyfuss, you really should not follow him to his vacation home.
The first (and also) best of several collaborations between Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, set in the wild world of New Jersey's wedding-industrial complex.
Sometimes you just want to sing and play basketball.
Fun fact: Barack and Michelle Obama's first date was a screening of Do the Right Thing.
A lot of Nicholas Sparks movies are set in North Carolina, but as far as I know this is the only one that involves — spoiler alert — a straight-up ghost. It also features Josh Duhamel in DILF mode, and as I have stated many times before, "Josh Duhamel in DILF mode" is my sexuality.
Pickings are slim when it comes to North Dakota movies, OK? Fargo, despite being called Fargo, mostly happens in Minnesota, and that's pretty much it except for that documentary Jesus Camp. So North Dakota gets Leprechaun. If it's good enough for Jennifer Aniston...
It's probably for the best that they don't make teen movies this dark anymore, but Heathers is still a masterpiece of the form. Lick it up, baby. Lick. It. Up.
We got cows! R.I.P., Bill Paxton.
Based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir of the same name, Wild tells the story of a woman who decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail after the death of her mother sends her into a deep depression.
She's a welder by day and a dancer by night, and she lives in Pittsburgh. What else do you need to know?
Don't dabble.
As is the case with several other movies on this list, Magic Mike XXL is a road trip movie, but its most pivotal scene takes place in South Carolina, where the guys have driven for a stripper convention. Excuse me, male entertainer convention.
A gritty, sweeping epic in which you can see Leonardo DiCaprio really earn his Oscar.
Robert Altman's classic send-up of the country music business wasn't well received in Nashville when it premiered, but that's only because it was so spot-on — no one ever gets mad unless the satire is hitting too close to home.
Jennifer Lopez stars as Tejano pop star Serena Quintanilla, who was murdered in 1995 by Yolanda Saldívar.
Also known as The Movie Where James Franco Cuts Off His Own Arm.
An all-time holiday classic.
Based on true events, instant classic Hidden Figures tells the story of women who worked as "computers" (extremely high-functioning human calculators) at NASA before machines took over. It's heart-warming, hilarious, and so inspiring that you'll want to stand up and cheer mid-movie.
Though it's based on Shakespeare's Italy-set play The Taming of the Shrew, the Padua of 10 Things is Padua High, located in Washington state (and filmed at real Tacoma school Stadium High). Go with it so Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger can enjoy their romantic paddleboat date in the Puget Sound.
In one of his earliest roles, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Homer Hickam, the real-life West Virginian whose childhood talent for building rockets led to a career at NASA.
Love or hate this movie, you can't deny that casting Alanis Morissette as God was truly an inspired choice.
Based on a short story by Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain tells the heartbreaking tale of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, set against the gorgeous backdrop of Wyoming.
50 Iconic Movies Set In Every State
From Alabama to Wyoming and everything in between.
From Alabama to Wyoming and everything in between.
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