20 essential movies set in the American South

Based on the Tennessee Williams play of the same name, Elia Kazan's 1951 film "A Streetcar Named Desire" is both a juicy drama and a look back at 1950s New Orleans, when the "Desire" streetcar ran through the city's iconic French Quarter. 

Starring Gregory Peck as moral lawyer Atticus Finch, Robert Mulligan's 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" is still one of the most iconic films in all of cinema. Set in the fictional Maycomb, Alabama, the film's iconic courthouse scenes were filmed in Monroeville, Lee's hometown and inspiration for Maycomb. 

Both the 1969 original and 2010 Coen Brothers remake of "True Grit" are worthy films. Centering around the story of an Arkansas woman who seeks out U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn to find her father's killer, the earlier film version is a classic John Wayne western and both are two of the most iconic films of the genre. 

Even though it was made with a very low budget and a cast full of unknowns, this 1974 slasher about a chainsaw-obsessed murderer in Texas remains among the most iconic horror films. 

Starring Sally Field in the titular role, this 1979 film is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton, a North Carolina cotton mill worker and labor organizer who successfully helped unionize a textile plant in the early 1970s. 

Involving a plot to transport cases of illicit beer between Georgia and Texas, this 1977 film stars Burt Reynolds as the inimitable Smokey, whose job it is to distract the police away from the beer haul with his reckless driving in a black Pontiac Trans-Am. 

There are few Southern love stories more iconic than Bud & Sissy's in 1980's "Urban Cowboy." Centered around legendary honky-tonk Gilley's in Pasadena, Texas, the film starring John Travolta and Debra Winger helped introduce a whole new audience to country music. 

This 1983 film, based on the S.E. Hinton novel of the same name, is a teen classic. Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, and Patrick Swayze star as "Greasers," or poor kids living on the wrong side of the tracks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as they face off with the "Socs," a.k.a. the "rich kids." 

Based on Alice Walker's seminal novel of the same name, this 1985 adaptation of "The Color Purple" was directed by Stephen Spielberg. Tackling the challenges faced by Black women living in the rural South in the early 1900s, the film deftly covers heavy themes, ranging from domestic abuse to racist violence. 

Dolly Parton, Julia Roberts, and Sally Field star in this star-studded 1989 film, an adaptation of Robert Harling's play of the same name. Often hilarious and occasionally devastating, the film follows a group of strong, sassy women in Louisiana as they navigate marital woes, love, and loss. 

Based on the Fannie Flagg novel, "Fried Green Tomatoes" is a tale of friendship, love, and of course, getting revenge on your abusive husband. Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, and Cicely Tyson star in this 1991 classic, which was filmed in Juliette, Georgia. 

Greenbow, Alabama is just the beginning for Forrest Gump, the character created by author Winston Groom and brought to life on the screen by Tom Hanks in this Oscar-winning 1994 classic. As it follows Forrest from Greenbow to Vietnam and beyond, this Robert Zemeckis film truly runs the emotional gamut. 

Set against the sparse, sweeping background of West Texas, Joel and Ethan Coen's interpretation of Cormac McCarthy's acclaimed novel "No Country For Old Men" was a hit with both critics and audiences upon its release in 2007. 

This quintessential southern film, starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable as the iconic Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, is based on the Margaret Mitchell novel of the same name. Released in 1939, this Civil War-era story took home 10 trophies at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture. 

This 2014 film about the struggle for civil rights, centered around the marches led by activists Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and Hosea Williams between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, earned director Ava DuVernay an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. 

This oddball retelling of Homer's Odyssey, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, begins with a prison escape in rural Mississippi in the 1930s. George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson star as a trio of convicts looking to make a fresh start and encounter a whole lot of bizarre characters on their journey. 

Tom Hanks and the late MIchael Clarke Duncan star in Frank Darabont's 1999 adaptation of Stephen King's novel "The Green Mile," set on the death row of a Louisiana prison in the 1930s. 

Inspired by the real-life killings of three civil rights activists in Mississippi in 1964, "Mississippi Burning" earned positive reviews from critics upon its release, though some criticized some of its fictionalized elements. 

Regularly described as one of the best films of the 1970s, this coming-of-age story based on Larry McMurtry's novel is set in Anarene, a Texas ghost town in the county where McMurtry is from. 

Both the 1949 original and the 2006 remake of "All The King's Men" are worthy watches. The main character, Willie Stark, is loosely inspired by 1930s Louisiana governor Huey "The Kingfish" Long, known for his flamboyant corruption.