When it comes to movies that embody the unique culture, history, and spirit of the American South, certain films stand out from the rest. From sweeping historical epics to quirky comedies to gritty dramas, the best Southern movies transport you right into the heart of Dixie. They capture the distinctive landscapes, accents, attitudes, and way of life that make the South such a compelling and complex region.
So pour yourself a tall glass of sweet tea, sit a spell, and join me as I count down the 20 best Southern movies of all time. These are the essential films that get the South right – the good, the bad, and everything in between. By the end of this list, you’ll be saying “y’all” and craving fried green tomatoes, I guarantee it.
20. Steel Magnolias (1989)
This heartwarming drama follows a group of Louisiana women through love, loss, and friendship. With a cast including Sally Field, Dolly Parton, and Julia Roberts, the film balances humor and tragedy as expertly as Truvy styles hair in her beauty parlor. Steel Magnolias shows the unbreakable bonds between Southern women.
19. Deliverance (1972)
A harrowing thriller about a group of Atlanta businessmen on a North Georgia canoe trip that goes horribly wrong, Deliverance explores the primal savagery lurking beneath the surface of civilization. With unforgettable villains and a sense of creeping dread, it presents a dark vision of the rural South. Squeal like a pig, indeed.
18. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
Clint Eastwood directs this moody adaptation of John Berendt’s bestselling book. Kevin Spacey stars as an urbane antiques dealer in Savannah who gets caught up in a murder trial that exposes the eccentric personalities and Gothic atmosphere of the city. A lush travelogue with a dash of Southern gothic.
17. Sling Blade (1996)
Billy Bob Thornton writes, directs, and stars in this haunting drama about a mentally disabled man released from an asylum into small town Arkansas. Thornton’s understated performance conveys both childlike innocence and chilling menace. Sling Blade is a startling portrait of a marginalized character, steeped in details of the rural South.
16. The Color Purple (1985)
Steven Spielberg adapted Alice Walker’s novel into this wrenching yet ultimately triumphant story of a young black woman’s struggles in early 20th century Georgia. Whoopi Goldberg is powerful in her film debut as Celie, who endures abuse, oppression and separation from her sister before finding her voice. The film captures both the injustice and resilience of the African-American experience in the South.
15. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
This Best Picture winner follows the 25-year friendship between an elderly white Southern matron (Jessica Tandy) and her black chauffeur (Morgan Freeman) in mid-century Atlanta. While its politics may seem outdated now, the film still impresses with its acting and its sensitive depiction of two characters navigating social change in the South.
14. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Southern playwright Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize winner came to the screen with a scorching cast – Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, and Burl Ives. The drama sizzles in the Mississippi Delta heat as a wealthy plantation family grapples with death, desire, and the suffocating “mendacity” of polite society. Practically dripping with Southern Gothic atmosphere.
13. Cold Mountain (2003)
This Civil War epic stars Jude Law as a Confederate deserter trying to make his way home to Nicole Kidman’s character in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Renee Zellweger won an Oscar as a tough young drifter who helps Kidman survive the war’s deprivations. With its stark, lovely cinematography, Cold Mountain brings a forgotten corner of the South to vivid life.
12. The Green Mile (1999)
Although set in a Louisiana prison, this mystical drama is really an examination of Southern racism and morality. Tom Hanks is the head guard on Death Row, whose life is changed by a gentle giant of an inmate with supernatural powers, played memorably by Michael Clarke Duncan. The Green Mile is a poignant, thought-provoking film with a tinge of Southern religiosity.
11. Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
This magical realist indie is set in a dirt-poor Louisiana bayou community called the Bathtub. Six-year-old Hushpuppy navigates rising floodwaters, a missing mother, and a dying father while learning the skills to survive. With its child’s-eye view and vivid sense of place, Beasts captures the wild beauty and precarity of life on the margins of the South.
10. No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Coen Brothers’ neo-Western crime thriller is a mesmerizing journey through the desolate West Texas desert. When a hunter stumbles on a drug deal gone bad, he’s pursued by an unstoppable assassin with a strange moral code. No Country paints a bleak, violent portrait of the New West, haunted by the vanishing frontier.
9. The Help (2011)
This adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s bestseller looks at race and class in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi through the eyes of black maids and the young white woman who wants to tell their stories. Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer give layered performances as women asserting their dignity within an oppressive system. The Help shines a light on the complicated intimacies between black and white women in the segregated South.
8. Selma (2014)
Ava DuVernay’s powerful drama chronicles the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King Jr. British actor David Oyelowo disappears into the role of King, showing his doubts and flaws as well as his soaring oratory. Selma viscerally depicts the brutality of Southern racism and the bravery of civil rights foot soldiers, making history feel urgent and alive.
7. Mud (2012)
Two Arkansas boys help a fugitive (Matthew McConaughey) hiding on an island in the Mississippi River in Jeff Nichols’ coming-of-age drama. With its Mark Twain-esque childhood adventures and McConaughey’s soulful performance as a haunted romantic, Mud evokes the South as a place of faded innocence and dangerous secrets waiting to be uncovered.
6. Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
Based on Fannie Flagg’s novel, this heartwarming film tells the story of an Alabama cafe in the 1920s and the friendship between its owners, spirited Idgie and gentle Ruth. In a parallel storyline, a dissatisfied housewife in the 1980s learns life lessons from the tale of the now-elderly Idgie. Fried Green Tomatoes weaves together female friendship, Southern storytelling, and the healing power of good food.
5. Forrest Gump (1994)
Tom Hanks won an Oscar as the sweet, simple Forrest, whose life journey takes him through defining moments of late 20th century American history. Although it ranges far beyond the South, the film is rooted in Forrest’s Alabama upbringing and his undying love for his childhood friend Jenny. Forrest Gump has a fablelike, tall-tale quality, but at heart it’s a tribute to the enduring values of the rural South.
4. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Coen Brothers put a Southern spin on Homer’s Odyssey in this rollicking comedy about three escaped convicts on a strange journey through 1930s Mississippi. George Clooney is the fast-talking leader of the chain gang, whose quest for hidden treasure gets sidetracked by Bible salesmen, sirens, and a blues musician who may have sold his soul to the devil. With its sepia-tinted cinematography and roots music soundtrack, O Brother immerses you in a South that’s part fact, part myth, and all entertainment.
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Harper Lee’s beloved novel became an instant classic film with Gregory Peck’s career-defining performance as noble lawyer Atticus Finch. Set in Depression-era Alabama, the story follows young Scout Finch as she learns hard truths about racism and injustice when her father defends a black man falsely accused of rape. To Kill a Mockingbird is a poignant, powerful portrait of the South’s loss of innocence as seen through a child’s eyes.
2. Gone with the Wind (1939)
The sweeping Civil War epic to end all epics, Gone with the Wind remains a cinematic monument 80 years later. Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara is an iconic heroine, a spoiled Southern belle turned tenacious survivor, while Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler is the dashing blockade runner who pursues her. With its romantic score, gorgeous Technicolor cinematography, and meticulous historical detail, Gone with the Wind conjures up a South that probably never was, but will live forever in the popular imagination.
1. The Godfather (1972) & The Godfather Part II (1974)
What’s that you say? The Godfather isn’t a Southern movie? Well, I respectfully disagree. Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia masterpieces are usually associated with New York and Sicily, but a key section is set in Nevada, and the Corleone family saga has undeniable parallels with a Southern Gothic family drama. There’s the crumbling patriarch played by Marlon Brando, the rivalrous brothers (Al Pacino and James Caan), the crusading outsider (Robert Duvall) – it’s like a Faulkner novel with tommy guns. And in Part II, we get actual scenes set in the South, as the early life of Vito Corleone plays out against the backdrop of 1910s New Orleans and its Sicilian immigrant community. The Godfather movies may not be traditional Southern films, but they incorporate Southern Gothic themes and imagery into their operatic tale of an American family. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough to earn them the top spot on this list.
So there you have it, folks – the 20 best Southern movies ever made. From the bayous of Louisiana to the mountains of Virginia, from the antebellum era to the New South, these films capture what makes Dixie so complex, captivating, and unforgettable. Whether you’re a lifelong Southerner or just a curious Yankee, these movies will give you a front porch seat to the highs and lows of Southern life and culture. So grab some popcorn, put your feet up, and enjoy the show. And if you ever find yourself lost in Yoknapatawpha County or Maycomb, Alabama, just remember – it’s a Southern thing. Y’all wouldn’t understand.
