The 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most successful, critically acclaimed film adaptations of a beloved novel. It featured two Birminham natives as the children: Mary Badham as Scout and Phillip Alford as Jem. It also brought a Best Actor Oscar to Gregory Peck for his role as defense attorney Atticus Finch, who takes the highly unpopular stand of honestly defending a black man accused of raping a white woman in a small town in Alabama during the Great Depression.
Narrated by Truman Capote himself, this Emmy award-winning television version of Capote's "A Christmas Memory" is a faithful recreation of his famous short story (first published in Mademoiselle in 1956).
It appeared on ABC Stage 67 in December of 1966 and starred Geraldine Page as Sook and Donnie Melvin as Buddy. Adapted for television by Capote and Eleanor Perry. Directed by Frank Perry.
This 1991 adaptation of Birminham native Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe was a fairly popular and critical success. The story focuses on the intense relationship that develops between two women in Depression-era rural Alabama (Mary-Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson) as recounted by an old woman (Jessica Tandy) in a nursing home to an unhappy housewife (Kathy Bates). In both the present and past narratives, women bond through their united opposition to oblivious and/or abusive men.
Forrest Gump is a 1994 comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film garnered a total of thirteen Academy Award nominations, of which it won six, including Best Picture, Best Visual Effects, Best Director (Robert Zemeckis), and Best Actor (Tom Hanks). The film tells the story of a man and his epic journey through life meeting historical figures, influencing popular culture and experiencing first-hand historic events of the 20th century while being largely unaware of their significance, due to his borderline mental retardation. The film differs substantially from the book on which it is based.
Based on Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys, the 1999 film October Sky tells of young Homer's days in Coalwood, West Virginia where he and some of his high school friends caught rocket fever after hearing of Sputnik and the impending space race and decided to build their own rockets. In this clip, 'The rocket boys' test and launch various rockets as they try to perfect their design.
Crazy in Alabama is a 1999 film directed by Antonio Banderas, written by Mark Childress (based on his 1993 novel of the same name), and starring Melanie Griffith as an abused wife who heads to California to become a movie star while her nephew back in Alabama has to deal with a racially-motivated murder involving a corrupt sheriff. In 1965, Peter Joseph Bullis (also known as Peejoe) lives in a small town in Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He becomes involved with a group of black students protesting the town's racially segregated municipal swimming pool.
Big Fish is a 2003 American fantasy drama film based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace. The film was directed by Tim Burton and stars Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, and Marion Cotillard. Other roles are performed by Helena Bonham Carter, Matthew McGrory, and Danny DeVito among others. Finney plays Edward Bloom, a former traveling salesman from the Southern United States with a gift for storytelling, now confined to his deathbed. Bloom's estranged son, a journalist played by Crudup, attempts to mend their relationship as his dying father relates tall tales of his eventful life as a young adult during which scenes he is played by Ewan McGregor.